Dorset will forever be associated with the writings of Thomas Hardy, whose novels evoke an essentially rural way of life, changing little even with the coming of the railways in his era. The county has traditionally had few large population centres – the major town of Bournemouth only joined the county from Hampshire in 1974.

The county certainly has an ancient heritage – settlement here dates back to Stone Age times, and there are many hill forts, burial mounds and megaliths still bearing witness to prehistoric times.

Dorset is one of the ancient shires of England, with the boundaries drawn up in Saxon times and with few changes since. The Vikings raided in the 8th century. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, feudal rule was established in Dorset and the bulk of the land was divided between the Crown and ecclesiastical institutions. Over the next 200 years Dorset’s population grew substantially and additional land was enclosed for farming to provide the extra food required. The devastating Black Death arrived in England here, at Melcombe Regis in 1348.

Although a quiet, rural area, Dorset has seen much civil unrest: during the English Civil War an uprising of vigilantes was crushed by Cromwell’s forces in a pitched battle near Shaftesbury; the Duke of Monmouth’s doomed rebellion began at Lyme Regis (followed by Judge Jeffreys’ famous Bloody Assizes in Dorchester to punish the rebels); and a group of farm labourers (the Tolpuddle Martyrs) as instrumental in the formation of the trade union movement.

The Dorsetshire Regiment was the first British unit to face a gas attack during World War One and they sustained particularly heavy losses at the Battle of the Somme. In total some 4,500 Dorset servicemen died in the war and of the county’s towns and villages, only one, Langton Herring, is one of the nation’s ‘Thankful Villages’ where no residents were killed.

During World War Two, Dorset was heavily involved in the preparations for the invasion of Normandy and the large harbours of Portland and Poole were two of the main embarkation points on D-Day.

The wool trade, the quarrying of Purbeck Marble and the busy ports of Weymouth, Melcombe Regis, Lyme Regis and Bridport brought prosperity to the county.

During the 18th century, much smuggling took place along the Dorset coast; its coves, caves and sandy beaches provided opportunities for gangs such as the Hawkhursts to stealthily bring smuggled goods ashore.

Poole became Dorset’s busiest port and established prosperous trade links with the fisheries of Newfoundland which supported cloth, rope and net manufacturing industries in the surrounding towns and villages. However, the industrial revolution largely bypassed Dorset which lacked coal resources and as a consequence the county remained predominantly agricultural.

The county now relies heavily on tourism for its local economy, although even this has a heritage in the county: George III paid frequent visits to Weymouth and popularised the area as a tourist destination.

Data provided to this magazine by www.thegenealogist.co.uk, extracted from the site’s census collections, reflects the county’s agricultural history. In 1841, around 15,000 people were listed as ‘agricultural labourer’ in the census, and most other trades in the top 20 reflect this economy: farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, yeoman, baker, butcher. Mason also appears – the original trade of Thomas Hardy, of course – along with mariner, reflecting the importance of fishing to a coastal county.

By 1901, increasing mechanisation in agriculture had changed this picture somewhat – farmers and agri-cultural labourers still appear in the top five trades, although there are now only around 3000 of the latter. Mason and stone quarryman appear; many of the other top trades are now those associated with women, such as dressmaker, laundress and domestic cook.

The most common surnames in TheGenealogist’s census data for Dorset show distinct patterns for the county. In 1841, 15 of the top 20 names in Dorset were not in the top 20 of England as a whole: White, Bartlett, Cox, Stone, Legg, Read, Baker, Hunt, Bishop, Miller, King, Foot, Clark, Parsons, Pearce. The same still applies to 14 in 1901 – much of the list is the same, with new names in the top 20 being Harris, Mitchell, Gale and James.

Family historians researching Dorset roots will find other useful resources at TheGenealogist, including seven trade directories for the county, spanning 1865 to 1935; several war memorial transcriptions for the county; marriage transcripts from more than 60 Dorset parishes; registers from Weymouth College from 1863 to 1923; and an index of Dorset wills from 1500 to 1799. Another useful website is the Dorset Online Parish Clerks project .

For research in person, visit Dorset History Centre in Dorchester. Dorset also has more than 30 general and specialist museums – see here. The Dorset County Museum in Dorchester was founded in 1846 and contains an extensive collection of exhibits covering the county’s history and environment.

MEET DORSET RESEARCHERS