The Elderfield Family

The Elderfield family that appears on this site dates back over 380 years and includes ten generations. Most of the members lived in Berkshire and Oxfordshire and the early generations appear to have been wealth Yeoman Farmers in East Garston, Berkshire.

Current Research

There are two mysteries surround the Elderfieds at the moment. The first concerns the wills of William Elderfield (1671-1747) and his wife Mary (b.1667). The second concerns the identity of the earliest ancestor discovered to date, Richard (or possibly William) Elderfield (b.1640) and whether or not the family tree can be linked to Henry Elderfiled (1540-1560).

Elderfield Family

Photograph Gallery

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View a collection of photographs of members of the Elderfield family. There is even a sketch of one family member.

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Distribution of Families in 1891

Elderfield appears to be an habitational name deriving, through dialect, from Eldersfield, a village in Worcestershire. Listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as “Eldresfelle”, the place name derives from the Old English for “ellern”, an elder tree, and “feld”, meaning open country or plain. However, by 1891 not a single Elderfield family was living in Worcestershire, as illustrated by the map below.

The Elderfield families registered in the census of 1891 lived in, or around, the Thames Valley area of England. This distribution map of the 1891 census shows a high number of families in Hampshire, Buckinghamshire and London, with the remaining families spread across Middlesex, Berkshire, Surrey and Oxfordshire, and more liberally in Somerset, Wiltshire and Kent. There were no Elderfield families in Wales, Scotland or the remaining counties of England.

The early descendents of Richard Elderfield, the earliest know ancestor, were born and lived in East Garston, west Berkshire. It would appear that it was Henry Elderfield (1798-1842) who moved north east to Goring in Oxfordshire. His son, James (1825-1907), moved to Middlesex as a gardener, where some of his descendents were born before moving back to Oxfordshire.

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Acknowledgements

With thanks to Robin and Ann Clanfield for sharing their knowledge and photos of the Elderfield family.