Family Names

[johnfowles]

On May 23 I started a draft reply to a then current topic in which Jenney was talking about how her name and its unusual spelling came about
I cannot now find that topic despite a great deal of searching

So rather than waste some research I am starting a new topic. In reply to the original topic I wanted to add my 10 cents worth to what was a lengthy and interesting "thread"

In my family nearly the whole clan that we asociated with was on my mother's side.
And knowing the small Wiltshire town that my maternal grandprents both came from one of my projects is to cough up for 24 hours on-line at a UK site I once found that allowed you to see a stack of census records, providing of course I can find it again.
On the other (my father's) side he had few relatives and his mother died in 1941 following his father's death in the 30's in Detroit,I did though wondreously inherit Dad's "black box" containing a wealth of old certificates, photographs and wills etc going back through several generations (the menfolk invariably became Lightermen (water truck-drivers) on the Thames).
I well remember the thrill I got when I first examined this collection and found that the very last item was the will of my great..great.. great... grandfather also named John Fowles made on September the 20th 1834 leaving everything to his "beloved wife Fanny".
you may see a scan of this at:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/johnfowles/05.johnfowles'1834will.jpg
I especially appreciated the link that Char provided regarding Jenney's family crest on:-
http://www.houseofnames.com
because putting in my own surname
showed me the Fowles crest

and told me it is from Scotland and:-
"An ancient Pictish-Scottish family was the first to use the name fowles. It is a name for someone who lived in the place called Foulzie in the parish of King Edward in the
county of Aberdeen. The surname fowles belongs to the category of
habitation names, which are derived from pre-existing names for towns,
villages, parishes, or farmsteads.

Spelling variations include:
Fowlie, Fowley, Fowlis, Foulis and others.
First found in Aberdeenshire where they held a family seat from very early times."

I also tried lightfoot and got:-
http://www.houseofnames.com/coatofar...d=&s=lightfoot
with a very nice lightfoot family crest

and this blurb
"Origin Displayed: English
The name lightfoot is rooted in the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture. It was a name for someone who was a
swift runner. The surname lightfoot is derived from the Old English words leoht, which means light, and fot, which means foot. Occasionally, this name was applied as an occupational surname to a messenger.
Spelling variations include: Lightfoot, Lightford, Lightfoote and others.
First found in Oxfordshire where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
Some of the first settlers of this name or some of its variants were:
John Lightfoot settled in Virginia in 1610; ten years before the
"Mayflower"; another John Lightfoote settled in Virginia in 1623;
William Lightfoot settled in Virginia in 1689"
gratifyingly it adds:-
Some noteworthy people of the name Lightfoot:-
Gordon lightfoot (1938-) Canadian singer
John lightfoot (1602-1675) English Hebraist
Joseph Barber lightfoot (1828-1889) English prelate
If you would like to see your own family details
It is well worth a visit to:-
http://www.houseofnames.com

[ July 11, 2006, 10:53: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[RM]

Intersting site, Mr. Fowles.

Unfortunately, it appears that I was adopted, and my family made up a fictional name. The search yielded no results. Back to the therapist.....

RMD

[DJ in MJ]

Sort of the same for my family, though it goes back one generation. My Dad was adopted with no trace of his origins.

So I have half a tree! :D

[johnfowles]

I sort of thought that the two occupaional terms shown above might be fictional but no from:-
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/prelate
hebraist:-
A scholar who specializes in the study of Hebrew
Sorry Sundreme and Sheryl
prelate:-
A high-ranking member of the clergy, especially a bishop.
Sorry everybody for dragging in (unintentionally I assure you) religion!!

[Shutup and Deal, I'm Losin']

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Dowdy

[Shutup and Deal, I'm Losin']

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Lightfoot

[Sheila Ann]

Wow, John...loved your link to the surnames and the info it provided! My mom's biggest pastime is geneology and some of her enthusiasm rubbed off on me. Since our Lindsey/Elliot/Roney ancestry has already been documented...I honestly think it's a British 'thing' to do...mom has concentrated on my dad's people who were French Canadian and American Indian. Much harder to trace but no less interesting! Our Lindseys and Elliotts arrived 'over here' in the mid to late 1600's in the Boston area. The Roneys left Ireland before they could be caught and sent off 'down under' in the early 1800s and originally touched down in Massachusetts! I chuckle to myself when I think about those Catholic rascal Roneys intermingling with the educated, Protestant, staid Elliotts and Lindseys. And it didn't happen just once either There was more than one Roney/Elliott or Roney/Lindsey liaison!

Enough said but thank you, again, John for your post. It's got me off and exploring again!

[geodeticman]

John,

Thank you for the novel and interesting thread on heritage. Interesting thing: No matter what site I check into Scottish heritage with, I get some rather startlingy different results. I do very much apreciate the link, I am adding it to my heritage list.

The one thing they agree on it seems, for the Scottish variant on Dunbar versus British ( I am a Scot) is the family motto: impromptu, which in Latin means readiness, and quite often the coat of arms: most frequent is the horse head with a lot of leather tack.

This website you linked got the impromptu, no horse coat of arms, and the history is always fascinatingly different. Most cite the rather famous Robert The Bruce Dunbar, for whom my grandfather from Nova Scotia is named after, and my uncle. My father (rest his soul) William Russel Dunbar, is named after a great fighting Scot.

The results of a paid and exhaustive research by my Uncle (no expense was spared, and was considered definitive enough that a local historical society of Anglo-Saxon's (WASPS's !) in New Jersey stamped its approval and it became a softcover book ( or treatise).

Apparently, and I hope of some interest (versus all the above preface of mine) is the fact that the suffic "bar" i.e Dun(bar) means in Gaelic "illegitimate son of" - a Dunn clan member.

Seems a chambermaid or something listened to a Lightfoot-like troubadoor named Dunn outside the Dunn castle windows, and was romanced enough to bear his child, who became the first Dunn "barred" (yes, as in bar none, and to be barred from..) as a bas**rd child of the Dunn's.

This formeth the Dunbar clan, and Dunnabar, who built the Dunbar castle on the Craggy coast of Scotland's east side, something like 30 - 60 miles east of Edinburgh. It is said in John Muir's many biographies that he grew up playing as a boy in the ruins later of the Dunbar castle.

At some point a tiff broke out, no doubt over the meaning of the word "chauvinistic" in the troubador's song legacy (hehe) and the TOWN of Dunbar made war on the Dunbar's (go figure) and thru them out. They (Dunbar's) moved 20 or so miles west back towards Edinburgh, and to this day..... more Dunbars live in the newly-formed town of Dunbarton than do live in Dunbar proper.

They have over 7 tartains - for hunting, dress, everyday yuppy casual, corporate casual for fridays, work grubby's ( for throwing logs and 800 pound rocks, etc.)and the plaid they wore once a year where the QUEEN OF ENGLAND would call all Scottish clan leaders to meet in London at the palace. This still takes place, I am told, and all attendess wear a tartain of their own woven specifically for this event to this day.

Well, any more would be gross excess, but one last note - not only are Dunbars a long line of bas**rds, but also it was fine (hence the banning from Dunbar war) a long line decending from horse thieves, despite the std. joke of same.

Thanks John for another erudite and informative thread. Hope u get to feelin better.

"geo" Steve Dunbar

[ July 12, 2006, 02:59: Message edited by: geodeticman ]

[geodeticman]

Great minds think alike, eh TT ? In any event, historically !

You gotta wonder when my last name (Dunbar)with the suffix of "bar" - current meaning to ban or prevent contact, and back then - illegitimate son of (family name)(bar) - to bannish or bar from the family of origin.

It'd be downright depressing, except for the extensive research, however biased LOL, by my uncle, who found so many Dunbars to be proud of.

In any event, to at least admire the magnitude of the Dunbar and many other clans of Scots' exploits. They defended their harassed and (worse) families by bopping the Brits on the head with various crude devices to make 'em stop extortion-based taxation.

Also, to make Scotland a sovereign nation, not run by the ruthless, expansionistic King of England at the time.

All in good fun. truly, so many variations exist on any given name, the most consistent thing I have found in my less than erudite research has been the plaids, er.. tartans. The wide variety, for diferent purposes for any one given name, is mentioned in only a minority of treatise on the subject for a clan name.

Too many of the sites are oriented to selling tartan fabric, and family name acoutrements, and therefore, it would appear, the depth of their research displayed corresponds suspiciously with the depth and breadth of the merchandise ! Ah well, I'll be the first to admit as a Scot, I am indeed a penny-pincher !

It would appear that the horse thief part of my family name ( no doubt black-sheep offshoots) has gradually come close to successive reduction subject to Avagadro's number in the gene pool.

Evidence being, I actually paid $5k for the last horse I bought my wife. Honest and on the barrel-head. What sense of family history is that ? LOL

One last thought - with what John turned up on Lightfoot, I think of what may just be coincidence in Gordon's childhood history - I remember reading he excelled in track and field in High School- perhaps truly a "Light" [or swift of] foot ! Maybe it all really stays in the genes. Uh-oh for me ! LOL

later TT - geo Steve

[Cathy]

I saw the coat of arms and history of the Gibersons arriving in America. It's a bit different from the story of the Northern Maine Gibersons, though. My father's line came from Normandy, originally, but migrated to England, where they were called Gilberstons. Eventually, John ended up in Canada, around Bath, New Brunswick, and after a few years, headed about 25 miles North, along the St. John river. He settled in Tobique, which is now a huge reservation. He convinced the local tribes that he was a preacher, and converted a bunch of them to Christianity. They built him a church, thinking he'd stay around for awhile, but of course, he didn't. He migrated to Maine with his family, and eventually went to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Oregon, leaving Gibersons everywhere he settled(probably his adult sons). Last count, back in the '80s, there were about 6600 of us across the US.
There's also a legend of The Lost Giberson Gold Mine, in the hills between Perth and Bath, NB. It seems one of his line found gold nuggets in a stream he was canoeing. Paddling upstream, after several attempts, he found the source... a vein of gold embedded in a rocky area along the shore. He mined it for several years, and kept its location a secret. Legend has it, the location died with him. I know this one is a little hard to believe, but all my aunts and uncles say it really happened, and I've also read about it on the Internet, although the story varies from site to site.

[Jesse Joe]

That's very interesting to read Cathy. You mentioned, The Tobique Reserve. Have you ever heard of signer songwiter, Gary Sappier, he is great, he lives in The Tobique Reserve.

[Cathy]

Gary came to the Wednesday evening fiddlers jam sessions a couple of times. You're right. He's a great singer/songwriter.

[geodeticman]

Cathy - thinking of legendary family gold mines - the mainstay of my mother's side of the family in such legend is my great-great-great grandfather Bergen. Family history has it that he had found a rich BONONZA!! of a mother-lode up near what is now the Climax -Pass and mines area in Colorado.

Story has it he and his sick wife, who had found the vein near their encampment, had to cover it up and leave in a hurry due to the wife's progressing illness. They made it to (a town) large enough to care for her, but by that time he was ill too, by then. She died, as I remember the story, and when he recovered, despondent, he finally tried to return to the goldmine, and could not find it.

He had not recorded it, and even though staked, Colorado law after 1876 required within a certain amount of time, the mine had to produce a certain $amount, or it reverted to unclaimed mineral resource, and likely may have been "jumped", legally.

Now, after my very much alive uncle tried to locate it from vague notes found from Bergen, hired a Professional surveyor, and the entire section, township, and range are under slag ponds from hydraulic molybdenum mining effluent.

The story for old Grandpa Bergen ends ( or begins again ?) with him opening a way-station in what is now Bergen Park, later expanded it to be the Bergen Park Lodge, and now the town is Bergen Park, Colorado.

