Becket(t)/Bicket(t)/Bichan One-Name Study

Submitted by Jim Beckett (J branch)

Recent yDNA test results at the Bicket Group of One-Name Studies have established that Hugh, 9MWD-FC1 son of James Bichet & Agnes Reyburn, born 1759, is not the spouse of Mary Tweedale.

The descendants of Hugh and Mary Tweedale are collectively the “J Branch” and are somewhat related to the “E” and “T” Branches of Fenwick and Paisley.

The Kilmarnock descendants of John Bichet and Barbara Muir are closely matched as the “G’, “P’, and “Z” Branches.

Records have not been found for Hugh’s marriage to Mary Tweedale. Birth records for nine of their children in Paisley, Renfrewshire, are attached to his Profile. Their sons, John and James relocated to Asphodel and Otonabee, Ontario, Canada in 1820 and were joined there by a sister, Jean/Jane (Bicket) Steel. Next door to James was Hugh Francis Bicket [“E” Branch] who is not specifically identified, but yDNA tests affirm he is somehow related. The mother of Hugh Francis, Jean (Morton) Borland, and her family are located a few lots away.

A prior effort to attach Hugh as the son of David Bicket (‘T’ Branch) and Margaret Watt in Fenwick has also been rendered unlikely based on yDNA results.

The Bichan origin document has been updated, to reflect obtaining further details from the book ‘Orkney Surnames’. See https://bicket.one-name.blog/wp/origins-of-becket-beckett-bicket-bickett-bichan-surnames

We deeply regret to say that Don Beckett, genealogist of the Fn branch, has passed away at 98 years of age. He was a very special person, in all respects. His son Doug has given us a link to his obituary: https://www.tubmanfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/donald-beckett, and you can leave guestbook comments there if you wish.

Don gave a presentation on his branch at the Kilmarnock reunion in August 2023. Here is a link to it for those who would like to remember: https://bicket.one-name.blog/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Fn-Branch-Donald-Clifford-Beckett.mp4

The Bichan Surname Origin Document has been updated.  You can access the updated copy at Origin of the Bichan Surname Draft of 2025 02 06.

This is also a test posting using notification type 1.  Please let me know if you have any problems receiving it, e.g., if it goes into your spam folder.

David Bicket

I have been on a multi-year journey to verify with paper evidence, as required by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), that Scotland is the birth country of my patriot ancestor William Thomas Bickett. The birth country was erroneously entered, without proper evidence, as Ireland. He married an Irish woman, Jane Hart. In the American Revolutionary War records, his name is listed as Beckett. In a 2023 trip to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, I discovered a good amount of evidence reflecting that in fact, William was born in Ayrshire. This evidence is corroborated by the baptismal records found in the Scotlands People website archives. However, the name and dates corresponding to William Thomas Bickett in the Scotlands People records are correlated to the Bichet family name. There is no hard, written proof that the Bichet name is related to either the Bicket or Bickett names from modern times. In Marion County, Kentucky, William Thomas Bickett’s three sons’ last names engraved on their markers are Bicket, not Bickett. The search for any documentation, a family Bible (preferred by the DAR) is inconclusive. This particular challenge is common as the records span over periods of time when exact written evidence is challenging to achieve, if not altogether impossible. The search continues.

This is a final blog post test prior to migrating email distribution lists to the blog distribution list. Could those people who were on the 11 January Zoom call please try to post a short blog to make sure that it works easily? Go to the blog page, and the first blog gives a link to where you can do your blog. Perhaps just explain one of your brick walls in your Becket(t)/Bicket(t)/Bichan research. If it is too complicated, please let me know how it can be improved.

My blog post is about work I have been doing on the Bichan branch of the Ayrshire Becket(t)/Bicket(t)/Bichan tree. I wrote a short article about it for the Journal of One-Name Studies, and you can read it here. I’ve also written a draft paper on the origin of the Bichan surname, which you can read here.

We will have a Zoom call of anyone interested in the Becket(t)/Bicket(t)/Bichan one-name study on Saturday 11 January 2025 at 22:00 UK time.  One topic to be covered will be the recent breakthroughs on the English Beckett tree.  If you wish to join, let us know at bicket (at) one-name.org.

We have had some major breakthroughs with the English Beckett tree.  We have been particularly lucky to learn that there were two existing Beckett Big Y DNA testers who were part of a different project.  Their earliest common ancestor is estimated by Family Tree DNA to have been born around 1050, effectively confirming the Norman origin theory for the English Beckett surname.  For the details, see the status report at Origin of the English Beckett Surname Version of 2024 12 16.

As genealogy enthusiasts we daily deal with inconsistencies, maybes and unverified assumptions. Amid all that chaos, I like to work with some numbers. Numbers might not be right, but they are real. They have value. In fact, they define value. Two is two. Or should that be 2 are 2? The numbers know what they are but the words we surround them with can cause all manner of dastardness. That might not be a word. See what I did there?

