More than 100 Mockfords from around the world came to Brighton for a reunion with a difference.

The Sussex family name has spread far and wide since it was first recorded in 1296 near Henfield.

The family's 21st Century descendants came to the get- together after Catherine Wickens spent 13 years researching the family tree.

She said: "The name has spread out but, on the whole, most of them are in Sussex.

"What we have got here today is a broad cross-section but obviously there are far more than 100 living."

For hundreds of years, the Mockford name was most closely linked to Rottingdean and the surrounding area.

One of the Mockfords at Saturday's reunion, at the Whiteway Centre, was Jeanne Mockford, a well-known actress popular in Brighton and Eastbourne.

She said: "It is an amazing experience."

She has long been aware of the name's connections with Sussex, saying: "I remember seeing all the Mockfords in the cemetery at Rottingdean when I was a child."

There are two conflicting theories about the name's origin.

One is that it is a blend of the Anglo-Saxon words for donkey and water-crossing, mock and ford.

The second and the one Ms Wickens thinks most likely, is that it derives from the personal name, such as Mocca, of a landowner who owned a ford.

Mockfords were mostly farm labourers in Sussex until the mid-19th century, when migration to the industrial cities in England and emigration abroad spread the name far and wide.

Ms Wickens, whose maiden name is Mockford, was left a family tree dating back to 1845 by her father. Her half-brother John Mockford traced the next generation.

She said: "That is what set me off. I wanted to find how far back I would get.

"Once I realised it was a Saxon name I realised how popular it was."

She said there was no real scandal in the Mockford history but there were a few famous faces.

Frederick Mockford was the brains behind the Mayday radio distress system, while another Frederick Mockford pioneered speedway racing in Britain.

Canadian Mockford Stuart Brown, from Novia Scotia, combined the get-together with a holiday.

He said: "We have been planning a trip over here. We were going to come last year but we found out they were going to have a Mockford reunion so we postponed it."

He has researched the Mockford name in Canada, finding a concentration in the United States.

His mother was a Mockford, born and brought up in Newhaven, who worked as a nurse during the First World War.

She married a wounded Canadian soldier who passed through the hospital and emigrated to Canada with him.

Mr Brown followed in his father's footsteps in the Second World War, serving in the Canadian infantry in Belgium and Holland in 1944.