Welcome to the Emptages and the Emtages

In 1841 there were 152 people in England with the surname Emptage (including those mis-spelt on the census form but subsequently identified) of which 114 lived on or originated from the Isle of Thanet on the north east coast of Kent, England. Our work began as a study of those Emptages of Thanet (then aged from 3 months to 74 years), their forebears and their descendants, hence the name of this website.

We then turned our attention to the Emptages who were living on the Isle of Sheppey, just a a few miles further north off the Kent coast and to their descendants who established a tree in Grimsby, a fishing port further north on the east coast of England. Clearly our work has out grown the title as our research included people living in London and elsewhere in the 1600s and 1700s and then followed the trail of Emptages and Emtages to Barbados, New Zealand, the USA and elsewhere.

As our research progressed we became aware of the uniqueness of the surname Emptage and a growing belief that the ancestors of all the Emptages and Emtages spread across England and the rest of the world today not only originated in the small Isle of Thanet, on the eastern tip of the county of Kent, in England but that they were probably here in Anglo-Saxon times. And so began a worldwide study of the name.