Cardno Genealogies

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Distribution

CARDNO is not a common surname, even in Aberdeenshire where the name originated and most CARDNOs still live. According to GBNames, in 2016 there were 549 adult CARDNOs in Britian in a population of 65 million.¹ Before the nineteenth century the surname CARDNO was almost entirely confined to Scotland, mainly in the Buchan district of Aberdeenshire. Of the 49 CARDNO baptisms recorded in Church of Scotland Old Parish Registers before 1800, 33 were from Fraserburgh and 5 from Rathen.²

CARDNO families can now be found in England, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America. However, the relatively small number of people with the name outside Scotland means CARDNOs are found in only a few locations within these countries.

Census records provide the most accurate estimate of the number of people with the surname CARDNO and where they live. However, census indexes can be inaccurate because of transcription errors. In the UK, the name CARDNO is frequently mis-transcribed as CARDNE, CARDNS and CARDUS. In the US, the names CARDERO and CARDONA have been mis-transcribed as CARDNO. The distribution data here takes account of these errors.

Scotland

The 1921 Census of Scotland, the most recent available, enumerated 334 people with the surname CARDNO. The majority (77%) lived in Aberdeenshire. Another 7% lived in the neighbouring counties of Kincardine and Angus, and 8% lived in Lanarkshire.³

The frequency of the CARDNO surname in 1921 was 6.8 per 100,000 people. This was higher than in the nineteenth century when it was closer to 5 per 100,000. Assuming the proportion of CARDNOs in the Scottish population has not changed from a century ago, the total number of CARDNOs in Scotland in 2021 is estimated at 372.

Analysis of twenty-first century electoral registers suggests the distribution of CARDNOs within Scotland has not changed significantly over the past century. Of the 320 CARDNOs listed in Scottish electoral registers between 2011 and 2018, 73% are in Aberdeenshire and 8% in Lanarkshire.

England

The surname CARDNO appears rarely in English records before the nineteenth century. Indexes of seventeenth century parish registers from Dorset, Sussex, Lancashire and London contain a handful of CARDNO or CARDNE entries, and there are single records from Norfolk and Warwickshire. It is not known whether these CARDNOs had any connection with Scotland and it is possible names have been mis-transcribed.

The name CARDNO is almost absent from English parish records of the eighteenth century. There were no CARDNO baptisms and only one marriage. Alexander CARDNO, a carpenter, married Alice SHEPHERD at Whitby, Yorkshire in 1762.⁴ Within two years both had died. Alexander’s trade and Whitby’s coastal location allow speculation he was a boat builder who came down the east coast from Scotland to pursue his trade, or his bride.

Early in the nineteenth century, a small number of CARDNOs lived in the London area, including one, John CARDNO, who was a shipwright. The 1841 census of England recorded only 18 people with the surname CARDNO, including five born in Scotland. Nine were living in Yorkshire and seven in the London area.

At the end of the nineteenth century there were over 60 CARDNOs in England. The largest concentration was in Yorkshire, where 23 CARDNOs were enumerated in the 1901 census. Smaller numbers were found in County Durham, Essex, Kent and Wiltshire. In 1921 there were about 50 CARDNOs in England.

The 1939 Register of England and Wales listed 89 CARDNOs. Almost two-thirds were in the north of England, including a quarter in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The second main concentration was in the south east (Hertfordshire, London, Essex and Kent).

The current distribution of CARDNOs in England has a similar pattern. English electoral registers between 2011 and 2018 list 160 CARDNOs (including duplicates). The largest concentrations are in the north-east (14%), Yorkshire (13%), the London area (8%) and Kent (8%), but there appears to be a wider distribution overall.

The name CARDNO was not found in Wales before the Second World War. The electoral registers 2011-2018 listed 7 CARDNOs in Rhyl and 5 in Cardiff.

United States of America

A few isolated instances of the surname CARDNO in the USA before the middle of the nineteenth century can be found. An Alexander CARDNO is said to have fled to Virginia in 1679;⁵ slave schedules from the 1850 federal census list C.C. CARDNO as the owner of single slave in Hawkins County, Tennessee. The 1860 federal census lists 7 CARDNOs, all but one in New York.

The 1950 USA federal census enumerated 44 CARDNOs. One in four lived in Michigan, 8 were in New York, and 6 in both Illinois and California. The other 13 were in nine different states.

Canada

The CARDNO surname reached Canada in the middle of the nineteenth century. The 1861 census listed 12 CARDNOs, at Perth and Oxford in Canada West. Half were born in Scotland. At the beginning of the twentieth century, 38 CARDNOs were enumerated in the 1901 census of Canada, in Ontario and Manitoba.

By 1931, the number of CARDNOs in Canada had increased to 53, including 10 born in Scotland. Almost 80% lived in either Ontario (20) or Manitoba (22), and the remaining 20% distributed between Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Alberta and British Columbia.

Australia

The surname CARDNO reached Australia in the middle of the nineteenth century. Nineteen year old Alexander CARDNO sailed for London from Melbourne in February 1857. Twenty-one year old Elizabeth CARDNO, a lady’s maid from Scotland, arrived at Melbourne in June 1857. ⁶ The same year Elizabeth CARDNO married John CRAMOND in Victoria.

In the absence of nineteenth and early twentieth century census records, it is difficult to estimate the number of CARDNOs in Australia a hundred years ago. Electoral rolls for the period 1910-1919 list 15 different CARDNO adults, all in Queensland. Assuming a 3.5:1 ratio of adults to children, the total number of CARDNOs in Australia would have been about 20.

Thirteen CARDNOs were born in Australia before 1922, all but one in Queensland. There were 20 CARDNO marriages before 1950 and 13 deaths before 1985. Most were in Queensland.

New Zealand

The earliest record of a CARDNO in New Zealand is the 1852 marriage of Christiana CARDNO to Andrew SWANSON. The first CARDNO born in New Zealand, twenty years later, was an unnamed child of William Wood CARDNO and Mary DINNISON, who married there in 1871. William Wood CARDNO (1841-1881) was the elder brother of Ebenezer Robertson CARDNO (1845-1910) who married in New Zealand in 1876, was a merchant in Auckland and had eleven children. Their sister Mary Susanna CARDNO also married in New Zealand in 1876.

The 2001 New Zealand electoral roll includes 118 CARDNOs. Assuming the ratio of adults to children is 3:1, the total number of CARDNOs in New Zealand at the beginning of the twenty-first century is estimated to be 157.