connecting people
with the family names Raggatt, Raggett and other spellings
Raggatt, Raggett, Raggat,
Ragget, Ragat, Raget, Raggott, Raggot, Ragot, Raggart, Raggut, Raguet,
Raguette
and possibly Rigate,
Ragate, Rackett, Rogate, Reigate, Rygate, Rygat, Ragged, Waggett, Wregghit;
any more??
We share a name that is still
rare and we are probably all related, somehow,
- even if our ancestors
could not agree on how to spell it.
If you have an interest in the genealogy of these families, please contact me, Peter Raggatt, at raggatt2@onetel.net
Fiona Raggatt, our second daughter, has a website together with her music partner Miranda Swift sabai on 'myspace' and they are also at www.sabaifolk.com These sites have clips of the music they perform, pictures and other information about their duo 'Sabai' . They have been performing mostly in Chiang Mai and in Koh Samui in Thailand and in Edinburgh but they have also performed all over Europe and in Canada.
Tim Raggatt's website Tim has agreed to me listing his site. Click on the opening picture.
Link
to Josh and Luke Raggatt's band '~Nato'
Josh and Luke are very excited about their band and welcome listeners
and contacts.
In the l6th and 17th century there are known to have been Raggatts and Raggetts living in Sussex, Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Yorkshire. These can be found in 'Philimore's' transcriptions of parish records and elsewhere. There were a few Raggetts in Kilkenny in Ireland in the 1650s and they were small famers or tenant farmers Irish Raggetts. In the 18th and early 19th century there were a number of us living in several places in the South of England: in Hampshire in villages between Basingstoke and Farnborough, particularly in the villages of Odiham and Stratfieldsaye and, in the mid 19th century, in the village of Hambledon, though some of these spelled it Raggatt and some Raggett. There were others in the villages around Bath and Bristol particularly in the villages around Chipping Sodbury and there were some in Bristol itself. My family came from the Chipping Sodbury area and most of those whose occupations are known from 19th century census data were agricultural labourers or artisans. However there were some Raggetts at this time who seem to have been a little higher up the social scale.
It has been suggested by some that the name came into both England and Ireland from France. There is no evidence that I know of that this is true, but it may be. Where the name began is not known. I have often suggested it should really be spelled "Ragged" and was a descriptive name!
There are records of people called Raggatt, Raggett, Ragot and Raguet emigrating to North America from the late 17th century onwards and there are some modern Raggetts in USA. Some of us emigrated to Australia in the 19th century and there are a considerable number of Raggatts, nearly all related to the Chipping Sodbury family, in modern Australia.
In parish records the name is spelled in many different ways; the priest or parish registrar wrote it down as he thought they said it. But his spelling may not have been reliable! However the spelling of surnames did not become stable until the Registration of Births and Marriages in Britain became law from 1837 onwards. So spell it how you like! Watch out for transcriptions of data from census and parish records: some Raggatts in the census were transcribed as Ruggatt and other unusual ways.
The Raggatts of Chipping Sodbury (Chipping Sodbury
is north-east of Bristol)
There were Raggatts in the village of Old Sodbury
before 1696 when Edward Watts married Mary Raggett there on 8th June. Richard
Ragot was born there in 1730 and his grandson Daniel Raggatt was born there
in about 1781. Daniel married Hannah Farmer and James, one of their sons,
was born at Iron Acton near Chipping Sodbury in about 1817 and married
Ann Sargent.
The Tewkesbury Raggatts
Two of James and Ann's sons, Rufus and Henry
Raggatt, moved to Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire around 1870. There they
married and raised families. Rufus married Sarah Underwood and had 10 children
and he has many descendents living now, including the author of this website,
and there are still some Raggatts living in Tewkesbury. Henry married
Mary (possibly Morrison) and had children but later they seem to have moved
to Luton and I do not know what happened to them.
The Thornbury Raggatts
Daniel, another of James Raggatt's sons, married Elizabeth Syme and
moved with their family to Thornbury in about 1866 and had 7 children.
They have a number of descendants that I know about.
The Swansea Raggatts
James' brother William married Harriet Neale and their family moved
to Swansea where there are descendents still.
The Australian Raggatts
Thomas Raggatt, James' youngest brother married Annie Stephens on 21st
May 1848 at Marshfield and that same summer they emigrated to Australia,
arriving at Port Adelaide on 28th December 1848. There they settled and
had 11 children and a number of them settled in Strathalbyn, near Adelaide.
There are now many people descended from them still living in Australia
and I know about some of these.
In addition, Fred Raggatt, youngest son of James Raggatt of Chipping Sodbury, emigrated to Australia and settled in Alice Springs. He married Annie Beatrice Cluny in 1902 and they had a daughter, so his descendents do not have the surname Raggatt. Fred was a 'founding father' of Alice Springs in central Australia and it is fair to say was 'an interesting character' about whom a lot of anecdotes are known.. Some native Australians who lived on his 'station' (ranch) took the name Raggatt but whether these are blood relations or not is unknown. Anyway it does not matter. We all share the name.
Francis (Frank), an older brother of Fred, also emigrated and married Charlotte Kenny in South Australia in 1872. They had a family but I do not know whether they have modern-day descendents.
The Bristol Raggatts and their descendents in
Australia
Jacob and Rebecca Raggatt lived in Bristol in the early 19th century
but it is not known exactly how or if Jacob was related to James and Thomas.
Their son Edward emigrated to Australia and married Juliana Oldenberg.
They have a few descendants in Australia. One of these was a very distinguished
scientist and a member of the government of Australia in the 1940s and
1950s, Sir Harold Raggatt. However he had only daughters so the name died
out in this branch.
The UK Raggetts
There are a rather larger group of people with the surname Raggett
who lived around Farnborough and in Hambledon in Hampshire but I do not
know much about their part of the family or how they are connected. In
the early 19th century, George Raggett ran 'White's Club', a gambling and
social club for rich men in London George
Raggett of White's Club .
The American Raggetts
There are some Raggetts in USA, all related it seems. Some people of
the name Raggett are known to have emigrated from UK to USA and the
modern Raggetts of USA are connected to them. I am in contact with some
of them. This branch believes that they originated from the village of
Ballyragget in southern Ireland and although there is proof that there
were Raggetts in Kilkenny in about 1650, I do not know of actual links
from the Raggetts of Kilkenny to the modern American Raggetts.
Other descendents
In England, it was always customary for a wife to take the surname
of her husband and children took the surname of their father. So there
are many of our relatives who do not have the surname Raggatt because they
descended from Raggatt women and so they are much harder to trace. In fact
it is the comparative rarity of the name Raggatt/Raggett that makes it
possible to trace so many of those who carry it. Nevertheless we have a
great crowd of relatives whom we do not know because they do not have the
name. Speaking as a scientist, it is now absolutely clear that all humans
of all 'races' are very closely related genetically. All humans are our
relatives. It is best if we are all at peace with each other!