A glance at modern day telephone directories will soon show that the Preece name is very prevalent in the West Midlands area, and also in the border counties such as Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire. These directories will also show that Wales is home to a great many Preece families. You will now find the name in every county and corner of the country, but over 100 years ago this was far from the case.

Using the 1881 census data, together with modern (1999) telephone directory and electoral roll information, analysis has been done on a number of different aspects of Preece families, looking at pure numerical presence in each county, as well as a closer look at the 1881 data, taking into account where Preece families were living and where they were born. More recent work on both telephone directories and electoral roll information is hampered by the move towards excluding details to avoid mass marketing campaigns and unwanted calls.

Follow the links below to look at tables showing the data, distribution maps and some discussion of the trends shown.

Now that far more census data is both available and held by me, I am planning to extend this analysis to other years from 1841 up to 1901, though this will take time to appear here.

As a start, I have now compiled a list to show the numbers of Preece entries found in each county in each census. This is now almost complete, apart from some 1841 counties not yet held, but the pattern of growth or reduction in population for each county can be seen.

I plan to expand this (given some time!) and hope to add sections on individual areas, such as London, Yorkshire and Lancashire, areas away from the usual "Hot-spots" of the Midlands counties, and to examine why the Preece numbers grew there.

If you click the link below, a new window will open with the county totals. At present there is just a list and no commentary, but once the 1841 figures are complete I will add some comments to discuss the figures.

I have further detailed analysis of some individual counties, including details of the migration between them, and some of this may be added in due course. If you are interested in a particular aspect of this subject, and it is not covered here, please do contact me.