How many Gossetts would there have been in Colonial America in 1700??

 

This is a difficult question to answer with precision.   The population in all of Colonial America in 1700 was an estimated 250,000 persons (whites + blacks).  [Click here for details.]   We do not know the frequency of the Gossett surname at that time;  only recent surname frequency studies are available. The U.S. Census Bureau(using 1990 data) estimates the frequency of the Gossett surname at 0.04 per thousand persons in all of the USA.   If we use that frequency figure, then there would have been only about 10 Gossetts in all of colonial America in the year 1700. . If we apply this surname frequency to colony-by-colony population estimates, then in 1700 there would have been only about 2 Gossetts in Virginia, 1 in Maryland, 1 in Pennsylvania, 0.5 in New Jersey, and 0.1 in Delaware.  These estimates, though of questionable accuracy, do at least provide some perspective to our discussion.  Given the low frequency of the Gossett surname and the relatively small popluation in the Delaware and Chesapeake regions, we think it is reasonable to suggest that the John Gossett who disappears from the records of Virginia after 1705 could very well be the same John Gossett who appears in the records of New Castle County in 1709.