Researching William Trotter
Explore the detail of William Trotter using the links below. We hope you find this information useful!
![]() | Did you know that in the 1881 UK census there were 3140 people with the Trotter surname? In that year Trotter was ranked number 1303 for popularity in the UK. |

The name William means "resolute guardian" and is of German origin.
Records of William Trotter on Ancestry
Ancestry is a major source of information if you are filling out the detail of William Trotter in your family tree. With over 30 billion records and 100 million family trees to search, Ancestry is one of the key websites to visit to help you trace your family tree back in time. Free trials are normally available and are a good way to fill out a lot of your tree quickly.
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Ancestry.com Global records search results for William Trotter. |
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Ancestry.com US records search results for William Trotter. |
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Ancestry.co.uk UK records search results for William Trotter. |
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Ancestry.ca Canadian records search results for William Trotter. |
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Ancestry.com.au Australian records search results for William Trotter. |
DNA
Sometimes you can run into a brick wall in your tree and you just don't have enough evidence to make that next step back in time. If you are lucky then you may find some previously undiscovered Trotter ancestors. Additionally, the modern DNA test can give you a breakdown of your ethnic mix - you may be surprised at the results!
Have you reached a brick wall in your Trotter Tree?
Birth, Death and Marriage Records for William Trotter and the Trotter Genealogy
Birth, Death and Marriage records are often the best method of making the links to the Trotter Genealogy that will form part of your family tree. Although records vary from country to country, they are normally the most formal record of a person's relations. From the sources below you will be able to find a birth record and, from that, a birth certificate can be ordered which lists the names of the mother and father, taking you back another generation in your tree. A marriage certificate may also list the names of the respective fathers of the bride and groom which may then help you to find them earlier in life on a census record enabling you to fill out more detail in the Trotter family tree.
Search Parish Records for William Trotter at Find My Past.
Check out for the UK registered births, marriages and deaths of William Trotter using the FreeBMD database.
Study Genealogy Bank for William Trotter records.
Study MyHeritage for William Trotter information.
Check out the LDS Database for records about William Trotter.
Research the Trotter surname using fold3 Military Archives and view images of original Trotter Military records.
![]() | Did you know that there are currently 3628 people with the Trotter surname in the UK? Trotter is now ranked number 1570 for popularity in the UK. |
Trotter Genealogy Databases
Another way to build your tree quickly is to use the research other people have already done. This can help to confirm or refute your own deductions - however, be wary of taking this data at face value as other researchers may not have been as meticulous as you. Always try to back up deductions with some definitive sources rather than relying too heavily on others.
Check out the WikiTree database for user contributed records for William Trotter.
Study MyTrees for information on the Trotter family and people looking to contact living Trotter relations.
Investigate One Great Family for Trotter records submitted by people who are already researching the Trotter Family Tree.
Find William Trotter from Ireland on findmypast.ie
Trotter Forums
There are a number of forums which are dedicated to rearching particular surnames. These can be good places to share your findings and also to tap into the knowledge that others may already have. These can sometimes be a good way of finding living relations as these tend not to show up on the other sources of information for privacy reasons.
Research the Trotter surname using Genealogy.com forums .
![]() | Did you know that there are currently 24306 people with the Trotter surname in the USA? Trotter is ranked number 149 for popularity in the USA. |
Miscellaneous Trotter Databases
Explore the Ellis Island Database for information on William Trotter. This database contains over 25 million immigration records detailing passengers arriving in the United States of America.
Some Famous People called William Trotter
William Monroe Trotter
William Monroe Trotter, sometimes just Monroe Trotter (April 7, 1872 – April 7, 1934), was a newspaper editor and real estate businessman based in Boston, Massachusetts. An activist for African-American civil rights, he was an early opponent of the accommodationist race policies of Booker T. Washington, and in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian, an independent African-American newspaper he used to express that opposition. Active in protest movements for civil rights throughout the 1900s and 1910s, he also revealed some of the differences within the African-American community. He contributed to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Trotter was born into a well-to-do family and raised in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. He earned his graduate and post-graduate degrees at Harvard University, and was the first man of color to earn a Phi Beta Kappa key there. Seeing an increase in segregation in northern facilities, he began to engage in a life of activism, to which he devoted his assets. He joined with W. E. B. Du Bois in founding the Niagara Movement in 1905, a forerunner of the NAACP. Trotter's style was often divisive, and he ended up leaving that organization for the National Equal Rights League. His protest activities were sometimes seen to be at cross purposes to those of the NAACP.
In 1914, he had a highly publicized meeting with President Woodrow Wilson, in which he protested Wilson's introduction of segregation into the federal workplace. In Boston, Trotter succeeded in shutting down productions of The Clansman in 1910, but he was unsuccessful in 1915 with screenings of the movie The Birth of a Nation, which also portrayed the Ku Klux Klan in favorable terms. He was not able to influence the peace talks at the end of World War I, and was in later years a marginalized voice of protest. In 1921, in an alliance with Roman Catholics, he got a revival screening of The Birth of a Nation banned. He died on his 62nd birthday after a possibly suicidal fall from his Boston home.
Source: William Monroe Trotter, Wikipedia, The Free EncyclopediaOther names that sound a bit like Trotter
Family names can get corrupted over time, particularly where literacy was not as good. The following list contains some names that have similar sounds so you may want to also look at one or two of the more likely possibilites.
Tartaria Tarter Tartter Tarwater Tertre Threader Thredder Tordrup Tortora Tortorella Torwater Trader Treder Tredrea Tretter Trotar Troter Trottier Truder Truter Turturici





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