Just an idle thought ....... and please shoot me down in flames if need be. I've been puzzling about the incidence of 'als' names - especially as some examples seem to continue for several generations. We have Carole's example of MARTEN als WATTS. In the Oldbury registers we have ALLENE als CHAPPE and I seem to recall seeing *** als POWELL somewhere along the line. Some 'one off' instances appear to result from bastardy. I can't help wondering whether some other instances may just be early examples of double barrelled names, e.g. a MARTEN married a WATTS and combined the surname to be MARTIN-WATTS. This would explain why the combined name survived for several generations - perhaps only ceasing when there were no males to carry it forward to the next generation. What do you think? Sue