Encell, Ensell Name Study

Profile managers: One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message] and Michael Bissell --Benefiel [send private message]

This is a One Name Study to collect together in one place everything about the surname Encell and its variants Ensell, Ensal, Insull, etc.. The hope is that other researchers like you will join our study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect. Please contact the project leader, add categories to your profiles, add your questions to the bulletin board, add details of your name research, etc.

Study template: Paste this above the biography for each Encell/Ensell profile (make sure there is }} at the end):

{{One Name Study | name = Encell| category = Encell, Ensell _Name_Study

It will look like this:

This profile is part of the Encell Name Study.

The Encell Surname Study: Where did the Encells come from? Part of the answer lies in examining the surname ‘Encell’, part involves further genetic inquiries using the Y-chromosome.

Etymology

Encell origins: What’s in a name? Genealogically, a fortunate thing about the surname ‘Encell’ is that it is uncommon. This makes the Encells themselves uncommon enough to be kept track of, a task undertaken by Florida cousin, John R. Ensell (note the alternate spelling of John’s name, the first of our spelling issues). John has attempted to account for all the Encells and Ensells in America, living and dead, within his family tree records, located on the web at [1] . But the name Has many spellings, both in the dictionary and in the early family tree.

In the Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames, second edition are the following entries:

Ensoll: variant of INSALL--Insall, Inseal, Insole, Insoll, Insull, Hinsull: Richard de Inneshal 1327 (Subsidy rolls of Worcester); John de Insale 1341 (Nonarum Inquisitiones 1340 for the County of Worcester, Worcester Hist. Soc., 1899). From a place Insoll in Elmley Lovett (Worcs), no longer on the map, first recorded as Inerdeshell in 1275 and last as Insoll in 1642 (Place-names of Worcester, 241) And also…

Hensall, Hensell, Henzell: (i) Alan de Hethensal 1219 (Assize rolls for Yorkshire). From Hensall (English Surnames, series 1, Yorkshire West Riding, G. Redmonds, London, 1973) (ii.) Hensell and Henzell are also Huguenot, from a Protestant refugee who settled at Newcastle-upon-Tyne after the Massacre of St Bartholomew. With two other refugees, Tysack and Tittory, he started a glassworks there (Smiles, The Huguenots, London, 1880, pp. 401-402)

Inquiry into origins: As we saw from the Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames, the origin of the surname and of the Encells themselves are likely related, so much depends on sorting out early spellings that potentially lead us in different geographical directions, before the earliest written records we have from the late seventeenth century. Possibilities are based on candidate name etymologies,as well as geographical and historical facts about their principal trade, glassmaking, in England. Three principal logical possibilities present themselves:

1. The Encells were ‘native’ to the British Isles: Several spellings listed in first Oxford Dictionary entry cited are encountered among records we have, namely Insall, Insole, and Insull. Furthermore, the Dictionary indicates that these names all come from Worcestershire, in the West Midlands of England, the region where the early Encells are known to have lived. The West Midlands is a major center of the historical English glassmaking industry.

2. The Encells were Huguenot refugees from France: If the name were derived from an original beginning in ‘H’ and altered by the common linguistic process of eliding the H (as in ‘Enry ‘Iggins’ for ‘Henry Higgins’), then the original spelling may have been Hensall, Hensell or Henzell. From the Dictionary, we learn that the first of these spellings originated in Yorkshire, in the north of England, far removed, dialectically and culturally, from the West Midlands. The other two are alternate spellings of a known Huguenot name, definitely associated historically with the importation of continental glassmaking to Newcastle-upon-Tyne (in far north of England) and Staffordshire (adjacent Worcestershire) in the West Midlands, following the great Huguenot diaspora after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. The massacre took place in 1572, leaving a gap of over a century before our records begin. The 3 related ‘founding families’ of the English glassmaking industry: Henzell, Tyzack and Tittory all have long pedigrees involving titles of minor nobility, coats-of-arms, etc. in the French province of Lorraine, and leading back ultimately to origins in Bohemia (modern Czech republic), historically a major center of the glassmaking art in Europe, and prehistorically part of the Celtic lands of central Europe.