If anyone researches it, there is a chain of names from Bergen to Martin present day (my mother's maiden name). All that remains of the Lodge, except for incredible bark-intact log lodge furniture in our house, and original lodge dishes. And, up at Bergen, a memorial marker of my gr-gr-grandpa Bergen and what is a memorial small park in Bergen. I'm sure lots of our ancestors have amazing tails from those wild and wooly days.

geo Steve

[Cathy]

Quite a story, Steve.
I love delving back into the family tree. My father's father, Williard Giberson, was a very successful farmer, and also a bit of an inventor. He concocted a tarnish remover, made of honey, milk, and other natural ingredients, and got quite rich off the stuff. In fact, I found an empty bottle of it in the old homestead barn when I was a kid.
Unfortunately, the old guy had a liking for a few slugs of whiskey, several times a day. He died at age 51... his liver just couldn't take the abuse.
I still hear stories about him all the time. Like the time he was trying to teach Gram to drive, and she drove the Studabaker through the side of the barn. Another time, he hung a deer's head in a tree, and sat there and laughed his head off every time someone took a shot at it.
He used to walk up and down the railroad tracks and hand money out to the hobos, and then sit down with a bunch of them to slug down a couple of 5ths of whiskey.
He had one of the biggest funerals in the history of Ft. Fairfield, with a line about 3/4s of a mile down the street, all people waiting to pay their respect. The sad part, by the time he died, he had very little money left. Gram had to sell the farms just to survive.

[Yuri]

Hello John,

Here is a stumper! Try the name 'Amatnieks' and you will be sure to crash any computer and corrupt their data base!

The name is Latvian in origin (one of the Baltic Countries, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania) and loosly translates as "jack of all trades".
I tend to think of it as "someone who knows very little about a great number of things".

As for Yuri, it is the English equivalent of George, after "George the Dragon Slayer"

Not too many Amatnieks out there!
(pronounced Ah-Mat-nix)

Yuri

[Jenney]

Originally posted by Yuri:
Hello John,

Here is a stumper! Try the name 'Amatnieks' and you will be sure to crash any computer and corrupt their data base!

The name is Latvian in origin (one of the Baltic Countries, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania) and loosly translates as "jack of all trades".
I tend to think of it as "someone who knows very little about a great number of things".

As for Yuri, it is the English equivalent of George, after "George the Dragon Slayer"

Not too many Amatnieks out there!
(pronounced Ah-Mat-nix)

Yuri

Oh sure, NOW we find out how to pronounce it!
Yuri, when we had your card signed, Rick Haynes asked us if you were Russian, as Yuri can be a Russian name. I said no, that your last name was...um,...er..well I can spell it for you, but I'm not sure how to pronounce it! John came the closest to saying it right. I knew it was Latvian, but that was the best I could do!
Jenney

[charlene]

Originally posted by Yuri:
Hello John,

loosly translates as "jack of all trades".
I tend to think of it as "someone who knows very little about a great number of things".

As for Yuri, it is the English equivalent of George, after "George the Dragon Slayer"

Not too many Amatnieks out there!
(pronounced Ah-Mat-nix)

Yuri

"Jack of all trades and master of none"...lol - I've heard that saying before...

[Yuri]

I've actually anglosised (sp?) the pronunciation of my last name as very few can wrap their tongue around the Latvian pronounciation which is Uh-Mut-nee-ex. Ah-Mat-nix is just that much easier.
As my ISP couldn't accomodate my full last name in my e-mail address I dropped the 's' in Amatnieks (amatniek) and now I have to remind myself to spell my name properly. I'm far too lazy to change either my last name or my e-mail so it remains.
When in some waiting room and I see that the receptionist gets a look of horor on her face and she tries to enunciate as if her mouth is full of pebbles, I know it is my turn to be served...

Yuri

[geodeticman]

TT - I'd say my family, historically full of horse thieves, Lodge owners and lost mine owners, and lovers of Dunn Castle inhabitants would have had a riot meeting up with your dragon slayers, amazons,& fellow horse thieves. Of course, a man with no horse is afoot.

The Light(or swift of)foot thing is indeed very interesting. I am not surprised we all found much ambiguity and conflicting info in our various histories in different versions at web sites and family documents as John, myself, you and the rest sound as though we've all found .

