Allis in Wonderland

 

This week it was my pleasure to attend the confirmation of a friend in Brigg. Amongst the couple of dozen or so candidates were the usual names that turn up everywhere such as MARSHALL and MILLER. There were also the few that are particular to local areas such as PETCH and BRUMBY plus those that originate with place names such as FEATHERSTONE, SHIPLEY and WALKEDON. The other main supply of surnames is from Christian names and these were well represented along with those such as MURCH which I recently wrote about.

Anyone who has looked through the really old registers will have seen my first name to look at. It would appear as Als or Allis and is to be found in Wonderland as Alice. The Brigg surname is ALLISS. In its original form of Adalhaidis it was then contracted down to Alis and a variation of its original form is to be found today as Adelaide.

The Christian name Giles may end up as a surname but this is an odd one with several very similar surnames having different roots. Taking it's start as the name of a saint and the hermit St Ǽgidius becomes Gile and Gille. However the surname GILL was to be found in the Domesday book but came from a dweller by the ravine and the word is still used today. A diminutive of GILL is GILLEAT which along with its numerous spellings is a name that can be found in this area of Lincolnshire.

The name PETCH is one of those local names and was listed by GUPPY as peculiar to Yorkshire. The name came from a nickname and was used, I feel, in a similar way that some one who was short would be called lofty. The word originates from the Latin peccatum evolved to the Old French peche and pechie, a sin. Way back in 1123 Robert PECCEO, the Bishop of Coventry, was nicknamed Peche; another name that comes from the same root is PEACHEY.

Those nice people the Latter Day Saints have a new website where you can say thank you for all their work that resulted in the IGI. If you sign up to do some indexing for them you will get a single page of work to transcribe along with a small program in which to type your transcript. All projects being administered by FamilySearch Indexing and participating genealogical and historical societies are listed. Each project is posted with a unique set of indexing guidelines and interesting facts. To do your bit visit http://labs.familysearch.org/ and say thank you. There are lists of the projects completed, underway and to come. These are mainly in the Americas but there are a few Irish items to work on and a Glamorgan that I couldn't access.

Bits and Bobs

LRSM - 23rd May 1800 - If the Legal Representatives of Charles FOWLER, Son of Joseph FOWLER, formerly of Goltho in the County of Lincoln. Gent, deceased and of Selina FOWLER, daughter of the same Joseph FOWLER, will apply to Mr BALDWIN, Attorney at Law in Lincoln, they will hear of something to their advantage. The said Charles FOWLER was bound Apprentice in the Year 1773 from Christ´s Hospital, London to a Captain RATCLIFFE, who then traded to Jamaica: was afterwards in the Year 1777, a Midshipman on Board one of His Majesty´s Ships then lying at Spithead; and in the month of February 1779, was in Quebec in Canada. The said Selina FOWLER married a Mr SPENCER, supposed to be a Sea-faring Man, and died about the Year 1769.

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Sauce for the Goose

 

 

There was a recent exchange on the internet concerning the PERRIN surname. I, like many others, instantly think of LEA & PERRINS sauce when the surname is used and have often wondered who they were. The story goes that Worcestershire sauce itself is of cross-cultural origins.  In 1835, Lord Marcus SANDYS, who was the ex-governor of Bengal, approached chemists John Wheeley LEA and William PERRINS, whose business in Broad Street, Worcester, handled pharmaceutical's and toiletries as well as groceries.  He asked them to make up a sauce from a recipe which he brought back from India.  While his lordship was apparently satisfied with the results, Messrs LEA and PERRINS considered it to be an "unpalatable, red-hot fire-water" and left the quantity they had made for themselves in the cellars. During the stocktaking and spring clean the following year, they came across the barrel and decided to taste it before discarding it.  To their amazement, the mixture had mellowed into an aromatic, piquant and appetizing liquid.  They hastily purchased the recipe from Lord SANDYS and, in 1838, the Anglo-Indian LEA & PERRINS Worcestershire sauce was launched commercially.  So now you know.

The surname PERRINS has a number of origins and all the spellings interchange with each other so that the only way to find the exact origin is to follow the line back to its beginning. The various spelling of PERRIN, PERRON and PEROWNE are respectively the diminutive of the French Perre (Peter) and this works with the various endings such as –in, -el or –un and appears in PARRELL and PERRIN. The name PEROWNE belongs to the Huguenots. A Lincolnshire example is that of Geoffrey PERRUN who was linked to the Templars in 1185.

