R/RFHA Newsletter, September 2002                         P.30

CORRECTIONS

P.14 - June 2002 Newsletter note on "To Maryland From Overseas" by Newman, P.164 the gentleman to whom the 3 Scottish Rebels were bound over was AARON RAWLINGS not ANTHONY RAWLINGS.

Thanx, Bev Allan.

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From Shirley Draheim – she points out (P.15 June 2002 Newsletter) that Elsie Doke was not her aunt but her cousin. Also Shirley has a new address: 1420 S. Farm Rd. 205Springfield, MO 65809-2442

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While speaking of change of address, Capt. Ed Wiessing has been sent to Korea on duty, and won,t be answering any queries until August of 2003. You can write him however at his current address in Texas.

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On P. 33 of the September 2001 newsletter, at the bottom of the page N.B. change the page number mentioned concerning DANIEL RAWLINGS from 33 to 31.

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WHAT’s IN A NAME?

Did you realize that when you are searching in England for your RAWLIN(G)S/ ROLLIN(G)S you can only go as far-back 1066 AD (or CE)? That’s because before that date no one had surnames. So after WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR ascended to the throne of England he caused many changes, the most important for our purposes being that citizens (meaning men) must bear more than one name to indicate either relationship or where they lived. Some took their father’s name and added "son" to it, like Peterson or Thomson and added that to their baptismal name. Others were given location names, usually geographical, like RIVER, STONE, FORD, LANE, TOWN, LAKE, SHORE, etc. Others were given the names of their occupations, such as FARMER, TAILOR, TURNER, TILLER, FISHER, ROPER, COOK, etc. Hair color was often used to differentiate men such as REDMAN, BROWN, WHITE, BLACK,

and GREY.

There is a very interesting book I purchased in 1983 that deals with this. It’s entitled "The Origin of English Surnames" by P.H. Reaney, published in the U.K. The American publisher is Routledge & Kegan, 9 Park St., Boston, Mass 02108. I bought it in Barnes & Noble, I believe.

On P. 151 of my paperback copy in a paragraph describing diminutive suffixes such as -in, -un, -or, -et we find RAWL-IN from Old French Raoul, and RADULF from old German. As we know from previous issues there were 26 Raouls who came with William the Conqueror in 1066 from Normandy, so that seems to be where we come from, too. The Old German RADULF seems to me to be the precursor of RALPH, ROLFE or RUDOLPH.