It sure does seem any one history (recorded, versus family word-of-mouth - even more romaticizing) may not be true or entirely so, especially if a web site is selling goods with your name ! - But its fun to imagine and read 'em all.

The one thing I turn up on Dunbar's I just don't believe is that we are historically verbose, loquacious, speak in circular and non-sequiter patterns, are excessively self-deprecating [ one presumes to beat others to the punch!] and just KEEP WRITING AND WRITING AND ...well.... talk the same way to this day. ?????

Which reminds of another un-related anecdote that is rather a long reading tome, but is proven in a latitudinal study (I am wide eyed) soon to be longitudinal in I hope another 48 years...... family story with a meaning of life treatise as an aside, all in one long chain-sentence, fettered with crepuscular logic, involute style, and jetsam and flotsam of superfluous adjectives from which I should pick one of ten for the most part !

Anyone whose had the great misfortune of reading some of my longer winded stuff (yes, like this...LOL) knows that which I speak of; which reminds me.....
so grab a chair, have a spell, and listen while the words jingle and jangle from my next family story..... ( corfidians eyeing possible exits, and slip out the back with a fertive glance and perfunctory nod....) -
geo Steve

[geodeticman]

Cathy - pretty fascinating history yourself
The tarnish remover can itself, I am told can be as a category (the containers) quite valuable as antiques if known as recognizable brands during the time period. It'd be a shame to sell the only one you've got, though !

My grandfather on the paternal side, my Dad's Dad, was a muleskinner in Park City, Utah mines (before the skiing... land values) , who after becoming a self-taught learned man, became an algebra teacher (even back then, I am not sure how that could happen by protocol), and then went to work for the Postal Service.

He then rose through the ranks, fought as an officer in WW II, and returned to the Postal Service to become a pistol-packing Elliot Ness as a Postal Inspector. I was told by grandma (he died the year I was born), and my dad.., he then progressed to Deputy Chief Postal Inspector out of the Denver office.

Story has it he would go cross-country and round-the-world flying to destinations to hunt down any form of illegal material or activity in the mail (thats got to be a lot of things....) that were Federal offenses of sufficient magnitude to warrant him hunting it down - including early forms of fraud such as "you may have just won a million dollars) j/k.

Grandma, while proud, made it sound as if he was James Bond, and as a little kid I was captivated - Steve

[Cathy]

My brother still has the botttle. He cleaned it up and placed it on one of the living room shelves, where everyone can see it.

Just think. Your grandfather would probably be looking for Anthrax and other terror related objects in the mail if he were still at it.

[geodeticman]

Cathy - LOL - No doubt ! It scares me to think of what he'd be tracking down these days. I wonder if someday there will be ....Internet Police..... ! I mean real police power mobile people, triangulating away; locating and assisting lost sub-lurkers [ ] , itinerant trolls that only need to sleep it off; busting SPAM'ers, and setting up stings for the real bad guys, disguised as Bohemian-style Java-shop wi-fi net -surfers hehe - Later
geo Steve

[Cathy]

Hey, kid. You're under arrest for stealing that horse. By the way, I'm your Uncle Earl.

[Cathy]

I always talk about Dad's side of the family, but Mom's side has a couple of pretty interesting facts, too.

Mom's grandfather, while living in Charleston, Mass., ran off with the hired girl, leaving behind a wife, a daughter and three sons. My great aunt, (his daughter) and my grandfather, who was just in the 8th grade at the time, had to quit school to help support the family.

A few years later, the old man came back and tried to reunite with his wife. Luckily, she was wise enough to say no. Unluckily, she ran out of the house, into the street, and got run over by horses and a wagon, and died later that afternoon.

Then he disappeard again, and Grampy never heard from the old guy again for over 40 years, when a Whelsh/English relative sent a picture of a long lost cousin around, asking if anyone knew his whereabouts. It was taken in Portland Maine at the turn of the century. The man in the picture turned out to be Gramp's father.
I've since met my Welsh cousin (although, I can't understand a word she says!), and have looked at pictures she has of my ancestors. She's been working on a family tree for several years, and promises to send me a copy, along with some written history, when it's finished.