Surname Distribution
Even as late as the 1881 census, which was taken on 3rd April 1881, the Kingshott family remained fairly close to their roots. The principal concentration was in West Sussex, with expansion into nearby counties, as well as specific, individual family group migrations to London and Buckinghamshire. This supports the evidence recorded in the parish registers.
The distribution in 1881 is shown on this map.
This demonstrates that the surname is specific to that locality and the fact that it has not expanded greatly into the surrounding area would suggest that the name is quite young, at least in terms of population dynamics.
If we look at a similar map for the surname Kinshott, a local variation on the name, most common in Hampshire, this shows a preponderance for that name in that location, again agreeing with what is found in the Parish Registers.
Once again, there is a marked lack of movement in people having the Kinshott surname and it is remarkably contiguous with the Kingshott variation. This all indicates that the family are very young, in genealogical terms, and that they are local to eastern Hampshire and western Sussex. This agrees entirely with my research, but does not answer the question as to why they suddenly seemed to appear in the village of Fernhurst.
By the time of the 1881 census, of course, Kingshotts' had already established themselves in Australia, Canada and the United States with one or two going to even more exotic places. Others went to Belgium.
The 1891 census shows very little in the way of movement from the traditional Kingshott stronghold on the borders of Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey. Granted, they are moving out into the countryside a bit, and some go up to the "big smoke", but intrepid explorers they are not!
By 1998, the family had spread throughout the British Isles. Although more diverse than before the map clearly retains the greatest number of Kingshotts around the point of origin in the borders of Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey. I have traced all other branches of the family, and all come from one specific family originating in Fernhurst in the late 1500's.
There are a number of books out there purporting to explain the origin of individual surnames. Needless to say Kingshott (or any of the variations of that name) never appear in them. The nearest we have is that the name is English in origin. Great, that helps a lot!
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The UK Office of National Statistics has a website where you can see how common your surname is as of September 2002. Plugging in the Kingshott surname reveals that there were 749 Kingshotts in England, Wales and the Isle of Man at that time. This means that the surname is rare, and is the joint 8334th most common name in the country. On the same site, if you use the derivative name Kinshott, there are only 38 of them, holding joint 60264th place! We are a rare and exclusive bunch of people!
What about the rest of the world? All of the Kingshott families around the world can be traced back to the small area indicated on the maps at the beginning of this page. Worldwide, the distribution map looks like this, with thanks to Public Profiler Worldnames.
This map confirms the data that I have researched regarding the migration of various branches of the Kingshott family. So, lets have a look at some of these areas in more detail. Where are the Kingshott family these days? Firstly, let's look at Europe.
The map largely confirms what we would expect. The greatest concentration in Europe is still the area that was most prevalent over 100 years previously. However there has been some degree of migration to other parts of Europe. In this map this includes Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain.
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The most obvious concentration is found in Australia. This is due, in no small part, to the descendants of convict John Kingshott, but there are also other families that emigrated there in the past 100 years or more. John's descendants are, however, exclusively responsible for the higher concentration of Kingshotts in Tasmania.
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The current position in North America is also a confirmation of the research that I have conducted, placing various Kingshott families in the areas indicated.
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So that is where we are in the world. The concentrations in the later map are occurrences of the name per head of population in that area. It therefore provides an indication of occurrence, rather than an accurate depiction of the areas that are most populated by Kingshotts. This is why British Columbia, for example, scores higher than Michigan. There are actually many more Kingshotts in Michigan, but British Columbia has less population.
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To finish with, this is a table of the occurrence of the Kingshott surname in the world in 2023. It is the 307,224th most common surname. This is taken from Forebears website.
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Kingshott
