The Coldridge families of Devon
This web site is an ongoing project to document the history and genealogy of the COLDRIDGE, COLERIDGE and COLRIDGE families of Devon and their descendants in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the US.
Most families have a customary spelling of their surname, but in many cases the spelling has changed over time, or according to geographical location, so the following is a brief history. In parish registers of the 1600s the usual spelling is COLRIDGE or COLDRIDGE, and both surnames are found in Drewsteignton, Dunsford and Exeter. During the 1700s the spelling settles towards COLDRIDGE in Doddiscombsleigh and Dunsford, COLRIDGE in North Bovey and COLERIDGE in Crediton.
By the early 1800s the spelling COLERIDGE is found more widely, in Exeter, in West Teignmouth, and in Ottery St Mary. Throughout the 1800s all three surnames become more dispersed as families migrate within Devon, to London and other parts of the UK, and after 1840 to Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.
More information about the geographical distribution of surnames can be found in COLDRIDGE, COLERIDGE and COLRIDGE surnames in Devon records.
Family records
Families are grouped according to the location of the families in the early 1800s, and the surname shown is the most common spelling for that family group. Note that spelling is often inconsistent in the early records, and individual families may permanently adopt a different spelling. Links to the following family groups can also be found on the top menu:
Doddiscombsleigh COLDRIDGE families.
Exeter COLDRIDGE / COLERIDGE families.
North Bovey COLRIDGE families.
West Teignmouth COLERIDGE families.
Ottery St Mary COLERIDGE families.
For each family group, there is a family tree which provides links to the individual family records. Details for each family are presented chronologically to hopefully provide more narrative than can be included in a family tree alone. My research so far covers almost all of the COLDRIDGE, COLRIDGE and COLERIDGE families of Devon origin in the census records up to 1911. This is still a work in progress so comments, corrections and additions are all welcome.
Information sources
My primary sources of information are the online parish registers, BMD and census records. Supplementary information sources are the UK probate summaries and newspaper archives, together with additional material provided by a few individual contributors.
Devon parish registers from 1600 to 1837.
UK BMD indexes from 1837 onwards.
UK censuses from 1841 to 1911.
UK probate summaries from 1860 to around 1970.
Canada BMD records from 1850 to 1930 and censuses from 1851 to 1921.
US BMD records and censuses from 1880 to 1940.
New Zealand BMD records from 1875 to around 1950.
Newspaper archives from the UK, Canada, India, South Africa and New Zealand.
Where possible, I have checked the original document images to verify the accuracy of the online transcripts. Links to many of the online sources can be found in Acknowledgments.
Background
This web site was created after I had traced my own COLDRIDGE family's roots to the village of Doddiscombsleigh in Devon. Early in my research I discovered that most of the COLDRIDGE families in the census records of the 1800s had their roots in Doddiscombsleigh, and the remainder could be traced back to Dunsford, a few miles to the north, so my goal was to document these families.
However, as I pieced together the Doddiscombsleigh and Dunsford COLDRIDGE family trees, I inadvertently included several COLRIDGE and COLERIDGE families as the three surnames were frequently mis-transcribed. So I began to record any COLRIDGE and COLERIDGE families I found to help me disentangle the surnames, and what started off as research into my own family slowly expanded to cover all three surnames and their Devon origins.
Other information
James Thomas Houssemayne Du Boulay researched one branch of the Exeter COLERIDGE families and in 1900 produced a family tree, a transcript of which can be found here at Du Boulay's Coleridge of Devon.
Background information relating to the statutory records can be found in the Census dates and Births, marriages & deaths pages.