Lincolnshire has its own origin for LEA. With the various spelling of LEE, LEIGH, LYE and LAYE one can assume that there are numerous beginnings for this surname. A search through any gazetteer gives you any number of villages that include the surname. The Old English word leah was used for one who dwells in the area by a wood or in a clearing. The same word by the time of the Middle English became leye or lye and it is from this that some of the other variations come. The same origin, same meaning but of a later date.

I have received an e-mail from Cynthia TUPHOLME in Canada. Further to her request last week on the surname it seems from her email that it was just one family that had left Lincolnshire years ago and settle in the Ontario area. This is another of those instances where history comes full circle. Tupholme was the island of sheep down in the fens originally. Cynthia and her family "live on one of the most amazing islands in the world, known for it's quality of lamb and we are breeders of registered Suffolk sheep!" If TUPHOLME is your name then get in touch with your long lost cousins at www.geocities.com/cerdinen4stock/

 Bits and Bobs

Lincoln Lindsey Petty Sessions 2 May 1851 - Hannah DENMAN, of Torksey, applied for an order of affiliation on Alfred DALTON, of Wiseton, Notts: the frail fair one, however, admitted that her favours had been bestowed on three different men; and one wit said, "Thou knowest, Hannah, thou was very enticing, and that he did not know that the child was not his".

Anne on the 'net.

CARR HOLME

 

This is as Lincolnshire as a surname can be and it belongs to Cynthia TUPHOLME who lives in Salt Spring Island, Canada. Back at the time of the first millennium the area around the fens and up to Lincoln was large swamp with small islands by the dozen. These could be Carrs or Holmes and generally meant a bit of dry land in a swampy area. The first part of the name - TUP - is still in use. Have a chat to your local shepherd. At some stage during his year he will be putting the Tup in with the sheep and when you see a blue or red mark on a sheep's rear then you know that the Tup has done his work. The Tup is the ram. Tupholme was the island that had sheep on it. A good place to check this out is the LincsHeritage site which has a very nice article on the Abbey. "In the middle of the twelfth century, a newly elected Abbot and twelve canons set out from Newsham in North Lincolnshire to found a new Premonstratensian Abbey on the 'island of the sheep' at Tupholme." Many of the holders of the name are to be found in the south of the county with the earliest register entry I found being the baptism of William TUPHOLME in 1565 in Boston. In 1175 it was spelt TUPEHOLM so really hasn't changed a great deal over the years. Mind you due to the accent there are a few TUPHAM families about. In the Whites 1856 Directory the township of Tupholme had 73 people living there and there is no church listed.

A name that I put in the column last year is that of HADDELSEY. I have been known to put the column onto the Grasby.blogspot occasionally and it is here that Brian HADDLESEY came across it. It was Mrs Armstrong who had first brought up the subject of the HADDELSEY surname and if either she or anyone else researching it would like to contact Brian on hzr3zr@yahoo.com he would be delighted to hear from you. He has a large database on the family and is interested in sharing his data.

One of the things that was needed was someone to take on the restoration of the stone monuments in churchyards and one that has taken it up and contacted me recently is Stephen TOOP of Grimsby. The name I thought sounds Dutch to me but when I had a look at the National Trust Surname site I found that the main concentration for the name in 1881 was in Devon, Dorset and Somerset. By 1998 an enclave was to be found in Lincolnshire and the name could now be found throughout the southern counties. A quick peek at the Family Search website confirmed the findings with hundreds of TOOP individuals to be found in the south west from the 16^th century onwards. Some of the very earliest use of the name are to be found in the Domesday Book and are in Lincolnshire. The Domesday Book mentions one Ulf TOPE. The name most likely comes from the Old Danish name Topi.

Bits and Bobs

THE LOUTH & NORTH LlNCOLNSHIRE ADVERTISER - 1st June 1872 - A meeting of the friends of Mr Thomas KIRKHAM of Biscathorpe House, near Louth, the celebrated ram breeder, was held at Lincoln yesterday (Friday) week. when it was resolved to present that gentleman with a portrait of himself. A subscription has been entered into for carrying out the purpose. and when completed. will be presented as a token of esteem for the services he has rendered to agriculturalists in having so successfully devoted himself to the importance of the breed of Lincolnshire sheep, and as a testimonial of the regard in which he is held.