> Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2012 11:16:14 -0500 (EST) > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [CORNISH-GEN] FW: Use of "Alias" (als) in Cornwall > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > Thank you very much for providing this informative article. This a > totally new area of Cornwall genealogy research for me. I am wondering it there > might be an explanation within the "Alias" article which may explain the > existence of seemingly separate, non-related, CRAGOE and CREGOE families > living concurrently in adjacent parishes in Cornwall. > > Steade Craigo > Hello Steade - I'm not certain why 2 families would be living in adjacent parishes, with competing spellings of their surname, but can come up with suppositions. In my own family, one brother suffered what he thought was unjustified mistreatment by the government, and felt his only recourse was to protest, which he did. For the protest, he was jailed for 2 years. His brothers, and their families, couldn't stand the shame, so they moved and changed the spelling of their surname, adding a "s". we only know that's what happened because one of them wrote to their relatives, and the letter was saved in an old bible. We established links between the brothers from early church, land, and tax records; the government always had records for their requirements, it seems. Remember that another person said surnames were first given when personal taxes were levied! For other families, I would suspect that at some time, a "cadet" branch of a family chose to be distinguished from another - persons in one line wanted to be sure their line was distinct from another - but to maintain a link to the common point of origination. Or they wanted to maintain a unique spelling so property would continue in that unique line. would you think that might be the case in your family? Cheers, Julia