3. The Encells were Germans: Certain German words, e.g. ‘Enkel’ = grandchild, ‘Hansel’= little Hans, and ‘Insel’ = island, might have a plausible form for morphing into the name, but there is no direct evidence for this. Bohemia is adjacent to the historic German lands. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, German glassmakers advanced the art technologically, and there is some evidence that Ensell glassmakers incorporated some of these German techniques.

Which is it? Can we possibly find solid evidence to help resolve such a question? Well, yes, this is where we turn to…

Genetic genealogy

To address our problem, what we needed was a fully-documented living male Encell descendant bearing the surname to establish what the pattern of STR markers on the Encell Y-chromosome is. [As a by-product of this, we could also learn about the deep paternal ancestry of the Encells, and we’ll return to that topic later]. It was extremely fortunate that Jack Encell agreed to collaborate with us in establishing ‘the Encell surname project’with testing done through Relative Genetics Inc, of Salt Lake City Utah.

Encell paternal line used in this study:

Generation 1: John Insull (1688-1733);

Generation 2: Edward/Edmund Insall (1712-1766);

Generation 3: George Ensal (1751-?);

Generation 4: John Encell (1776-1829);

Generation 5: Charles Knox Encell 1822-1906);

Generation 6: Marsh Encell (1869-1953);

Generation 7: John Phillip (Tim) Encell (1908-1990);

Generation 8: Jack Warren Encell (b. 1944);

We next needed to compare Jack’s STR results (the Encell Y-chromosome) with those of other, similarly well-documented living male descendants of paternal lines bearing other surnames we were concerned about comparing with ours. Fortunately, our experienced genealogist cousin John Ensell had important contacts that made this possible. Through his worldwide genealogical networking, he was in regular contact with Barry Henzell of Brisbane, Australia (whose family tree harks back to the Henzells of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and well beyond that to titled nobles of Lorraine) as well as Don Tyzack of Nottinghamshire, England (with a similarly well-documented and extensive family tree going back to Bohemia). Both these men, in addition to John Ensell himself, agreed to participate in the project.

Encell vs Ensell: First off, as a proof of principle, John Ensell’s STR results (the Ensell Y-chromosome) showed only the most minimal difference (one repeat sequence at one locus) from the Encell Y-chromosome.This is genetic evidence that the Encells and the Ensells are indeed one family, independently confirming the family tree, which shows the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of the two lineages to be 6 generations back along the Encell line [specifically consistent with it being, Edward/Edmund Insall (1712-1766)].

Encell vs the Huguenots: The bigger news, of course, was that the Encell/Ensells do not appear to be related to either the Henzells of Lorraine, France and northern England, or to the Tyzacks of Bohemia, Lorraine and west Midlands, England. The number of repeat sequences failed to match at 9-10 different loci for both the Encell-Henzell and Encell-Tyzack comparisons. A rough statistical estimate of when the MRCA may have occurred between these lineages would be on the order of 40-50 generations or more, far too distant to be within the realm of either historical likelihood or practical genealogy (the St. Bartholomew’s day massacre, for example, being on the order of only 12-14 generations distant), so no titles or coats-of-arms for the Encells/Ensells for now. Furthermore, the Henzells and the Tyzacks do not appear to be related to each other, failing to match at 7 different loci, and having an MRCA of 40 generations or more distant. These results were a great disappointment to all concerned, but they represent definite progress in the quest, since (barring any non-paternity events) they provide evidence against the Huguenot connection for now, and allow us to concentrate on the other possibilities for Encell origins.