The coolest number of the day is not defined. It is the total number of people in our persons database. Currently it is a number somewhere north of 50,000 and it changes almost daily. (It would change even more often if I did my updates on time.) That is a pretty large number. Data on that number of people should be sufficient to allow us to generate some relatively useless, but fun statistics.

First let’s take a look at where all these Becketts came from. (To be certain, when I say Beckett, I do mean Becket, Bickett, Bicket, kitchen sink and all the other variants).

Given the ever-evolving family trees and a lethargic researcher, these numbers will never add up perfectly. There are also over 8,000 people for whom we either have no birthplace or we were clever enough to butcher the spelling so badly that even the all-knowing Google cannot decipher it.

Ahh! I should mention just what people make up the persons list. First of all, we have individuals fortunate enough to have the surname Beckett. This includes wives although, as is the genealogical norm, they are listed by their maiden names. It generally precludes those in the maternal line but does not entirely dismiss them. Where it was important for clarity or certainty, some maternal relatives have been included.

Becketts By Major Country

United States	19076
Canada	2897
Australia	1008
New Zealand	367
Ireland	1094
Scotland	1191
United Kingdom	517
England	14865
Blank	8157
Total	49172
Black people (included in USA totals)	1522

 

Let us break down the numbers in the USA by state. We will add in population and some other information for each state to see if that gives us any useful relationships. Besides, it creates more numbers. I like numbers.

Becketts By US State

Name and Postal Abbreviation		Population (2020)	km2		Becketts
Postal Abbreviation
Alabama	AL	5,024,279	135,767		176
Alaska	AK	733,391	1,723,337		4
Arizona	AZ	7,151,502	295,234		24
Arkansas	AR	3,011,524	137,732		228
California	CA	39,538,223	423,967		450
Colorado	CO	5,773,714	269,601		77
Connecticut	CT	3,605,944	14,357		64
Delaware	DE	989,948	6,446		118
Florida	FL	21,538,187	170,312		76
Georgia	GA	10,711,908	153,910		81
Hawaii	HI	1,455,271	28,313		10
Idaho	ID	1,839,106	216,443		41
Illinois	IL	12,812,508	149,995		1184
Indiana	IN	6,785,528	94,326		705
Iowa	IA	3,190,369	145,746		506
Kansas	KS	2,937,880	213,100		475
Kentucky	KY	4,505,836	104,656		2912
Louisiana	LA	4,657,757	135,659		79
Maine	ME	1,362,359	91,633		212
Maryland	MD	6,177,224	32,131		577
Massachusetts	MA	7,029,917	27,336		333
Michigan	MI	10,077,331	250,487		245
Minnesota	MN	5,706,494	225,163		81
Mississippi	MS	2,961,279	125,438		159
Missouri	MO	6,154,913	180,540		1199
Montana	MT	1,084,225	380,831		81
Nebraska	NE	1,961,504	200,330		68
Nevada	NV	3,104,614	286,380		11
New Hampshire	NH	1,377,529	24,214		70
New Jersey	NJ	9,288,994	22,591		608
New Mexico	NM	2,117,522	314,917		46
New York	NY	20,201,249	141,297		296
North Carolina	NC	10,439,388	139,391		194
North Dakota	ND	779,094	183,108		50
Ohio	OH	11,799,448	116,098		2050
Oklahoma	OK	3,959,353	181,037		119
Oregon	OR	4,237,256	254,799		79
Pennsylvania	PA	13,002,700	119,280		772
Rhode Island	RI	1,097,379	4,001		70
South Carolina	SC	5,118,425	82,933		471
South Dakota	SD	886,667	199,729		132
Tennessee	TN	6,910,840	109,153		372
Texas	TX	29,145,505	695,662		433
Utah	UT	3,271,616	219,882		54
Vermont	VT	643,077	24,906		30
Virginia	VA	8,631,393	110,787		833
Washington	WA	7,705,281	184,661		821
West Virginia	WV	1,793,716	62,756		1227
Wisconsin	WI	5,893,718	169,635		158
Wyoming	WY	576,851	253,335		15
United States Total Count of Becketts						19076									Total USA 19076

 

We could, and you may if you like, calculate percent of Becketts per state or Becketts per square kilometer. Hmmm…. American stats? Where’s the miles?

We can quickly note that Kentucky has the largest number of Becketts of any state despite a population of four and half million. Makes me wonder why we only have about 450 in California with a population of forty million. Or New York with a population of twenty million and only 300 Becketts.

Fun with numbers!

If you can take any of these statistics and twist them into something that may interest very dull people, please do so. And let me know!

Jim Beckett (J branch) has updated his list of videos about Family Search and WikiTree.  It is downloadable from the ‘Other Resources’ page of this website (https://bicket.one-name.blog/wp/other-resources-2).

Thank you, Jim!