Allen Family History
- Allen Name Meaning
- English and Scottish: from a Celtic personal name of great antiquity and obscurity. In England the personal name is now usually spelled Alan, the surname Allen; in Scotland the surname is more often Allan. Various suggestions have been put forward regarding its origin; the most plausible is that it originally meant ‘little rock’. Compare Gaelic ailín, diminutive of ail ‘rock’. The present-day frequency of the surname Allen in England and Ireland is partly accounted for by the popularity of the personal name among Breton followers of William the Conqueror, by whom it was imported first to Britain and then to Ireland. St. Alan(us) was a 5th-century bishop of Quimper, who was a cult figure in medieval Brittany. Another St. Al(l)an was a Cornish or Breton saint of the 6th century, to whom a church in Cornwall is dedicated.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press
- 18,359,697 Historical Documents with Allen on Ancestry
- 5,937,783 Birth, Marriage, and Deaths
- 3,527,606 Census and Voter Lists
- 690,761 Military Records
- 321,916 Immigration Records
- 7,881,631 Member Trees
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Number of Allen families
 5,096 - 10,190  1,699 - 5,095 |
 1 - 1,698  |
from the 1891 England and Wales Census Data
Number of Allen families
|
547 - 1,091 183 - 546 |
1 - 182 |
from the 1851 Canada Census Data
Allen census records
You can see how Allen families moved over time by selecting different Census years.
Census records can tell you little-known facts about your ancestors such as birthplace, occupation and value of personal estate.
from the New York Passengers List
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The information for this chart came from the U.S. Immigration Collection at Ancestry. You can find out where the majority of the Allen families were living before they immigrated to the U.S and learn where to focus your search for foreign records.
Immigration records can tell you an ancestor's name, ship name, port of departure, port of arrival, and destination.
from the Canadian Passenger Lists
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You can find out when most of the Allen families immigrated to Canada. You can focus your search to immigration records dating from that era.
Immigration records can tell you an ancestor's name, ship name, port of departure, port of arrival and destination.
from 1881 CA Census Data
Allen census records
Census records can offer a lot of little known facts about your Allen ancestors, such as occupation.
Occupation can tell you about your ancestors' social status and economic status.
Did the Allens fight in a war? Military records can tell you a lot
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