Kettlewell is a name of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin and comes from the family once having lived in the town of Kettlewell in the North Yorkshire. Kettlewell is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree. Habitation names form the other broad category of surnames that were derived from place-names. They were derived from pre-existing names for towns, villages, parishes, or farmsteads. Other local names are derived from the names of houses, manors, estates, regions, and entire counties.
The surname Kettlewell was first found in Yorkshire, at Kettlewell, a village in Upper Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, which dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086 where it was listed as Cheteleuuelle [1] and literally meant "spring or stream in a deep valley," having derived from the Old English words "cete" + "wella." [2] In 1686, Kettlewell and the neighbouring village Starbotton were almost destroyed in a flood.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Kettlewell research. Another 147 words (10 lines of text) covering the years 1086, 1379, 1397, 1399, 1583, 1653 and 1695 are included under the topic Early Kettlewell History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Kettlewell family name include Kettlewell, Kettlwell, Ketlewell, Kettelwell, Ketelwell, Ketelwelle, Ketelwel and many more.
More information is included under the topic Early Kettlewell Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, Canada, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Kettlewell surname or a spelling variation of the name include:
Some of the first settlers of this family name were: