Sunday, December 03, 2006
Ok so i am doing this grave yard project and part of it is knowing the ethnicity of all the people so i found this web site that tells you surnames and their meanings. they didn't have rench but they did have wrench and her is what it had to say about that:
There are some very interesting surnames and this is one of them! In our opinion the surname is in a sense 'job descriptive'. It definitely derives from an Olde English pre 7th century word 'wrenc', and this word always translates as 'trick'or 'wile'. It was probably applied to a magician, one who performed acts of magic, and probably in the popular travelling theatres of those early times. However 'The middle ages' were also a period when robust humour was at its peak, and people were often given 'nicknames' which would not be acceptable by modern standards. It is therefore possible that the original meaning was 'a bit of a lad'. Many of these surnames are to be found in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, although 'Wrench' as far as we know is not one of them. What is also interesting is that the name has retained its original spelling over the many centuries, although it is sometimes recorded as 'Wrinch'. Early recordings include Edwin Wrench in the Norfolk county pipe rolls of the year 1199 in the reign of King John, which John Wrench is recorded in the register of Cambridge University for the year 1585. A coat of arms was granted to the Wrench family of the Isle of Ely in Cambridgeshire in 1588. This has the blazon of a red field, charged with three gold cross crosslets in bend. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Alnodus Wrench, which was dated 1176, in the pipe rolls of the county of Devon, during the reign of King Henry 11, known as 'The church builder', 1154 - 1189. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
hope you all enjoyed that as much as i did.
love you all
shannon
3 comments:
This is really cool....
Magician? Nothing about tools. Ah well it was very interesting. Especially the first recorded instances of the name. Those English! They invented the surname.
This most interesting English surname, is recorded in the spellings of Best, Beste, Bester, and Bestar. It is usually job descriptive and derives from the pre 7th century 'beste' - meaning a 'beast', and hence refers to a cow-herd or cattle dealer. Sometimes, in the robust fashion of the Middle Ages, it was a nickname for a 'brutal person', and as such probably applied to Wilkin le Best, in the 1260 Assize Rolls of Cheshire. Whatever its original meaning, the surname holders have been prominent in British History. The name is recorded eight times in the National Biography, and it was Captain Thomas Best (1570-1638) who, in the year 1612, broke the power of Portugal in the East. He was later Master of Trinity House, whilst W.D. Best (1767-1845) was the Lord Chief Justice and the first Baron Wynford. As a point of social history, Thomas Best was 'convicted' as a Monmouth rebel by 'Bloody Judge Jefferies' in 1685, and sentenced to ten years hard labour in Barbadoes. The earliest recordings include John le Bestare, who was a farmer, recorded in the 1279 Hundred Rolls of Huntingdonshire, whilst Richard Bestar was a witness at Colchester Court in the year 1311. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Best, which was dated 1201, a witness at the Somerset Assize Court, Taunton, during the reign of King John of England, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216.
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i'm not really as interested with this side of the family as with the obermeyer side. apparently i'm due to be the patriarch of the Obermeyers, although they don't appear on the SurnameDB.
some geneological trivia for you.
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