We believe that all of the Toops in the world can be traced back to south-western England. By the
1500s, there seem to be four main groups:1. Mells (Somerset) to Westbury (Wiltshire) including Frome and Dilton Marsh;
2. Sherborne in the north of Dorset bordering on Somerset including Glanvilles Wootton, Holwell, Beer Hackett, Thornford, Bradford Abbas, Trent, and other villages in southern Somerset;
3. South of Dorset including Winfrith Newburgh, Corfe Castle, Swanage, Wareham, Lytchett Minster, Charlton Marshall, etc and;
4. Devon (north of Plymouth) including Tavistock, Whitchurch, Buckland Monachorum, Horrabridge, Totnes, etc.
1500s, there seem to be four main groups:
These locations are shown in red on the map below and are all in the south west of England. The high occurrence in and around Dorset suggest that this may be the common source of our ancestry in the UK.
Within Dorset the distribution of Toops can be seen in the map below where the size of the red dots indicates the number of Toop references in the census in the 1800s.
Because “Toop” is not native to the English language, it may have originated from the continent (near).
Until recently, we hoped to trace all of the groups back to a single ancestor. However, as we go back further in time, particularly to the late 1500s, the records become sparser and more incomplete and we now believe that the records are likely to peter out before we can achieve our objective. Regardless, we have been able to trace several segments of the family back to the very early 1600s or late 1500s and we await the publication of more records to enable us to proceed further.
CHRISTIAN NAMES
The most common male Toop first names throughout the trees are William (145) followed by John (130), James (86), George (73), Henry (49), Charles (49), Thomas (48), Robert (42), Richard (36), Frederick (35) and Arthur (31). Other popular names have been Alfred, Albert, Edward, Joseph, Francis and Ernest..The most common female Toop first names throughout the trees are Mary (120) followed by Eliza/Elizabeth (101), Ann/Anne (59), Emma/Emily (49), Sarah (47) and Jane (29). Other popular names have been Alice, Dorothy, Edith, Ethel and Ada.
Some of the more unusual male names were Abner, Alonzo, Archelaus, Nehemiah, Onesophorus & Zibeah. Some of the female names were Arabella, Elestra, Kezia, Lucrettia & Mailliew.
One of the most unusual names encountered is "Just Henry Francis Montague Elphinstone Balmerino Lisle" and he married a Toop descendent in St Giles, London in 1897. In the census his occupation was listed as "gentleman" of "private means". It seems that he fell on hard times as his body was washed up on the River Thames at age of 63 years and he had just over 1,000 pounds to his name.