Welcome to the
'Drax, Dracas(s) & Drakes'
family history website
drakesfamily.org
Please see my 'Contact' page re email address.
Drax and Drakes are synonymous, and Dracas is their Latin form.
These are mainly North Lincolnshire, and nearby West Yorkshire, surnames with descendants worldwide.
[NB. These surnames are NOT usually related to the surname 'DRAKE'; please see below]
"Pride in family is pride in ordinary people - who in our hearts and minds become extraordinary." Anon
Last updated: 7th January 2021; all hyperlinks were last verified & updated on 9th October 2020.
arms by Chris Drakes
The Drax (Drakes) Arms & Crest, with Motto Scroll 'Mort en droit'
Chequy or and az. On a chief gu. Three ostrich feathers in plume issuant of the first.
Crest: A demi dragon with wings endorsed or, out of his mouth a scroll with Motto: 'Mort en droit'.
'Mort en droit', which is French and literally translates into English as, 'Death in Law' or 'Death in Right'.
It should be noted here that coats of arms are granted to individuals and their direct male-line descendants and are not attached to surnames. So, having the same surname as that associated with a particular coat of arms does not automatically give you any right to use them as your own. The College of Arms website is very interesting and well worth exploring; see college-of-arms.gov.uk
Photo by Chris Drakes in March 2012
The College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street, London, EC4V 4BT
It is about a quarter mile south of St. Paul's Cathedral, near The Millenium Bridge over the river Thames.
Introduction
I am currently conducting a worldwide one-name study of the surnames 'Drax', 'Dracas', 'Dracass' & 'Drakes' and similar phonetic spellings, but excluding most people named 'Drake'. I have 4,900 pages of trees and notes, plus numerous other files containing various source notes on which the trees are based. These records are still growing on a daily basis. I would be very pleased to hear from anyone related to, or researching, these surnames. It is very likely that I will have all your 'Drakes, Dracas(s), Drax' ancestors in these records.
I am extremely grateful to all the members of our extended family, worldwide, who have kindly shared their own research, family papers, official documents, family histories, and even the latest new additions to the family. I am always pleased to add such information to these records 'for posterity', even baby photos and birth weights. Please see 'Contact' page regarding privacy of such current data; for these reasons I have not acknowledged them all by name on this website, but have done so in my records.
In the 1881 Census there were only 96 'Drakes' households in the UK, representing 281 people of all ages. In the 2001 UK Census, there were 251 'Drakes' households in the UK, representing 396 people of voting age (plus children); there were also 17 'Drax', 7 'Dracas', and 23 'Dracass'. As a point of interest, the UK population during the 2001 UK Census was 58,789,194, so they are fairly scarce surnames.
The 2011 UK Census is likely to be the last in the UK, as other methods are available in the computer age that provide better and more accurate data.
NB. 'Drake' is not the same name as 'Drakes', though examples of the loss or gain of the all-important 's' are found in both names. Many family history publications and websites claim that 'Drakes' has evolved from 'Drake' and 'Draca', whereas it actually evolved from 'Drax'. Unlike 'Drake' which is common throughout the UK, the earliest known progenitors of each of the 'Drax', 'Dracas(s), and 'Drakes' lines are restricted to north Lincolnshire and a small part of nearby West Yorkshire.
The only publication that I have seen to date, which has a possibly correct origin for these surnames, is: Dictionary of English & Welsh Surnames, by Charles Wareing Bardsley, 1901, page 252 shows, ‘Drax’, and its variation ‘Drakes’, is a local name, meaning ‘of Drax’, which is a valley near Selby, co. York. This being said, Drax village is of Roman (or pre-Roman) origin; the manor was held by the Paynell family for several centures. The surname may actually have a French origin, and become Anglicized after their arrival in Britain, as the 16th-century Herald's Visitations show that the 'Drax' family came from Normandy in 1154 with Henry II - I have considered the possibility that the French surname may have come from the family names 'Draix' or 'Dreux'; 'de Raix' being unlikely from what I have researched, and that it may not have originated from Drax village in Yorkshire.
It is interesting that Stainton le Vale (Stainton le Hole, Stainton in ye Hole), South Kelsey, Tealby (Tevelby) and Middle Rasen Drax (Middle Rasen Drakes) are all in Walshcroft wapentake in Lindsey, Lincolnshire. It may be that the family connection with this area was linked to the ownership of Middle Rasen Drax by Drax Priory, Yorks., which is not far from the Drax family of Woodhall, Darfield, Yorks. The families with the surnames Drax, Dracas(s), Drakes are all easily linked by water via the river Ouse, river Trent, river Ancholme, and the Humber Estuary.
