As
part of my investigations into my own Hazell family which came from
Pulham/Pulham Market, Co Norfolk, I examined all available records of
Hazell's across the entire county, partly to determine if any loose
ends from Pulham re-appeared elsewhere (as they did - one branch
actually ended up in County Somerset, via Norwich), but also to
complete the study of the Hazell family.
Post-1800 extensive use
was made of Free-BMD, the 1901 census online site (which contains
indices for all UK censuses from 1841-1901), the IGI, FreeREG (the
parish register version of Free-BMD), the 1851 Norfolk census (on
CD-ROM from the LDS) and various other transcription projects. A wealth
of information is available for the post-1800 period, almost all of
which (over 99%) is charted on these pages. Prior to 1800 the main
sources used have been the IGI, Free-REG and the Norfolk Transcription
Archive. Unfortunately pre-1800 records for Co Norfolk are in a rather
poor condition with few parishes having managed to preserve their
records much earlier than 1800. Consequently going back to 1800 is
easy, but going further back is generally not possible unless one is
lucky to strike one of the few parishes that have well preserved
records prior to 1800. I am fortunate in that Pulham & Pulham
Market are amongst the small number of parishes for which records are
well preserved back to before 1700, but even there there are some gaps.
There are enough scattered references to Hazell's in Norfolk in the
1600's (and even some in the 1500's) to indicate the surname was fairly
widespread across Co Norfolk even in those early times, pointing to a
ubiquitous origin for the surname.
Post 1800 there appear to be 9 main groups of Hazell's living in Co
Norfolk (A to I below), along with another 4 who either died
out or left the county by the early 1800's (J to L, plus the
Pulham Hazell's).Whether any of these groups are related to any of the
others is likely impossible to tell, given the patchy nature of the
pre-1800 records for Norfolk. Given that in at least some cases, the
surname "Hazell" is probably derived from the hazel tree, which is
common across much of Norfolk, it is likely the name arose
independently across the county, in much the same way as Smith, Brown
etc would have arisen. Hazell's in the far west of Norfolk likely
include some who have crossed the border from Cambridgeshire, where the
name is not uncommon (see the charts on the
Hassell's
of Cambridgeshire). The name also appears in Suffolk where it
likely shares a similar origin to that in Norfolk.
Please do not hesitate to
email me with any corrections
&/or additions to these charts. Whilst AFAIK the Hazell's on
this page are not related to mine (of Pulham), I am happy to update
these charts should new information arise.
Records post 1800 are almost complete, especially with FreeBMD
(>99%
complete) and the various census records. This is further enhanced by
parish records from a number of independent transcription projects.
There is also a number of PRs from pre-1700 available in the
IGI. Not
all parishes are indexed in the IGI, of course, but some of the gaps
are filled by other transcription projects. That, unfortunately, leaves
the crucial 1700-1800 period where available records for Norfolk appear
to be very poor (as of 2008). Whether this is due to available records
yet to be transcribed or the records themselves having been lost is
unknown. Many of the transcribed PR's I have found have actually been
taken from BT's (Bishop Transcripts) and AT's (Archdeacon transcripts),
prepared at the time from summaries send by the parish priests into
their local bishop and/or archdeacon. The fact that transcribers have
resorted to BT's and AT's suggests the original parish records are no
longer available. This is perhaps not surprising since Norfolk has not
"enjoyed" the population boom that other parts of England have
experienced over the past 200 years or so. The population of the whole
county has only doubled since the early 1800's and that increase has
been very uneven across the county - vast swathes of the county now lie
uninhabited or very sparsely whilst most of the population is now found
concentrated in the three major population centres: Norwich, Great
Yarmouth and Kings Lynn. The remainer of the county is full of
abandoned churches, some still lovingly maintained by the local
villagers as community centres, shrines to the past and tourist
attractions, but all too many have long since fallen into ruin. The
fate of the records of those churches is dubious at best. Even with the
surviving parishes, preservation of parish records seems to be spotty.
In one parish in my own line at one time an "enlightened" rector for
some unknown reason destroyed many years of parish records prior to his
appointment. He was "retired", but by then the damage had been done.
