Was this usual ?
There was (maybe still is) a well established family of Ashers in the village of Ruddington Notts....traditionally headed by a William Asher (all first sons named William etc). The main road in the village is still called Asher Lane today...don't know how long they'd been there, but there's a will registered from the sixteenth century.
In the late eighteenth/mid nineteenth centuries a lot of German/Jewish immigrants with the name of Asher settled in Notts & Leics (mainly in the Notts/Leics border area where Ruddington is...obviously they eventually gravitated to the cities of Nottm & Leics for work) And there are an awful lot of William Ashers among them.
Has anyone come across this kind of thing before & if so what does it indicate ? That they were forced to adopt this name....that they started off as labourers for him etc etc ? Would it have been seen as an insult or a mark of respect.? Or were they just picking up on a local name maybe coincidentally having an English meaning (living by an ash tree or whatever) & also being the name of one of the tribes of Israel & therefore fitting in with the Jewish tradition ?
Answers on a postcard.........
There was (maybe still is) a well established family of Ashers in the village of Ruddington Notts....traditionally headed by a William Asher (all first sons named William etc). The main road in the village is still called Asher Lane today...don't know how long they'd been there, but there's a will registered from the sixteenth century.
In the late eighteenth/mid nineteenth centuries a lot of German/Jewish immigrants with the name of Asher settled in Notts & Leics (mainly in the Notts/Leics border area where Ruddington is...obviously they eventually gravitated to the cities of Nottm & Leics for work) And there are an awful lot of William Ashers among them.
Has anyone come across this kind of thing before & if so what does it indicate ? That they were forced to adopt this name....that they started off as labourers for him etc etc ? Would it have been seen as an insult or a mark of respect.? Or were they just picking up on a local name maybe coincidentally having an English meaning (living by an ash tree or whatever) & also being the name of one of the tribes of Israel & therefore fitting in with the Jewish tradition ?
Answers on a postcard.........
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