Mugfords of Plymouth or Tiverton (inc. Bampton, Oakford, Stoodley)
Hi
Does any one have Mugford ancestors in the Plymouth area of South Devon that may have originated from the Tiverton area of North Devon or the Somerset border?If so then you might want to start checking records for Mogfords, because I have a theory that the Mugfords and Mogfords of Devon are perhaps one and the same family separated in the past due to the population being largely illiterate and having different regional accents.
My great-great grandfather, John Mugford, was born in Bampton c.1818 (Bampton is 5 miles east of Oakford and 15 miles north of Tiverton), but there are almost no traces of any Mugfords in Bampton, Oakford, and Tiverton...only Mogfords, so I'm toying with the idea that he may have been born a Mogford and his name inadvertently changed to Mugford when he moved to Plymouth, because he was illiterate.
My theory starts with the premise that the N.Devon accent for "Mogford" sounds like "Mugford" to someone in S.Devon and vice-versa, and because of this two different spellings for the same name appeared. As illiteracy was quite common in the C17/18th anyone that couldn't spell would have just adopted the local spelling in ignorance. For example, at a wedding registration if the groom gave his name as "Mogford" the vicar might have heard "Mugford" and so changing the name...
This fits the population demographics of the two family names from the 1851 census CD compiled by the LDS, where there are a multitude of Mugfords in Plymouth but no Mogfords and vice versa in the Bampton/Tiverton area.
So far I can't prove any of this with my family ancestry as the Bampton church records between 1814-47 are missing.
Any thoughts welcome.
Cheers,
Anthony