There is a possibility that some of the 'Drax (Drakes)' may descend from mediaeval priests named 'de Drax', who may have taken the name from Drax Priory, rather from the original Norman Drax (Drakes) line, though these may well be the same, as there were also 'Drax' priests in that family.
The statue of Sir Francis Drake at Tavistock, Devon, and his Coat of Arms at Buckland Abbey
[NB. These are not related to the Drax, Dracas(s), Drakes families of Yorkshire & Lincolnshire]
If you are interested in the 'Drake' families, there is an interesting website with a wide range of heraldic items; see: Coabd
The Arms of a 'Francis Drake' on a 19th century bookplate
NB. Whilst there is no documentary evidence to connect the ancient 'Drake' families with the ancient 'Drax / Dracas(s) / Drakes' families, worldwide, there are a some 'Drakes' in Cornwall & Devon, who are apparently not related to the other 'Drax / Dracas(s) / Drakes' lines and may be descended from 'Drake'; they might even be related to Sir Francis Drake.
Fellow researchers into the various Drax, Dracas(s), Drakes lines
I would like to record my appreciation for the extensive help received from Jean Drakes, of the Isle of Axholme line in north west Lincolnshire, who was the first person to share her research with me since the invention of the Internet. Many others have kindly shared details of their family histories, far too many to mention them all here, but I must thank the following who gave me extensive help with their lines: David Smith, whose wife is a member of the 'Lincolnshire Wolds' Drakes; Christine Hood & Rupert Drake of the 'Winteringham' Drakes line; Merrilyn Dracass & Shirley Ruiter (of Canada) of the Old Clee & Hagworthingham Dracas(s) line.
There are many instances of the addition or loss of the all-important 's' in both surnames in error, especially in the 'Drax/Drakes/Drake' family originating in the Burton upon Stather & Winteringham areas of north Lincolnshire. I had been unable to link the 'Drakes' data that I had in this tree, as the 'missing' names were all 'Drake' and were interspersed right through the tree, flicking back and forth between the two spellings right through to the present day. My thanks are hereby acknowledged to Rupert Drake for kindly sharing his work on this particular tree and helped to bring it all together. I have since managed to link Jean Drakes' giant Isle of Axholme 'Drakes' tree into this one, thus forming the biggest tree that I have to date. I suspect that all other 'Drax', Dracas(s)', and 'Drakes' trees (except Cornwall & Devon) will also link to this tree one day - maybe it will take DNA to link them where documentary evidence has failed. [see my Y-DNA Project]
DNA origin of my own 'Dracas' / 'Drakes' line
My direct-line male 'Drakes' ancestors were the descendants of the first modern humans who entered Europe during the Upper Paleolithic period, about 35,000-40,000 years ago, from the Caucasus Mountains [the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, covering modern Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the tip of southern Russia]. They were the Cro-Magnons ['Anatomically Modern Human' (AMH) or 'Early Modern Human' (EMH)] whose descendants 20,000 years ago were painting in the caves of southern France and northern Spain. I also have a match with modern Basque DNA in my overall DNA; their language is believed to be the last remnant of the Cro-Magnon language. My Y-DNA is haplogroup R1b3* [now known as R1b1b2], which is one of the most common in modern Europe. [see My DNA & Y-DNA Project]
Documentary origin of these four surnames
Whilst undertaking family research, and especially if you cannot find someone, it is important to remember that dialect has a large part to play in the corruption of names. So, as people moved around the country the locals may have recorded their spoken name differently. The local parish records were usually written by the priest, who often came from another part of the country; he would record what he heard, as he thought it should be written to make that sound. Phonetic spellings play a very large part in such records. For similar reasons, there are also wide variations between Parish Registers and the Bishops Transcripts of them, indicating that one person read the registers whilst another wrote the name down in the new copy. Since spellings were phonetic, even those copied by one person would have had spelling differences between the original and the transcript; this may also have occurred again when these copies were entered into the Diocesan books.