Deep paternal ancestry: Haplogroup classification of the Encell Y-chromosome provided by Relative Genetics, was: Haplogroup R1b, defined by SNP marker (point mutation) M343. This gave us additional perspective on the origin question. Part of the ancestral haplogroup called R1-M173 that first arrived in Europe from West Asia during the Upper Paleolithic period (35,000-40,000 years ago) at the beginning of Aurignacian culture, one of first cultures within Europe to leave cave-art and more refined stone tools. The beginning of the last ice-age made it necessary for them to move south of the tree-line to hunt game. At its peak, the ice shelf within Europe extended down as far as southern Ireland, the middle of England and across northern Germany. The tree-line at the height of the ice-age was as far south as southern France, northern Italy, north of the Balkans and across the Black Sea. People with Haplogroup R1 Y-chromosomes retreated to areas south of these regions where they established themselves. During this period, the mutation which defines R1b (M343) likely occurred among a group on the Iberian Peninsula. As the ice-age ended and game were able to move northward again, people in R1b also migrated north. Today haplogroup R1 appears in about 50% of the native European population over all, and R1b is by far the most common haplogroup in Western Europe (Spain, Portugal, France, UK and Ireland). R1b3 is one of the most successful clades, has its origins about 11,800 years ago. Within the British Isles, a genetic pattern called the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) features greatly among the Irish and Welsh.

Ethnic origins: We had Jack’s Y-chromosome ‘done’ not only by Relative Genetics, but also by Brian Sykes’ company Oxford Ancestors, Inc.. The Oxford report includes analysis of STRs in terms of most likely paternal clan of origin for the chromosome. 'Paternal clan' refers to the 3 ancestral tribal groups which collectively account for 95% of all Y-chromosomes among the indigenous population of the British Isles: the ancient Celts, Anglo-Saxon/Danish Vikings and Norman/Norse Vikings. The results for the Encell Y-chromosome indicate that it is of probable Celtic origin. The Celts were distributed quite widely in the ancient world. Celts populated not only the British Isles, but also Bohemia and Gaul. The mere fact of probable ‘Celticness’ alone thus fails to provide any additional proof. However…R1b haplogroup’s highest prevalence by far is in western England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, (as well as northern Spain), and this, along with name etymology evidence, is highly suggestive of a ‘native’ British Isles origin for the Encells. And there is some additional newer suggestive evidence...

Autosomal DNA (auDNA): Autosomes are all the other numbered chromosomes (as opposed to the sex chromosomes X and Y) in the 23 nuclear pairs, and they constitute the bulk of our DNA, coming from ALL the ancestors, not just those on the direct paternal and maternal lines. Ethnicity estimates are created by comparing one’s DNA sample to the DNA of other people who are native to a region, e.g., the AncestryDNA reference panel contains 3,000 DNA samples from people in 26 global regions built from a larger reference collection of 4,245 DNA samples collected from people whose genealogy suggests they are native to one region. Each panel member’s genealogy is documented: their family is representative of people with a long history (hundreds of years) in that region. Each volunteer's DNA sample from a given region is then tested and compared to all others to construct the AncestryDNA reference panel. The Individual’s DNA is compared to the reference panel to see which regions it is most like, and their ethnicity estimate is the result of this comparison, based on forty separate analyses, each of which gives an independent estimate done with randomly selected portions of DNA. AncestryDNA genotypes samples on the Illumina OmniExpress platform, designed to assay a majority of the genome while genotyping 730,525 SNPs carefully selected to capture the majority of common genetic variation in European and other worldwide populations. What’s a SNP (pronounced ‘snip’)? It stands for ‘single nucleotide polymorphism’ and represents the substitution of one base pair for another.

As an example, auDNA Results for Michael Bissell maternal first cousin of Jack Encell, gave an ethnicity estimate of 84% Great Britain, 6% Scandinavia, 5% Europe West, 4% Other regions. By way of comparison, the average modern native British subject has around 55-60% Great Britain in their ethnicity mix.