Anyone have Pre-1500 experience with Tompkyns family?

Question

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https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:MergePerson&user1_name=Thomkyns-5&user2_name=Tomkyns-8&action=compare

This is the beginning generation of what appears to be many generations of duplicates, father and son.  None of the profiles have any sources, anyone familiar with, or would like to work this?

Answer 1

In 2008, Matt Tompkins wrote an unpublished manuscript, "Robert A. Tompkins and the Cantilupe connection" (See [[https://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/media/pdf/central/Tomkyns-Charlton-Cantilupe.pdf]].) 

A footnote quote from the manuscript is the following: "Tomkyns is, in technical terms, a hypochoristic patronym, a type of surname adopted almost exclusively by the lowest classes of medieval society (R.A. McKinley, A History of British Surnames (Oxford, 1990), p. 101). Further its earliest known appearance in any record dates from the 1320s, nearly a century after Robert A. Tompkins has it adopted by the Cantilupes and Charltons."

Another quote from Matt Tomkins is appropriate here, "The fact is that there were quite a few originators of the surname, all unrelated to one another and living in widely scattered locations across England (though most were in the Midlands). The vast majority of modern Tompkinses will be descended from a line which originated in some other part of England than Cornwall."

 https://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/media/pdf/central/Tomkyns_Commentary.pdf

Though the two Robert Thompkyns/Tompkyns profiles have the same birth year, as Matt Tompkins has written, ". . .Lostwithiel is anyway unlikely to be the ultimate point of origin of the Cornish line, as there were then many more Tomkins in other parts of the county." (from Tomkyns_Comment).

Neither profile is sourced by records, and given what evidence the profile managers gave us, it's likely that one or both of the profiles are "fake" though neither seems to be a duplicate of the "faked genealogies" Robert A. Tompkins concocted.  Obviously, if one is real my guess is that Robert Thompkyns of Hereford shows the correct location given that Lostwithiel was an improbable starting point for this Tompkyns line.

Does anyone have any "real" evidence that the Tompkyns/Thompkyns name was used as early as 1275?

P.S., I'm not pre-1500 certified.

Comments

Thank you for that David, I didn't come across that but when I did a little searching last night, I was becoming convinced that this was mix of cobbled together families with a dose of ficition.

I did find the 1942 book by Robert Thomkins. This is just a numbered list of Tomkins family members. It sometimes suggests that the information comes from a will or deed but nothing is cited. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066149923;view=1up;seq=16

I decided to try to check some of the more obvious ones.

No 9. "Tomkyns of Lostwithiel, had Tomkyns all members of which surname took surname"

Tomkins who came from Lostwithiel are found in the 16th century they were renowned musicians  http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-TOMK-INS-1550.html   . "Tomkins came of a Cornish family long settled at Lostwithiel. His father, Ralph Tonkin,-the son appears to have changed the name to Tomkins on leaving- was a man of some property, as may be gathered from a Lay Subsidy of Lostwithiel for
the year 1543/4"

http://welshjournals.llgc.org.uk/browse/viewpage/llgc-id:1277425/llgc-id:1278323/llgc-id:1278348/getText The Cornwall records office doesn't seem to have any records of very early Tonkins of Lostwithiel but there are very many  from later centuries

No 11, Thomas Tomkyns of Hereford b.circa 1260 Bishop of Hereford. There was no Thomas Tomkyns Bishop of Hereford (the Matt Tompkins pdf linked in the above post went into this in far more detail than I found)

No 15, William Tomkyns b.circa  1327,will 1398,  vicar of Budbrook and Estleymingtonhttps://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tomkyns-6

  The author  mentions that these families lived at the time of the Black Plague. I found no record of this vicar in the CCED data base (but records of this period are scanty)

It is true that Budbrooke was devasted  by the black death, becoming an almost deserted village in about 1350. 

