My interest in the Vousdens begins with my paternal grandmother, born Agnes Minnie Lucy Vousden in Shoreditch, London in 1893. She was a first generation Londoner, her father having been born in Guildford, Surrey; her grandfather in Bromley, Kent, and her great grandfather in Goudhurst, Kent. Agnes Vousden married Robert Brown on 9 April 1918 at St. Leonard's Parish Church, Aldrington, Brighton, Sussex.

I have traced our Vousden family with reasonable certainty to our 6 x great grandparents, John Vousden and Sarah Wousley, who married at All Saints Church in Maidstone, Kent on 20 November 1733. They were both "of Goudhurst parish", and I have traced the family back, with lesser surety, to our 11 x great grandfather, another John Vousden. I believe that this John had six children who were born and baptised in Goudhurst between the years 1584 and 1611.

There were at least two other Vousden families in Goudhurst at this time. Thus, the Vousdens have lived in and around Goudhurst since at least the second half of the sixteenth century.

My fascination with this long line of Vousdens has led me to start the one-name study. In pursuing my own family research I have made contact with many other Vousden researchers, most of whom trace their family back to Goudhurst, this one small village in Kent, near the Sussex border. I believe more Vousdens trace their ancestry back to Goudhurst than to any other place.

I would like to know where they came from to live in Goudhurst, or whether they have "always" been there. And I would like to know the origin and meaning of the name. At this time I do not have answers to any of these questions. I am aware of the 'conventional wisdom' amongst many Vousden researchers that we descend from Huguenots escaping persecution in France, but I have yet to find any evidence for this. If you have it, please let me know!

I have registered my Vousden One-Name Study with the Guild of One-Name Studies.

This one-name study of the Vousdens has grown out of my own genealogical research. However, it is not a family study, but a name study. My principal interest is in the genealogy, but I believe the one-name approach is both valid and interesting. So I include:

• - people whose surnames are Vousden by both male and female descent;
• - people who include Vousden at first or second position in a double-barrelled surname;
• - people who have Vousden as a first or middle name;
• - people of either sex who acquired the Vousden surname by servitude (slavery), deed poll, marriage or adoption;
• - fictional people who were given the name Vousden by novelists; and
• - corporations which have Vousden as part of their name.

I am indebted to Jean-Baptiste Piggin for this typology. By way of two examples, my father's older brother was named Robert Vousden Brown, and a well-known Vousden was the Irish actor, poet and playwright William ("Bill") Francis Maher MacNevin, more commonly known by his stage name Val Vousden. They both have a place in this one-name study.

RESEARCH FOCUS

I hope this website will become a central focal point for Vousdens and their relatives worldwide and give all Vousden researchers the opportunity to obtain vital information quickly and easily, and to make contact with one another. Many Vousden descendants have already shared their research with me and I see my role as a 'caretaker' of the information. Over some years I have been able to help many fellow researchers and at the same time built up an extensive data base. I have endeavoured to verify other people's research, and sometimes this has led me to correct my own.

The Study will be world wide since I know that there are Vousdens in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland and probably elsewhere. I will always share information when an enquiry comes in and, where possible, I prefer to put any new researcher in touch with someone who is, or may be, related. Hopefully between us we can break down "brick walls", join all these Vousdens together and perhaps even discover where they came from.

This site will be a constant work in progress. I have many ideas for extra content for the site, but I have put it online "as is", and will add more content over time. Any other contributions or collaborators will be very welcome. If you have any Vousden information, and you are willing to share it, then please contact me by e-mailing the Vousden One-Name Study.

COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS

If you have any comments or suggestions about the site, I would like to hear from you, and if anything on it doesn't work properly then please let me know. I will try to fix it.

Finally, a word of caution: do not take my word for it. I will try to make all the information on the site as accurate as possible. But at best it will be a transcript from original sources, and in some cases several times removed from the original. Therefore, I encourage you to view the information as a research aid, and to check the original sources whenever possible.