According to the British 19th Century Surname Atlas 
(www.archersoftware.co.uk) there was one occurrence of Mattleson in 
the 1881 census, in the Wakefield Poor Law Union.  I feel your other 
sources ought to have picked that up if it is right.  Do you think it 
is a mistake?

It may be that George Redmonds gives more info in his 1973 book on 
the surnames of Yorkshire, West Riding.  For more details on this see 
http://copac.ac.uk/search?author=George%20Redmonds&title=English%20surnames%2C%20yorkshire%20west%20riding&sort-order=ti%2C-date&rn=2
Or he has written other books on Yorkshire surnames, which you can 
find listed on Amazon.  Maybe in your role in Genuki and the Guild of 
One-Name Studies you can find another officer who has George's email 
address which they might feel able to let you have.

Trevor Ogden


At 11:45 07/07/2014, you wrote:
>I'm trying to follow up two references to the surname Mattleson, 
>but, frustratingly, neither of them cite sources:
>
>George Redmonds, 'Christian Names in Local and Family History' 
>(2004) p 14, says about Matilda and some other forenames:
>"The evidence for their earlier pronunciation is in such vernacular 
>spellings as Mald or Maud and Matill for Matilda, and Agace or Agass 
>for Agatha. Surnames such as Mattleson and Agass confirm that, just 
>as the surname Parnell reminds us of the colloquial pronunciation of 
>Petronilla."
>
>Reaney and Wilson, sub Maud etc. state that "Matilda is a learned 
>form, rarely found in medieval surnames and now completely lost 
>unless it is the source of the very rare Mattleson".
>
>However, I can find no good evidence of the existence of Mattleson 
>as an English surname. I've searched for Mattleson and Matleson on 
>freebmd.org.uk, ancestry.co.uk, findmypast.co.uk, 
>thegenealogist.co.uk, origins.net, and familysearch.org limited to 
>England. Of all the entries in all the sources covered by these 
>sites, each of them has a few tens of hits for these names. There 
>are some twentieth century examples of the name in England where it 
>appears to belong to Jewish family which anglicised Matelson to 
>Mattleson. Of all the other examples only three are not 
>transcription errors for Mattheson, Matheson or Malleson. It does 
>not appear on british-history.ac.uk, scotlandspeople.gov.uk, 
>medievalsoldier.org, A2A or the National Archives catalogue. There 
>are no hits for Genuki search which covers almost all family history 
>society websites in the UK. The handful of hits across rootsweb and 
>its lists are all related to the USA. It is not indexed in any of 
>the volumes of the English Surnames Series.
>
>At the moment I conclude that it did not exist in post-medieval 
>England and probably not in medieval England. So why do Redmonds, 
>Reaney and Wilson mention it? Can anyone provide examples of this 
>surname in use in England before 1900? Or suggest where else might 
>be a good place to look?
>
>
>Best wishes
>
>Andrew
>--
>Andrew Millard - [log in to unmask]
>  Chair, Trustees of Genuki: www.genuki.org.uk
>  Maintainer, Genuki Middx + London: 
> homepages.gold.ac.uk/genuki/MDX/ + ../LND/
>  Academic Co-ordinator, Guild of One-Name Studies: www.one-name.org
>  Bodimeade one-name study: 
> community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/Bodimeade/
>  My genealogy: community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/