I just received the British Surname Atlas from Archer Software. It shows the counties & more specifically the Poor Law Unions (PLUs) with the highest frequencies of Bosleys as of the 1881 census. These locations are clues to the origins of the earliest Bosleys, since places with the highest frequencies of this surname in 1881 MAY reflect high frequencies hundreds of years earlier.

BY FAR the highest frequencies of Bosleys in 1881 were in
Ledbury, Herefordshire, and
Williton, Somerset, followed by
Newbury & Bradfield, in Berkshire.

These three locations form a triangle, with about 100 miles separating each point. Bosleys in these regions spilled out into Newent & Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, Taunton in Somerset, and several PLUs in or near Berkshire (Wallingford, Kingsclere, Wantage, Abingdon, Cookham, Thame, Henley, Easthampstead).
(I plan to put maps & tables online in the next few weeks)

The Poor Law Union of Chester is only #23 in this ranking. One might expect a higher ranking if the Manor of Bosley in Cheshire were actually the source of most British Bosleys.

I wonder if anyone has access to early parish records or other records from these locations. Who are the earliest Bosleys (or variant spellings) that can be found? Can we cooperate and put together family trees for the earliest Bosleys from each of these regions?

Are Bosleys from these four different regions (including Cheshire) all related, or do they have completely separate origins? We can learn the answer if Bosleys from these regions participate in the Bosley Surname DNA project,
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Bosley

Richard Thrift
rtx at cox dot net