Comlay Records from the Census - 1881, 1901 | February 2003 |
Details
on this page are taken from the following sources
The UK Public Records 1901 Census site http://www.census.pro.gov.uk/ and the online 1881 / 1851 Census database at http://www.censusuk.co.uk |
Comlay
- 1901
The 1901 census shows a total of 16 Comlays in the United Kingdom, all of them located within the city of Portsmouth. If your surname is Comlay, then the chances are that you are descended from one of these households and related to us. It seems likely that the previous generation either deliberately or inadvertently changed the spelling of the family name from Comley, a more common name across the UK at this time. (More on this to follow) The Comlays in 1901 are listed below, divided between four Portsmouth households. 36 Railway View Civil
Parish - Portsmouth
(n.b. The Havant Comlays are descended from Arthur Thomas Comlay) 1 Northbrook Street Civil
Parish - Portsmouth
59 Stamford Street (Which seems to have been a Tavern) Civil
Parish - Portsmouth
41 Shakespear Road Civil
Parish - Portsmouth
Comlay - 1881 Twenty years earlier, in 1881, there were just 5 recorded Comlays in the entire UK Census, a single family living at 7 Havant Road, Portsea, Hampshire, as recorded below. Intriguingly, none of these tally with the families present in Portsmouth in 1901. While there were only 5 Comlays in the UK in 1881, there were several hundred Comleys, and a few Comlys. However, initial attempts to cross reference the 1901 Comlay families with the 1881 Comley families have so far proved impossible. So,
the earliest documented Comlay family looks like this:
Comlay / Comley
/ Comely / Comly
Exploring
the digitised records for the UK, shows just two Comlay records - two children
born in the village of Cliffe Pypard (aka Clyffe Pypard or White Cleeve)
in Wiltshire.
Neither child appears on the later 1881 and 1901 census, however a detailed search of the records available online shows a significant number of Comleys in Wiltshire. More remarkably, there are 110 registrations of birth for Comley in the Parish of Cliffe Pypard alone, starting with Anne Comley in 1778 (Daughter of William & Elizebeth) and finishing in 1874 with the birth of Charles (Son of Thomas and Fanny). By the 1901 census, the name seems to have died out in the village.
The
village of Clyffe Pypard
More Comleys on the OS map of Havant - 1853, above - 2000, below |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Contains data from UK 1881 & 1901 National Census Records © UK Public Records Office, Vital Records © 1998, 2001 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Maps © 1853, 2000 by Ordnance Survey <back> |