WELCOME TO OUR COYLE-WILLIAMS AND BICKNELL

FAMILY HISTORY PAGES

I was born with the surname Coyle-Williams, a rare combination of two fairly common surnames. My father and my two brothers were also registered as Coyle-Williams. Going back over the generations various permutations of Williams, Coyle Williams and Coyle-Williams, even the Coyle represented as a middle name initial, have been registered since the combination first appeared in our family in the late nineteenth century.

While the uncovering of other parts of our family tree slowly moved back in time, the Coyle-Williams thread stopped, initially at Ethel Coyle-Williams in 1885 (the first time the hyphen appeared between the two names) and then at marriage banns in the name of Francis Augustus Coyle Williams in 1880. While, over the years a considerable amount of additional information has been made available for family research, we have been unable to push the Coyle-Williams line back beyond that marriage record.

Finally a potential narrative emerged, fleshed out by a considerable amount of research by my brother. This was based on a Coyle family, from Liverpool. While we had concentrated on discovering how the Coyle had come to be added to the surname Williams we slowly realised that it was in fact Williams that had appeared from nowhere between the years 1871 and 1880. Despite considerable research we have been unable to establish its provenance. It is ironic that the use of Coyle has virtually disappeared from our family name, most members now being registered simply as Williams.

The evidence for the transformation of Coyle into Coyle-Williams and its permutations has become overwhelming. The basis for this is that, whereas birth and baptism records exist for Francis Augustus Coyle, born in Aldershot in 1858, there is no primary source for a Francis Augustus (Coyle-)Williams having been born at the same time and place, as is stated in later census records. There is considerable additional evidence from




various sources, covering name registration, military records, occupations, etc. to lead to the firm conclusion that Francis Augustus Coyle, recorded in 1871, had become, by 1881, Francis Augustus Coyle Williams (ILLUSTRATED HERE), then proceeded to add the hyphen between the surnames of some of his children and died, in 1936, simply as Francis Williams. How he ended up with that surname we do not know.

Our original website contained a separate database for the speculative Coyle link to the family. We are now confident enough to present this new version with one, merged database, taking the Coyle-Williams line back to Chester, Liverpool and Ireland.

The absorbing part of this family research has been the stories – and mysteries - that have emerged from simple names and facts. My mother’s side has a strong connection to the large Bicknell presence in the town of Haslemere in Surrey, England and a line going back over many generations on the Isle of Wight. With the exception of the Coyle line, many of whom ended up in Newcastle upon Tyne, our family very much has a Southern England / East Anglia background and illustrates very clearly the migration of many individuals and families from rural roots into London in Victorian times – and the subsequent dispersal to other parts of the country during the latter half of the twentieth century.

Many thanks to my brother Michael for his considerable help with this project, and to other family members who have provided help and information. This is a work in progress. We have used original documents and sources as far as possible, but have inevitably also consulted other family websites. We acknowledge and are grateful for the considerable work of all involved.

Photos L-R: Frederick JC Williams and wife Maud Downham; The Bicknell sisters, Betty & Vi; Bertie Bicknell and wife Rosina Withers; Stanley Coyle-Williams and wife Vi Bicknell.