How to Join
Please contact the project leader Greg Pedlow or leave a comment at the foot of the page. If you have any questions, just ask. Thanks!
Goals
This is a One Name Study to collect together in one place everything known about the surname Pedlow and the variants of that name (Pedloe, Pedlowe). Other possible variants include Pedlo, Pedelow, Padlow, Padloe and Padlo, but I could only list three names for the project. In older Irish records the name is sometimes used interchangeably with Pedlar or Pedley, but by the end of the 19th century these same families were all using the surname Pedlow.
Allow me to introduce myself as the project leader. My name is Gregory Wick Pedlow. I was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and have been a professional historian (Ph.D. in Modern European History) for my entire career, with my last post being NATO's chief historian from 1989 to 2015. I am now retired and living in Germany. I have been researching the history of the Pedlow surname and all known individuals bearing this name ever since 1970 and have collected data on branches of the family in Ireland, England, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Research trips to Northern Ireland in the 1970s (which was not a particularly good time for tourism there) and questionnaires sent out to all Pedlows in the United States in 1984 formed the core of my research into the various branches of the surname long before the internet existed. My hope is that other researchers like you will join this One Name Study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect.
Here is a brief summary of the origins of the surname. The name comes from the French name "Pied de Loup" (wolf's paw), which was a nickname given to Eudes de Vermandois, Seigneur de Ham in the Picardy region of France, who was born around 1030 and died in 1076. Later references to individuals with this surname (Piedeloup or Piedelou, surnames which still exist today in France) are found in the 13th and 14th centuries in old English records (French merchants from Amiens trading in England), with the names rendered in English variously as Piedelewe, Piedleu, or Piedeleu. Some books claim that these records were the first written record of the surname, but I found the record of a land grant in Ireland from 1188 mentioning "Richard and Roger Pedelow" as witnesses to the land grant (see Pedlow Name Study Image 1). The source is "The Irish Cartularies of Llanthony Prima and Secunda" (Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1953), pp. 31-32 and the photograph was provided by the former Public Record Office, now the National Archives of the UK. Thus the surname Piedeloup must have come to the British Isles as a result of the Norman Conquest or soon afterward, and then moved on to Ireland with the Norman invasion there in 1172. The surname continued to exist in the Norman-controlled part of Ireland for several centuries (in records as "de Pedelowe", "Pedelowe", or "Pedelow") and a number of medieval records mention "Richard de Pedelowe, knight" who was even bringing captured rebels from Ireland to appear before king and council in London. His will from 1349 has survived, and the date suggests that he was a victim of the Black Death that had hit England the year before. The last Pedlow reference in medieval records in Ireland or England was from 1372 (William Pedelow going to Ireland on the king's service). Afterward the family evidently declined in social status, thus no longer appeared in royal records, and I believe that the surname may have only continued to exist in England, where it is found in parish records in London, Devon, Cornwall, and Lancaster from the early 17th century onward.
The surname was reintroduced into Ireland by the mid-17th century (thus probably due to Oliver Cromwell's efforts to settle Protestants there), this time in the North, where the name continues today. In 18th and 19th century records the name was sometimes confused with Pedlar or Pedley, but later records show these same families using the name Pedlow. The surname spread throughout the English-speaking world from the 18th century onward, with Pedlows now found in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. There are now even a few of us in Germany!
I look forward to hearing from other Pedlows or Pedlow descendants.
