On Saturday, May 21, 2016 at 6:00:24 PM UTC-5, al...@mindspring.com wrote: > Yes same person just diff. way of referring to him. > > Doug Smith Hence the confusion. I'm still trying to understand why people back in that time were referred to by different names.

On 22/05/16 13:28, Kathy Becker wrote: > On Saturday, May 21, 2016 at 6:00:24 PM UTC-5, al...@mindspring.com wrote: >> Yes same person just diff. way of referring to him. >> >> Doug Smith > > Hence the confusion. I'm still trying to understand why people back in that time were referred to by different names. > The idea of inherited surnames hadn't fully evolved. There were relatively few names in use so there was a need to add descriptions to distinguish, say one John, from another in a given context. It might have been sufficient to distinguish them as as son of their father, e.g. John fils de William vs John fils de Hugh with "fils de" becoming contracted to fitz. So John fitz William's son William would be William fitz John. At the higher levels of society someone might be lord (or higher) of some property. It would be appropriate to refer to them as such. The title becomes the description. In this case John fitz William might also be lord of Shepley in which case he could be variously called John fitz William, John fitz William de Shepley or John de Shepley. As property was inherited so does the title and it becomes easy to see that titles can very easily become inherited surnames - providing, of course, that the property wasn't sold of forfeit. If someone had a higher status lordship, say Count of Mummerset, then this would to take precedence. What's more his descendants might want to occasionally remind others that they're of the Mummerset family. If John were descended from such a high status individual he might sometimes be addressed as John de Mummerset. A further description could come from the title of an office such as marshal or constable. If John were appointed as constable of a castle this could become another description, just as valid as the others If the office were hereditary this could also become an inherited surname. Essentially, however, John's name is simply John. All the other possible descriptions are handles to distinguish him from any other John and could vary according to situation. The idea of fixed inherited surnames only caught on gradually, probably influenced by titles derived from inherited property or offices. Note that much the same thing happened down the social scale. John might be John Williamson rather than John fitzWilliam. He might be John Bywater if that's where he lived or John Tanner if that was his occupation. -- Hotmail is my spam bin. Real address is ianng at austonley org uk