The first Parish Registers were introduced in Toledo, Spain in 1497, though it wasn't until 1563 that orders were circulated by the Roman Catholic Church that Baptism and Marriage Registers should be kept. The first Church of England Parish Baptism, Marriage & Burial Registers were introduced on 5.9.1538, but their survival was very poor during the early decades. It wasn't until 1598 that orders were circulated to keep these records in decent books; some early Parish records were dutifuly copied into the new books, but most weren't and the majority of early records haven't survived. Some Parish Priests failed to keep proper Parish Registers. Transcripts of the Parish Registers were made locally each month and sent off to the Bishop for the respective Diocese - these are known as the Bishop's Transcripts. Many of the early Register books were lost, damaged, or destroyed during the English Civil War, and have not survived prior to the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Even then, the storage of many of these Parish Registers, and the poor quality of ink used in them, has resulted in many 17th & 18th century records being lost.
The Bishops Transcripts were frequently used for the IGI and, as such, are not necessarily identical to the original Parish Registers; this especially is so regarding spellings. This is the case with the 1774 marriage of Daniel Dracas (Drakas), whose entry in the Tealby Parish Register is 'Draykas' and in the Bishops Transcripts for Tealby as 'Drakehas'. His 1738 baptism at South Kelsey is shown in the Bishops Transcripts, and thus the IGI, as 'Drakehurst'. According to GRO and the Tealby Parish Register, he died in 1822 at Market Rasen and was buried as 'Dracas'. His children all eventually became 'Drakes'. As I have spent over 35 years working on these surnames, I am in no doubt that these refer to the same individual. I have yet to find out why the 'Dracas' family left Stainton-le-Vale about 1674 and moved to South Kelsey; it may have been due to the lack of a tenancy in the village for the father to rent to support his young family, but is more likely to be due to land-clearance for sheep. However, since I cannot find an occupation for him, and since I am frequently reminded that many of the early Drax (Drakes) family were married priests; maybe he was a village Curate? As a result of a marriage, the family moved to Tealby in 1774, after 100 years in South Kelsey. It is an interesting fact that their 'Drakes' descendants eventually became the 'Lords of the Manor' at Stainton-le-Vale in the mid-1880s, about 200 years after they left the village.
'Drakes' appears to have begun as 'Drax', which was interchangeable with 'Drakes' in the 16th century Herald's Visitations of Yorkshire; there are several versions of the same family tree, most showing 'Drax' and at least one showing 'Drakes' for the same family. In other 16th century records, various names ending in 'x' can also be found ending in 'kes'. One such example is John Knox (1513-72), who was recorded on a contemporary woodcut as 'Knokes'.
Middle Rasen Parish Church, Lincolnshire c.1910
'Middle Rasen Drax' is also recorded as 'Middle Rasen Drakes'. An interesting note about accents is that several modern French people have recently been heard to pronounce the name 'Mr. Drakes' as 'Monsieur Drakus' or 'Monsieur Drax'; I have also recently heard locals in the Mayenne area of France pronounce 'Drakes' as 'Drax'. These are further evidence of the names being interchanged due to accent, even today.
According to the phonetic spellings of the surnames Drax, Drakes, Dracass, & etc., that I have found in use prior to the standardization of English spellings about the mid-18th century, it is apparent that 'Dra....' in these names was pronounced, 'Dray....'; besides 'Dra...' it is found spelt as 'Dray...' and 'Drai....', which further proves the point. The second part of the surname '....x', '....kes', & '....cas' was apparently pronounced as, 'ks', and evolved into, '....kas', '....ckas', '....cass', '....cus', '....kehas', and even into '....kehurst' and '....kehouse'. People's accents have got a lot to answer for in corrupting the spelling of numerous other surnames as well!
Having taken this on board, try pronouncing 'Drax' with 'Dray...' at the beginning and you get 'Draykes' and 'Draycas'. A modern example being the 2001 Eurovision Song Contestant Lindsay Dracass, who states that her name is pronounced 'Draycass'. Whilst on the subject of music, there are also two others in the music industry: musician Bernhard Drax: bernharddrax.com & the singer Anthony Drakes.
I believe that these four surnames are of the same origin, having evolved from 'Drax' into 'Dracass', 'Dracas', and 'Drakes', plus several other similar phonetic spelling variations, such as, Draykas, Drackes, Dracuss, Dracus, Drakehas, and Draks. There is even a miss-transcription on the LDS 1881 Census CD-Rom, where 'Dracas' is shown as 'Draias'.
The origin of 'Drax' as a surname may well have evolved from 'de Drax' (i.e. of Drax), of which there are several medieval instances. Drax village, which is near Selby, Yorkshire, is of Roman or pre-Roman origin, so whilst the surname may have come from the village, the village name did not come from the surname, at least not in the last 878 years!
The earliest person named 'Drax', whom I have in my records, was born in 1126 in Normandy [see the early part of his tree in 'Trees' page]; he came over to England with Henry II in 1154, having visited prior to that with Henry's mother Empress Matilda (Maud, Maude) during her attempts to gain the throne from King Stephen. Her father, Henry I, had named her as heiress and not her cousin Stephen; those in authority didn't fancy having a queen when they could choose a king, so they crowned Stephen in her place.
There is a slight possibility that the original spelling of this surname may have been 'de Raix', though a great deal more research needs to be done to prove this either way; see Trees.
I would really appreciate hearing from anyone with access to a list of those who came over with Henry II, or his mother Matilda. I am especially interested in anything about those that Henry II gave lands to 'in Kent' about 1154, and those who were Captains of Falaise in the 12th to 14th centuries. I would also appreciate details of the six or so knights who followed Henry Plantagenet of Normandy (Henry II) from the days of his youth until he became King of England.
The 'Drax' family appears to have spread into Lincolnshire and the Isle of Axholme via the rivers Humber and Trent. Prior to the building of reasonable roads throughout England, the rivers were the 'motorways' of communication and trade.
Drax village gave its name to Drax Priory, which was founded between 1130 and 1139 by William Paynel, as a House of Augustinians or Black Canons. Several of the persons surnamed 'de Drax' may have been former priests at Drax Priory, though it is more likely that they were of the Drax household or Drax manor. The Drax family of Darfield were landed-priests in the 16th century and were descended from this early line.
The Paynel family were the lords of Drax, and a female Pannell (Paynel?) married into the 'Drax' family; so, this may be the origin of the medieval surname 'Drax.' If so, the 'Drax' born in 1126, mentioned above, was known by a different surname when he arrived in England. The problem here is that I only have access to information about them in the 16th century Herald's trees, and two 14th century references to two brothers who fought alongside The Black Prince at Poitiers and The Battle of Navarette; the latter brother was knighted, but was later killed.
arms by Chris Drakes
The Drax Arms & Crest, with Motto Scroll, as they appear in the 16th century Herald's Visitation and in colour.
Chequy or and az. On a chief gu. Three ostrich feathers in plume issuant of the first.
Crest: A demi dragon with wings endorsed or, out of his mouth a scroll with Motto: 'Mort en droit'.
There are similarities between the arms of the Drax family and those of the Comtes de Dreux; see below. However this similarity may not be relevant, as there are a limited number of colour and design combinations used in heraldry and there are also similarities between these and the arms of three Lincolnshire Local Councils: Stamford Town Council, Borough of Grantham, and South Kesteven District Council, which are apparently unconnected with either the 'Drax (Drakes)' family or the 'Comtes de Dreux'. This being said, there are links between the de Warrene family and the Canmore Kings of Scotland, about the time that the first known 'Geoffrey Drax (Drakes) of Conmora' was alive; see 'Trees'. There is a slight possiblity that this 'Geoffrey Drax (Drakes) of Conmora', who was born in Normandy in 1126, was somehow related to the 'Canmore' family (Kings of Scotland) and either the 'Comtes de Dreux' and/or 'de Warenne' families (both of which married into the Scottish Royal line), and that his descendant, when knighted by The Black Prince, added the 'Prince of Wales feathers' to their arms? [This is just speculation, but this line of thought may, hopefully one day, result in the discovery of something concrete about the family origin!]
shield by Chris Drakes
The 'Drax (Drakes)' arms, the arms of the 'Comtes de Dreux', and the arms of 'de Warenne'.
The arms of 'Stamford Town Council', 'Borough of Grantham' & 'South Kesteven District Council', which were derived from the de Warenne family, who held the Manors of Stamford and Grantham in Lincolnshire.
The German 'Drax' arms from Siebmacher’s Wappenbuch Vol. V.07. Bürgerliche Wappen, page 3.
Prior to 1066, most Anglo-Saxon thegns didn't use surnames; when a place-name was added to a name, it merely meant that was where he came from. However, when the Normans used a place-name as a surname, it was a statement of ownership of that place; i.e. all the land plus the entire community and animals on it. Also, the Anglo-Saxons considered their land and possessions as belonging to their extended family, thus continually dividing their estates between heirs. However, the Normans left everything to a single heir or heiress, usually their eldest son; this was known as 'primogeniture' and often left younger sons almost penniless. For this reason, the younger male and most female 'Drax' (Drakes) descendants were not mentioned in trees and this has caused the difficulty in linking the several Lincolnshire trees to the nearby early West Yorkshire line.
After the Norman Conquest, and the end of Anglo-Saxon rule alongside the Viking 'Danelaw', England was at last to united under one King and he was the Norman descendant of Vikings. The word ‘Norman’ is a contraction of ‘north men’, and ‘Normandy’ is ‘the land of the Northmen’; the name comes from the Latin Normannorum – Northmen; Normannica - Northman.
After 1066, it was common practice for Anglo-Normans to adopt a surname based on their estate in England, and then change it when gaining further estates upon marriage. In the mid-14th century, many people throughout England gave their surnames as the names of their native villages, or the village where they held land by inheritance or marriage. Even as late as the mid-17th century, some people still used two or more different surnames, one often by birth, the other(s) relating to land they held.
If the 'Drakes', 'Drax', 'Dracas' & 'Dracass' names originate from former residents of Drax village in Yorkshire, it seems very likely that one or more branches of these families are not related via male-line descent from one male, unless the surname was only used by the descendants of the Lord of Drax Manor.
The surname may have originated elsewhere, by males using it as a surname having already left the village of their birth, and thus not within the Drax village community; this could be one possible explanation of the lack of reference to the surname in the Drax village history.
Another possibility, as suggested above, is that the surname could be 'adopted' by the husband of a female 'Drax/Drakes/Dracas/Dracass' heiress, thus breaking the DNA 'Y chromosome' link but not the overall genetic one. My own Y-Chromosome Haplo-group is 'R1b’, with an exact match for the ‘Atlantic modal haplotype’. [see DNA page]
'Drakes', 'Drax', 'Dracas' and 'Dracass' are rare surnames and most lines (worldwide) can be traced back to North Lincolnshire, or in the nearby Yorkshire West Riding, in England. The total area concerned is only 50 miles wide by 20 miles high, and is immediately below the river Humber.
The Jacobean house known as 'Drax Hall', Barbados
The main exceptions to this are those 'Drakes' who originate in Barbados, West Indies; these appear to have taken their surname from the Drax Hall Estate, a 17th century sugar plantation started by a descendant of the earliest-known Drax line. [See 'Ellerton, Charborough & Olantigh' page for further information] On initial arrival at the sugar plantations, after the Atlantic crossing from Africa, slaves were usually given new European first names, as opposed to their original African ones, and usually had no surname. In later generations, especially after the abolition of slavery, they frequently took the surname of their former 'owner' or the name of the estate on which they worked. The other main way that a former slave took a 'white' surname was if they were the child of that person. Some, who were born in captivity, were sired by 'whitemen', frequently by the rape of their mother. Some were the 'love-children' of white-men by female slaves, and these were often treated well and could sometimes be set up locally in business, or even brought back to England and given homes with carriages and servants in the West Country well away from the sight of London 'Society'. However, the majority of black-white offspring just became new slaves for the plantations. As they belonged to neither community, they frequently lived nearer to the slave-owner's house than the other slaves. After emancipation, their situation was little changed, as they usually continued to do the same work for the same masters, though by then for some form of payment. Numerous former slaves' descendants carry the DNA of their African and European ancestors, often with more European than African DNA, and some males will still have the male-line white European Y-DNA of their original white ancestor [see book below for further information]. It is interesting to note that there are no 'Drax' residents shown in the present Barbados phone book, but there are numerous 'Drakes', who were presumably once connected to the Drax Estate. One Barbadian, Vasbert Conniel Drakes, has played for several UK cricket teams, as well as for the West Indies.
Vasbert Conniel Drakes, the Barbadian cricketer and his 1995 autograph.
Tracing your West Indian Ancestors – Public Record Office Reader’s Guide, by Guy Grannum, published by PRO The National Archives, at £14.99, has a brilliant list of possible surname origins under the heading, 'Surname practices of slaves and freedmen and women is complicated and can have several origins'.
Click the hyperlinks below to see more about West Indian research:
Caribbean Surnames Index [NB. There is a searchable name index in the list, with some no 'Drax', 'Dracas(s)' or 'Drakes' the last time I checked]
The earliest 'Drakes' entries found for each Barbados parish are: 1689 St. Michael; 1750 St. Thomas; 1836 St. James; 1842 St. Andrew; 1849 St. George; 1858 St. Peter; 1859 St. Joseph; 1860 Christ Church; 1861 St. John; 1866 St. Philip; none in St. Lucy.
Just to show you what family records can be easily lost, I have included my maternal great great grandfather's biography; he was Albert Wish Davis, who sailed the world on sailing ships in the 1840s. (see 'Sailor's life' page)
Robert Drakes, or Drake, Rector of Thundersley, Essex, was martyred on 24.4.1556. He was burned at the stake in 1556, under the reign of 'Bloody Mary,' for not accepting the newly restored Roman Catholic faith. Her father Henry VIII had previously ended the dominance of the Roman Catholic faith and instituted the Protestant faith in the form of the 'Church of England'. (see 'Martyr' page)
Jeremy Thomas Bailey (1941-1965) was an Antarctic researcher. (see 'Jeremy's page')
Other lines of family history research:
Since 1970, my wife and I have been working on all our ancestral lines, including: Andrews, Anton, Armitage, Bailey, Baker, Barker, Barmby, Becham (Bechem, Beachem, Beacham), Bowden, Bower, Branscombe, Branton, Brook, Brooke, Brooks, Butler, Cade, Calladine (Caladine), Carrit, Churcher, Compton, Connell (Cunnell), Cottier, Cotton (Colton), Counter, Craggs (Crags), Craven, Crossley (Crosley), Culliford, Dancer, Davis, Dixon, Dorrans (Durance), Dowland, Downynge, Drakes (Dracas, Drakehurst, Drakehas, Draykas) [my father's direct male-line is Cro Magnon Y-DNA], Dyer, Elder, Farrer (Farrah), Fuge, Furlong, Gill, Hankes (Hankens), Hardwicke, Hargrave (Hargraves, Hargreaves), Harrison, Harvey, Heeves, Hermitage, Hill, Hunter, Huntly, Jay, Jenner, Kearley (Kerly, Kearly, Kerley), Keef, Knight, Long, Madken, Marshall, Matkin, Milns (Milnes), Mitchell, Morison, Morrison [Viking DNA], Moss, Musgrave, Nash, Newcombe, Noden (Nodin), Northway (Northwaye), Oldfield, O'Regan, Osborne, Parson, Place, Pollard, Poppleton, Potter, Priddis, Prideaux, Prince, Rhodes, Richardson, Ricketts, Rowlinson, Shead, Siswick (Syswick, Sedgwick, Sedgsweeke), Smith, Smithers, Soper, Spry, Statham, Stevenson, Styles, Tachell (Pechsil), Talbot, Taply (Tapley), Tatum, Tizzard, Trend, Turpin, Welsford, Wheatley, Wheeler, White, Wildsmith, Williams, Wish, Worthington, Wright.
I am currently working on the following one-name studies:
Calladine (Caladine) family of Derbyshire. I have recently begun to extract all records for the various lines in Derbyshire and have started building trees and trying to link them. I have 77 pages of trees and notes, so far.
Crossley family of Yorkshire. I have begun to build two small trees for the families associated with Crossley Carpets and Crossley Cars, in an attempt to link them to two other trees, both of which are rumoured to be related; I have 528 pages of trees and notes.
Culliford families of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset & Somerset (the area known within England as 'The West Country'), which now runs to 62 pages of trees and notes. I have recently begun to build trees for this surname, and am attempting to link them to the 16th century Cullford line at the Encombe Estate at Worth Matravers, Isle of Purbeck, Dorset.
Drax, Dracas(s), Drakes worldwide. This is my main one-name study and it currently runs to 4,510 pages of trees and notes, plus numerous sources notes and files. My own paternal-line runs from 1602 as: Dracas, Drakehurst, Draykas, Drakehas, Dracas, Drakes; it probably began as Drax, with a phonetic spelling of 'x', as in 'kes'. The exception to this phonetic spelling of Drakes (Drax) is 'Drakehurst', which is one of several wierd surname miss-spellings found in the South Kelsey Parish Register during the 18th century.
Priddis & Prideaux families of Devon and Cornwall, which currently runs to 426 pages of trees and notes.
Siswick, Syswick, Sedgwick, Sedgsweeke, & etc. families of Yorkshire, which now runs to 291 pages of trees and notes.
I have several large trees in the UK, covering 1126-2010, and numerous smaller ones, plus a large amount of 'unattached' data. I would appreciate any help that anyone can give me and I would be really pleased to receive any information about these families, no matter how small. This really is a giant jigsaw puzzle and the tiniest piece of information can often link much larger ones.
I would be very pleased to hear from anyone interested in any of these families, and I am willing to help where I can.
Chris Drakes
"A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favour is better than silver or gold."
Proverbs 22:1 - New Revised Standard Version Bible.
