If you're interested in researching the names Angliss, Anglis or Angless further, you may like to read this early history of the name Angliss, view the surname distribution maps or browse through these data tables. They show the distribution of the name Angliss by town, county and year. See the downloads page for Excel versions of this data and a full list of tables available on this site.
At present, all data is from the UK. I would welcome contributions from elsewhere.
Some of the sons of Mary-Alice and Frederick Angliss (and another unidentified person) at a family reunion c2000. The brothers also have one sister: Jean.
Let’s start off with some bad genealogy. Like John Durbeyfield in ‘Tess of the D’urbevilles every bad genealogist wants to find some ‘noble skillentons’ and it is in this spirit I claim Beneit Engliss. Beneit Engliss died in about 1350 in Nuffield, Oxfordshire where he now lies in the church. He first appears in 1310 as the mainpernor of Oxfordshire. Is he an Angliss? – perhaps we will never know but it would be nice to think so.What we do know is that the first Angliss is recorded on IGI in 1684 not that far from Nuffield in Tadley, Hampshire.
There were a number of Anglisses in the Tadley area including Dinah Angliss who married Edward Phillips in 1705. Even today Anglisses can be found in the North Hampshire, Reading and Wiltshire areas. There is no record of an Angliss in Coventry on IGI until 1765 century. We know from other sources that by the late 18th century James Angliss was living in and working in the city and throughout the 19th century there are records of Anglisses in Coventry and by the 1820s in outlying areas like Foleshill.
From 1803 records show Anglisses living in London and we know that one of James’s son was a London voter so it seems likely that members of the Coventry family had moved to London. By the mid 1800s Anglisses are seen in Nottinghamshire, London, Surrey and Reading but the main populations always remain around Warwickshire, Hampshire and London.An analysis of the 1881 Census shows that those using the spelling Angliss are mainly located in Coventry, Hampshire and London but the variant spellings are more widespread with significant populations in Yorkshire, Co Durham and Lancashire.
At no point is there a really large population of Anglisses anywhere as it remains an unusual name. For comparison in the 1881 Census 500 to 800 people per 100, 000 will bear the name Allen. . Even in the areas with the most Anglisses there are only 50 bearers of the name per 100, 000 people.
In the 21st century there are Anglisses everywhere including the USA, New Zealand and Australia. Australia was the adopted home of the most famous member of the Angliss family Sir William Angliss who has made an obscure name famous in Australia at least. Nevertheless clusters of Anglisses can still be seen in London, Hampshire and Warwickshire.
