Welcome to the Brogden Family History Website

The aim is to forge links with Brogdens, Brogdons, Brogdans, Bragdons and Brogdins worldwide and to gather information about how these branches relate.

This website has been developed over the years by Mike Brogden and represents a great deal of research into the Brogden family history. Mike sadly passed away at the end of August 2020. His eldest son Iain will continue to maintain the website and you are welcome to email.

There are Brogd*ns in England, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, France, Canada, South Africa and the USA.

Brogden (and its variants) seems to be a relatively unusual surname and therefore ripe for a one-name study...

Brogden was (and continues to be) a rural place name, near Barnoldswick, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is now in the county of Lancashire. The Oxford Dictionary of Place Names (Ekwall; 1966) lists Brogden and its first documented mention as Brokden (1307 in the Pudsay Deeds). Brogden = brook dene = the valley of the brook. In the Yorkshire West Riding edition of Phillimore's English Surnames Series (George Redmonds; 1973) Brogden is identified as a distinctive local surname, which "flourished in the rural north of the Riding" and can be found in the 1379 poll tax records. It's not to be confused with "Brockden" which relates to badgers. George Redmonds believes that geographical surnames such as Brogden originate in one family. In that case, we are all related. Only DNA can establish this relationship.

A search of the 1999 UK electoral registers reveals nearly 1000 Brogdens of voting age (see the Brogden Ancestry section of this website). In addition, some 25 people in the UK who spell the name with don rather than den are listed. Brogden family history researchers in the USA, however, find as many Brogdons as Brogdens. Interestingly, Brogdon prevails in South Carolina and Brogden in North Carolina. In Australia and New Zealand, the den spelling prevails.

Variations of spelling are problematic. Some may be Brogdens but some may be other surnames; for example, Brogan, a Scottish surname, is not related to the Brogdens. Nor are surnames beginning with Brock, which has a different origin.

Elsewhere on this website are snippets of information, articles and stories about Brogdens who have shown talent as pioneers, traders, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs, performers and politicians. Some of them have towns, buildings or streets named in their honour. Some, on the other hand, are noted for being teenage tearaways or the sort of criminal who was transported from England for stealing a loaf of bread. And many Brogdens perished in two world wars, especially in the first.

Many thanks to all our emailers and letter writers. As the Brogden data grows, it is becoming possible to find information for various branches of the family. For example, as a result of the painstaking collection of information by John Brogden who now lives in York (and who generously shared all of his researches), we were able to fill in a missing link for a family in Australia and to find out what happened to a grandson of the John Brogden, of railways, iron and coal mines fame. This grandson, Duncan Dunbar Brogden was thought to have been lost in India; he in fact died in Brighton, a couple of years after losing both his daughter and his wife in childbirth.

It is so pleasing that this website encourages Brogdens from around the world to make contact. Messages also arrive from people who are not actively researching Brogdens but who have found information that they hope will be useful. It always is!

If you have information or queries about any Brogdens/dons/dans/dins please email.

Click here for news about the Brogden DNA Testing Project.

Click here for information about a self-catering holiday flat in South Shropshire, UK.