From: Nivard Ovington <ovington.one@gmail.com> > Hi Brian > > I don't usually have a great deal of faith in books on surname > derivation but on this occasion I agree with Henry Harrisons Surnames of > the United Kingdom 1912 > > Which gives > > LINEKER = Linacre, q.v. > > And > > LINACRE / LINAKER } (Eng. and Scand.) Dweller at the Flax-Field [O.E. > lin, flax + acer, field = O.N. lin-akr]> As listers will know, Nivard and I often disagree (!) but on this occasion we seem to be in agreement. Like him, I hold a healthy scepticism for surname dictionaries since they don't always get it right - not even Reaney & Wilson who many regard as the bible of surname definitions. An example of where they got it badly wrong is in their explanation of the common West Riding surname SHACKLETON or SHACKELTON, which included the ancestors of myself and Sir Ernest. R & W claim it derives from a place in North Yorkshire called Scackleton, which is patent nonsense since any analysis of the surname from all records shows it to be overwhelmingly a West Riding surname with hardly any presence in the North Riding at all. George Redmonds, my favourite scholar of surnames, says it comes from a tiny hamlet, possibly even a single farmstead, called Shackletonstall in the Calder Valley above Hebden Bridge - and I am sure he is right because the name Shackleton is prolific around Keighley, Haworth and Bradford. Hanks and Hodges agree that it derives from a place name in the parish of Halifax but are less specific than Redmonds. Redmonds holds the theory, to which I subscribe, that you can only ever truly define a surname if you can trace it back to the very first holder in the records - not possible, of course, for many if not most names. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Famous family trees blog: http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/tag/roy-stockdill/ "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE