One interesting aspect of family history is how words change over time. Some are no longer needed and fade away, foreign words are added, regional accents change spellings with the passing years, and words and jobs that were once commonplace drop out of daily use.
I watched a show on PBS once about jobs in Europe during medieval times; kind of a 16th century version of “Dirty Jobs.” I learned fascinating details about jobs I am very glad I don’t have to do. I was also surprised to discover that, although the original job for which a word or phrase was created no longer exists, we may have modified its meaning and still use the word today. Having seen this show, I will never feel quite as honored as I used to, being “privy to” information that others do not have.
One of my maternal grandfathers (several generations back) arrived at Plymouth on the ship Fortune in 1621. (He just missed the first Thanksgiving) Amazingly enough, that 1621 passenger manifest listed his occupation! Cindy and I were very excited when we saw his entry, “Clement Briggs, fuller”. Now we knew what his job was!
Well … no, actually we’d never heard of a “fuller”. In the days before Wikipedia, we had to do some serious research to find out that a “fuller” was someone who processed sheep pelts. To do this job, they used a special kind of clay to remove lanolin and other impurities from the wool. This very fine clay became known as “fuller’s earth” and nowadays is used by movie special effects people to make explosions look impressive because it drifts in the air.
People of English ancestry named “Fuller” most likely held the job of “fuller” back at the times that surnames were developing. So, we can see that, although the job is no longer commonplace, (and people are thankfully, no longer named after their jobs) the surname Fuller is still used, and fuller’s earth too, is doing a different job.
Similarly, although very few people have thatched roofs anymore, at one time, they were standard on English country homes. Thus the name “Thatcher,” with variants such as “Thackeray” and even “Vickery” developed. The name “Briggs” was given to families who lived near a bridge – originally “Attabrig.” My own ancestor Clement Briggs was born at a time when spelling was not yet uniform. Old records from Clement’s time include spellings of Brigs, Briggs, Brigge and Brigges. Additional variations of Briggs include Bridge and Bridges from the time when the English were adding all kinds of consonants to their word spellings that we no longer use (such as bomb, known, lamb, etc)
This is not a phenomenon restricted to English words and surnames. My Italian grandmother was born Giuseppa Figliuolo. She and her brothers changed it to Figliuoli. Most of my cousins have now changed it to Figlioli. I was told that my maiden surname, Giordano, meant that I had an ancestor who participated in the Crusades (“went to the River Jordan”).
Keep in mind that things change; it may come in handy as your own research takes you back in time.
Editor’s note: This regular column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society. The group meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501. Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com.
