Demography of the Blunderfield Surname

It is likely that the family were originally Norse settlers or Vikings, as they occupied land west of the Seine, now known as Normandy (the land of the Norsemen). In the 11th century, soon after the invasion, Richard de Blunvill, from the settlement of Blonville, some 3 km inland from the Normandy coast,  took up substantial landholdings in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. 

In the series of maps below, I have attempted, by plotting the number of births in each 25 year period, to show how the population of Blundefields has changed over the 400 years from 1600.  Before 1600, almost all of the records that I have are from Norfolk and centred around the manor of Newton Flotman. Stepping through the sequence of maps, it is interesting to see how in Norfolk, the home of the Blunderfield name for over eight centuries, the births reach a peak in the period 1850 to 1874 but then begin a steady decline - there have only been 7 Blunderfield births registered there in the last 60 years. The county of Essex now has the greatest number of Blunderfields in the UK, most of whom are descended from Francis James Blunderfield (B0310) who moved there and married in 1929.

One of the first to leave Norfolk was Benjamin Blunderfield (B0715), who moved to London around 1810 and started the branch of the family which rose to it's peak in Kent some 80 years later. However, the latter half of the 19th century shows the biggest movements - beginning with William B Blunderfield (B0567) who emigrated to the USA around 1850; three of Henry Page Blunderfield's sons - Frederick Charles (B0469), George Edgar (B0426) and Percy Page (B0432) - emigrated to Canada around 1890; and Benjamin Charles Blunderfield (B0520) emigrated to Australia in 1885. The absence of these six males from the male 'breeding stock' in Norfolk must have contributed significantly to the decline of the name in Norfolk. The good news is that they founded strong branches of the family in America, Australia and particularly Canada.

The maps were produced using data that I have in my records. For the UK it should be complete between 1837 and 2006, and fairly comprehensive prior to that, although I'm sure there will be some that I haven't yet found. The data for the USA, Canada and Australia becomes increasingly inaccurate in the latter half of the 20th century as disclosure rules and on-line sources for these countries are more restrictive.

Click here to position the map for optimum viewing.

Click anywhere on the map to advance the period by 25 years.

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