From: Vance Mead via [gen-medieval@rootsweb.com] Sent: 24 May 2016 04:12 > > I must have phrased that badly. I meant that a kill-hog was a butcher and this could be a secondary occupation for a husbandman. > ------------------------------- ________________________________________ Sorry, Vance, I did realise what you meant - it was I who didn't make myself entirely clear. The trouble is, we're only guessing that Thomas Ryche alias Kellog, husbandman, had a by-occupation as a butcher, so his alias doesn't really provide evidence for an occupational alias becoming an inherited surname. To my mind we can distinguish between a number of different circumstances where individuals have more than one surname: 1. the early period of surname development, when individuals were known by unstable, non-hereditary by-names, perhaps different names at different stages in their lives, or more than one name simultaneously, or one name all of the individual's life, but in all cases names which were not passed on to their children (a phase pretty much ended in the south-east by approximately the mid-14C, and in the farthest corners of England by the mid-17C). 2. the well-known Early Modern phenomenon of aliases, where individuals, and sometimes several generations of a family, used two surnames simultaneously, before eventually settling down with just one of them. This is subtly different from 1., in that both surnames have previously been stable and hereditary, and will be again once the individual or family has decided which to stick with. 3. the fairly rare late-15C/early-16C phenomenon of individuals with stable hereditary surnames also being known by an occupational by-name, but only ephemerally, i.e. only while actually engaged in that occupation, and perhaps only in the context of that occupation. The butchers (and occasionally other tradesmen) I see in manor court rolls being presented for breaches of the assize under just a single occupational surname are examples of 3., I think - I'm pretty sure it was an alias and that they retained their inherited surname in all other contexts, and passed only that inherited name on to their children. I'm unsure whether the butcher, baker and miller you've found in the CP rolls fall into category 3 or 2. It would depend on whether their occupational alias was used by itself in other contexts than their trade, and whether it became hereditary. Another point I'm uncertain about is whether aliases in category 2 ever derived from an individual's occupation. It usually seems to be assumed that both aliases were established hereditary surnames and that some reason such as illegitimacy has caused an individual to waver between two such names. If it could be shown that Thomas Ryche alias Kellog was so-called because he slaughtered pigs, rather than because he was the bastard child of a Kellogg, or had inherited lands from a Kellog family, say, then he would provide evidence that category 2. aliases did sometimes derive from the bearer's occupation - but we need to know the origin of his alias to be sure of this. Matt