Bedfordshire - The Broket Archive

Bedfordshire Brokets

Three interesting facts:

1. 184 Brokets were born in Bedfordshire between 1855-1954—third in line after 391 in London and 217 in Glasgow/Lanarkshire.
2. 3 heads of households were recorded near Bedford as long ago as 1315-1390.
3. DNA evidence shows that the large 18-21st C Bedfordshire Broket ‘Grouping’ is unitary, while the Brokets of Scotland and especially of London have multiple origins.

Add to these three facts that during the 17-19th C Brokets were recorded in 32 Bedfordshire parishes and you could sensibly conclude that Bedfordshire was an ultimate Broket origin. Indeed it was, but not as you might imagine.

For details about the records searched: +Read more

This Archive’s Bedfordshire pages are as follows:

++14th C
++16th C
++17th C
++++Rev Edmund of Luton
++++Brothwood of Henlow
++++Dunton Broket Wills
++18th C
++19-20th C
++++Bedford
++++++1912 suicide
++++Biddenham
++++Blunham
++++Bromham
++++John and Maria DARLING
++++Souldrop
++Map of part of Bedfordshire

You might have noticed that there is no page for the 15th C. The 14th C Brokets died out or migrated and the next Broket record so far found from Bedfordshire was not until 1547. Furthermore, those Brokets recorded in Bedfordshire in the following 46 years—bar one—were not actually Bedfordshire folk, but absentee landlords from the wealthy Hertfordshire clan. The next records after that are indeed of Bedfordshire residents, but they too came from Hertfordshire: A cadet Hertfordshire family lived in Luton, but only from 1593-1617; and from around 1595 another cadet Hertfordshire family migrated to Campton and then Dunton, where 37 births/baptisms were recorded 1596-1673. But all these Brokets eventually left Bedfordshire.

So, although parish records appeared in Bedfordshire from the mid 16th, the only Bedfordshire parish with Brokets of more than one generation that whole century was Dunton. The 1597 Bedfordshire Subsidy tells the same story, as does even the 1622-8 one. It wasn’t until 1636 in Sandy that the first recognisable Broket family of the present-day Bedfordshire Broket Grouping was recorded. And that’s where the history of the Bedfordshire Brokets of the 17-21st C begins.

Page Last Updated: April 4, 2020