863 Global MOTTLEY Family Members

MOTTLEY Family History

Recorded as Matley, Motley, Mottley, Mutley and others, this interesting surname is of English origin. It is however found in Ireland from the fourteenth century appearing amongst the lists of landowners of County Wexford. The surname itself is locational and apparently from a now "lost" medieval village. It is estimated that at least three thousand such places have been "lost" in the British Isles, many if not all, giving rise to surnames. The prime causes of these "disappearances" was the enforced clearing of inhabitants to make way for sheep pastures, as well as the enclosure of the common lands, and the draining of the wetlands in the 14th to the 18th centuries.