The origin of the Watmore and Whatmore families of Hampshire is currently unclear. It is possible that they are indigenous to the county, but no evidence has been forthcoming of a place from which they might have taken their name. The case of Whatmore township in Shropshire - long thought to be the homeland of the Shropshire family, but now shown to have no connection with their origins - warns us in any case to be wary of place name evidence.

Watmores  are to be found in Hampshire as early as 1539 at Heckfield just south of  the county boundary with Berkshire. There were Watmores at Stratfield Saye, just north of Heckfied, by 1561 and somewhat further south at Micheldever, by 1567. The Watmore families at this places may of course go back much earlier - the dates given here are the earliest records in the parish registers, few of which go back much earlier than these dates. What seems to be significant is that, with the exception of Micheldever, these 16th century Watmores are all to be found in the north of the county, not far from the Berkshire border. In Berkshire, the early parish registers show Watmores at Reading by 1565 and at Stratford Mortimer by 1579 and  at other nearby places a little later on. It seems likely, therefore, that the Hampshire and Berkshire Watmores are close kin. Not too far away to the north there were Watmoughs (later known as the Wadmore family) at Sandy in Bedfordshire by 1569.

 whatmores-in-hampshire-with-dates.jpg

Map drawn by W Hughes and published by Virtue and Co of London  as part of their ‘National Gazetter of Great Britain and Ireland’, in approximately 1865

Only DNA testing at some point in the future when this becomes cheaper and more reliable, is likely to answer the question of whether the families of Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Hampshire stem from common ancestors and indeed whether they all share kinship with the Watmough family of the north of England.

Personally I would like to think that all these families are inter-related and if we want to identify possible common ancestors I would point to the mysterious unnamed second son of John Watmoughe of Prescot, Lancashire. This unnamed son is included on the chart drawn up by the Heralds on their Visitation of Kent in 1619. I have estimated that this second son was born about  1471 . I would also point to the descendants of John Watmor who married an Elizabeth and died at Stottesdon in Shropshire about 1502  and to the descendants of Edmund Wamor who married a Joan and who died at Stottesdon in Shropshire about 1519.  Surely both John and Edmund of Stotteson had children and grandchildren - but there is no trace of them in Shropshire.

We know little about the Hampshire families other than the Watmore family which lived at Micheldever. This has been researched in detail by Derek Whatmore of Hove and this will be the subject of a future post.