Merriott Homepage

Welcome to the Web Pages of Merriott, Somerset Families Genealogy. 

These pages are devoted to the  historical records of Merriott, a large village near Crewkerne in Somerset, England.   Merriott now has descendants all over the world.

My interest in Merriott started a few years ago when I tracked down the origins of Samuel OSBORNE, who arrived in Queensland, Australia, in 1858. Our part of the  OSBORNE family has been mostly in Queensland ever since, and during the course of investigating our Merriott origins, I’ve found a fairly tangled web of family connections in Merriott.   This website is dedicated to the unraveling of that web by making information readily available. During the course of transcribing the records of Merriott, I have slowly been building up a Merriott Family Tree, connecting most of the family names of nineteenth century Merriott.

I’ve now added a page for George Osborne, Samuel’s brother, and his interesting life. 

So please click on the areas which interest you.  If you would like to contribute your own Merriott information or add your name to the Researchers page,  please contact me.
If you find any errors in the information, please let me know and I can check my sources.

Some family names may have contacts listed, but you can always contact me about any of these names, and if I can help, I will!

I have transcribed all the available censuses (with the exception of the 1881), and most of the Parish Registers.   I have passed census information on to the GENUKI people and parish register information  to the Somerset Archives, and some is currently available for on-line searching. I’ve also passed data to the FreeReg people.
Please contact me directly for any information you can’t find on those sites.

I’ve just added [4 March 2017] two new pages – Merriott Burials 1900 to 1952  and Merriott Marriages 1900 to 1924.   These are searchable, and unlike the individual surname pages, contain the whole of these registers as I transcribed them.   See what you think, and please let me know.  (I’ve presented the data differently on the two pages, due to technical difficulties.)

Site Structure

  • Where is Merriott?  and  Placenames
    A little bit of background information about the location of Merriott, and other snippets.
  • History
    Earliest History ♦  The Monmouth Rebellion ♦ All Saints Church ♦  Other Churches ♦   Industry ♦  Inns & Innkeepers ♦  Farms & Farmers ♦  The War
  • Merriott Today and Yesterday  Anecdotes from Merriott’s recent past, as well as recent photographs.  Enjoy stories by Pat Wallace & David Gibbs, among others.
  • Family Names
    Frequencies of surnames in Merriott, some interesting Christian names, and a page for each of the major surnames

  • Researchers  Find other people interested in Merriott
  • What’s New  Updates on the site; questions posed by Researchers

  • Please Read This!   Disclaimers
  • Sources and Links  ♦ Books ♦  Internet Sites ♦ Censuses ♦ Parish Registers  ♦ Parish Briefs

  • Who Am I?  Some information about who I am, and links to my other Genealogical Interests
  • Archives of the Merriott Local History Group    This information was originally contained on the Merriott Local History Group’s website (no longer operational).  David Gibbs has kindly allowed me to reproduce the website’s documentation.

A Note about Copyright

The Copyright of some of the data and  pictures on this site is held by third parties.   It is published here with the proviso that it is only to be used for personal research and not for any profit.   If you wish to use any data or pictures as inclusions in any profit-making publications or distributions, please contact me first and I can contact the original owner for permission.   In the case of all  Parish Register information, the copyright  is held by the Somerset Archives, (http://www.somerset.gov.uk/archives)  and you MUST contact them for permission to use the data in any profit-making publication or distribution.

Happy hunting!   

Sue Osborne

PO Box 317

Albany Creek 4035

Queensland, AUSTRALIA

osborne@bigpond.com  or   sue@merriottfamiliesgenealogy.net