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Unusual Surname

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  • Unusual Surname

    I have just come across the surname of 'Pasewalk'...............clearly written. I haven't come across it before and wondered what origins it might have.
    There is somewhere a Register of Christian names but not so sure about surnames..................has anyone any ideas?
    Last edited by AlanC; 23-12-13, 10:05.

  • #2
    According to Wikipedia Alan, it's a town in Germany.

    Sue :-)
    Sue

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    • #3
      The name is so rare that I wonder if it was a made-up name to satisfy our strange English custom of having a surname. That would fit with the name being of a town in Germany - perhaps Mr Pasewalk was a Jewish immigrant from Pasewalk?

      OC

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      • #4
        I don't know what date you're talking about, Alan.
        But following on from OC's comment, 1841 census for rural East Yorkshire has living in farm servants named John Cumberland, Robert Lincoln, James Norfolk etc - all born out of county, of course! I've come across a few similar instances in 1851 census, but the practice was definitely on the wane by then! In the 20th century, it was not uncommon for elderly living-in farm workers to be named after their employer - I remember from childhood Blyth Harry and Smith Tom! (I assume a corruption of Blyth's Harry, Smith's Tom.)
        I was fascinated by names as a child, because of these men and also the village dogs which were partly named after their owners - Patch Slater, Nip Foster, Snowy Cooper. I could work out the old men and the dogs, but the one which totally foxed me was Brigadier R*******. I just couldn't imagine anyone calling their baby Brigadier and must have been about 7 when I realised it was a title rather than a forename!

        Jay
        Last edited by Janet in Yorkshire; 23-12-13, 12:54.
        Janet in Yorkshire



        Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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        • #5
          I too am fascinated by names, Janet.

          I've been doing a village study (Darwen, Lancs) which was a very isolated rural community with endless interbreeding and quite a lot of inbreeding too! Because so many people had the same names, they all had working nicknames, such as "Tom o' Peg's", "Jack o'th' Heights" "Skriking Tom" and so on.

          I also think that with live in servants in the early 1800s, many of them came from the workhouse as fairly young children (7 wasn't unusual) and quite often didn't know their own surnames, so were known by the place they had come from, as Janet illustrates above.

          Jewish immigrants in particular, but also any Eastern European immigrant, had difficulty understanding the concept of a surname as their own culture did not have this custom. Jewish people would be known by many "surnames" during their lifetime and this wasn't to deceive, it was to answer whatever question they were being asked, and by whom!

          Sorry Alan, gone right off topic here.

          OC

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          • #6
            I never expected the name to be taken from a German Town. His first names were Jacob Edward and he was a mariner in 1862 whilst his father was a Jacob Daniel Pasewalk a Labourer.
            Thanks to Sue & OC (I'm sure she has a first name).................................. and love the anecdote Janet.

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