A photo of the roll of  incumbents from Budbrooke church starts in 1273 has no Tomkyns  http://www.masters-powell-family-history.org/m-history-budbrooke-vicars.htm

David's find suggests that this line is at least in part fraudulent/fictious . The Los Angeles library  cites some further remarks by Dr Matthew Tompkins of the Univ. of Leicester the author of the papers  (is it this him?)http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/history/people/mtompkins  )

My thoughts are that it would be best to try to find a point in the future generations of this family that is credible and can be sourced, cut off the earlier  line after merging 'obvious' duplicates and label them with a possibly fictitious template  with a link to the remarks and critical papers.

Edit: line continues to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-403 who was the first emigrant. That profile records that he has no known origins yet has Monnington, in Herefordshire as his birth location .Matthew Tompkins writes of him " nothing is known about his parentage, save that he was not a member of the Tomkyns family of Monnington-on-Wye and Weobley in Herefordshire, as Robert A. Tompkins stated"

I'll have a look to see if I can find anything concrete about the Tompkins of Monnington.

---

Moving forward many generations

Ralph Tomkins the emigrant https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tompkins-403

Biography suggests origins unknown, but nevertheless has birthplace and purported parents.

 born. Monnington Hereford  1582 married in Wendover, Buckinghamshire.

His purported father is  John Tompkyns https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Thompkyns-1 b Monnington Hereford c. 1540 but died in Edlesborough ( Buckinghamshire) 1593

There is a Tompkins family from Monnington, an abstract of their pedigree is to be found in the (partially sourced) Archaeologica Cambrensis. James Tomkins and his wife Margery Kettleby are said to have had a son called John. He is the only one of the three sons that hasn't any descendants on this pedigree.

Why would a John Tomkins from the Herefordshire end up living and  dying in Buckinghamshire?

Matt Tomkins researched this some years ago and there are many posts on the subject on Rootsweb and elsewhere.

This is one of the earliest posts that I found which summarised his views

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/soc.genealogy.surnames/TwaTwB1o8Po

A post 2 years later mentions the manifest from the Truelove  in TNA  which he photocopied and sent to fellow researchers.

 <<My photocopy, in some clerks distinctive cursive, shows Husb[andman] Ralph Tompkins - 50, [?] Kath. Tompkins - 58, Elizabeth Tompkins - 18, Marie Tompkins - 14, and Samuel Tompkins - 22.>>

http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.tompkins/1495.1/mb.ashx

(seems even from this that  Ralph 'husbandman' is an unlikely grand son of James of Monnington, his father John  would be the brother of Richard,  Sheriff of Herefordshire and  his purported  cousin James was also a Sheriff of Herefordshire and MP for Leominster )

 Matthew Tomkins also  posted transcriptions of the Edlesborough registers in 2000 and attempted family reconstructions of the Edlesborough Tompkins . There was no 1593 burial  http://searches2.rootsweb.com/th/read/TOMPKINS/2000-01/0946751492

reconstructions

http://searches2.rootsweb.com/th/read/TOMPKINS/2000-01/0946985442

It seems to me Matthew Tomkins (and the list members he communicated with) found no evidence that John son of James of Herefordshire was the father of Ralph the emigrant or that he died in Buckinghamshire.

 If Ralph were detached from his father John, a note could be placed on his profile to explain the lack of evidence.

  It should also  be possible to find other sources for the rest of this family .I wonder if John died without issue. I haven't yet found anything other than other trees for his marriage to an  Ellen Stanis the marriage is said to have taken place at 'Vowchurch' . The  registers not online anywhere but the earliest dates from 1670 in any case.  (one Ancestry tree gave as evidence for  the marriage, a London marriage licence for 1580 between a John Tomkyns embroiderer and an Ellen Stanner widow which seems to be scraping the barrel ) 

sorry, not been able to find any primary sources, even the Edlesborough PRs aren't online.  I realise that it is  mostly one persons research regurgitated but he is obviously  a thorough researcher (subsequently  making medieval local history his career)