Many genealogists reach a point in their work where an ancestor is
unaccountably missing — he should be there, but he is not. Have you
considered, though, that your elusive forebear might be in exactly the
right place at exactly the right time, but using a different surname?
Dr. Redmonds’s research into the development of English surnames shows
that often your ancestor is there, using an alias. In a new series of
NEXUS articles Dr. Redmonds explores the significance of this sometimes
confusing practice.
“Alias” Surnames (Part I)
In
the past, when many people were illiterate and spoke only local
dialects; when communities were isolated, and ministers were not always
from the area, it was not unusual for surnames to be spelled in a
variety of ways. Most genealogists have come to terms with such
problems. On the other hand it is natural to assume that a surname was
stable once it had become hereditary and that one person bore only one
surname, however odd its variants. We must recognize that in some parts
of England (whatever the period) not all surnames were stable; thus a
significant number of people actually had two surnames, either or both
of which could be hereditary. These two names might occasionally be
given connected with an alias (e.g. “Riddlesdale alias Loker” of Bures
St. Mary, Suffolk and Sudbury, Massachusetts) or in otherwise explicit
form; more often than not, however, only one of the alternatives would
be recorded. This disconcerting practice, which affected a significant
number of families, cannot be explained simply, and there is no single
reason for it. To understand the problem and to learn how to detect
families with more than one surname it is important for the genealogist
to learn more about the habits and customs of a community under study.
One must not only acquire the local historian’s intimate knowledge of
the terrain, but also become something of a linguist.
The
numerous aliases we encounter in records are of many different types.
Some, as might be expected, demonstrate that a second name was often
used simply to conceal a man’s real identity. One vagrant appearing
before the Justices of Peace in 1657 was said to “usually and frequently
change his sirname, calling himselfe in one place Robinson and in
another Fairfax.” “Robinson/Fairfax”’s motive was clear, he was known
“to wander upp and downe the country,” a cheat and a rogue, practicing
“the scyence and cunning of physicke, the cure of eyes,” despite the
fact that he was “never educated nor instructed.” In other words he was a
quack doctor or mountebank, using his alias to escape detection. Other
similar cases refer to Robert Whiteley (1676), “a suspicious person”
known to have used at least three aliases; to Thomas Wilson (1712) “who
called himself George Davison”; to Thomas Towler (1651) admitting that
“the name he did use yesterday [John Robinson] was to gett the advantage
of a pass,” perhaps a more spontaneous alias than the quack’s.
Such
criminally expedient aliases (if not detected) make identification
difficult, but they are part of everyone’s present-day experience, and
not therefore threatening to the methods employed by genealogists; and
the use of aliases for such purposes is not usually central to most
genealogical inquiry. More difficult, however, is the case of Nicholas
Postgate (1678) “being demanded why he named himself at the first
Watson, saith that he hath sometimes been soe called, his grandmother on
his father’s side being soe called and he being like that kindred.” The
inference here seems to be that Nicholas had some physical resemblance
to that side of his family sufficient to warrant use of an alias (“...he
being like that kindred”), but clearly there may have been more to the
story, particularly if illegitimacy were involved. In a case which at
first seems similar John Mannering (1651) said that he was “some tyme
called by the name of John Grosvenor, his mother being of that name,”
but John had been “bred a Roman Catholic” and at a time when such people
were still being persecuted, the alias may also have served to confuse
the authorities.
The aliases above discussed emerged in
depositions at the Assizes and Quarter Sessions. Understandably, such
court proceedings are among the best sources for such information.
Sometimes, though, an alias is at the heart of a court case. One
Yorkshire example demonstrates that an alternative name could be imposed
on a person — even a gentleman — against his will. In 1651, in a
Chancery case involving the Stanhopes and the Calverleys. Walter and
Richard Stanhope complained that they had been “most unjustly and
untruly called in the bill by the name of Stanworth,” even though their
name had always been Stanhope. The same alias had been given to their
deceased relative John, and the two men disowned the name supposing “the
same happened through the mistake of some ignorant clerke,” raising the
question of what the clerk thought he had heard. On the face of it,
“Stanworth” seems an unlikely variation of “Stanhope.” However, if one
remembers that in both names the suffix was unaccented, and that neither
the “h” in “Stanhope” nor the “w” in “Stanworth” would be pronounced in
colloquial speech, the two names sound much closer. Clerks were, of
course, constantly in the position of deciding what the “correct” form
of the name might be, and it is hardly surprising that their guesses
might be sometimes wrong. In the above case the clerk may have chosen
“Stanworth” simply because he was more familiar with “-worth” as a
suffix than with “-hope.” More probably, however, he was expressing as
an alias a more widespread confusion as to the correct form of the
surname; and local documentary sources show quite clearly that such
confusions were not unusual.
Dr. George Redmonds, founding
editor of Old West Riding and authority on English personal and
place names, spoke at the NEHGS 1992 annual meeting (NEXUS 9.90). He has
led the Society’s English sightseeing tours and the “Family History for
Americans” courses in England for several years. Interested readers may
write him at 5 Knotty Lane, Lepton, Huddersfield, HD8 OND, West Yorks.,
England.