by Sharon Hall | Mar 14, 2015 | Surname Saturday
The Whale surname was derived from a nickname for (no surprise) a person of large girth who “rolled” as they walked, according to the Internet Surname Database. Charles Bardsley, author of A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, wrote a bit more poetically: ...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 13, 2015 | Far-Out Friday
Do you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia (and you say, I don’t even know how to pronounce it, so how could I be afflicted with it!?!). Maybe not, but it may affect between seventeen and twenty million Americans. According to the Mayo Clinic, in clinical terms a...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 11, 2015 | Ghost Town Wednesday
Lewis Hawkins Davis left Indiana in 1851 and joined a wagon train in Independence, Missouri, heading west to Oregon Territory’s Willamette Valley. Two years after arriving he headed north to Saunders Bottom in Lewis County, Washington where he built a double log...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 10, 2015 | Tombstone Tuesday
Ambrose Hill and Callie Donia Fickling Bradshaw were married on March 6, 1918. For both it was a second marriage – Ambrose was a widower and Callie Donia divorced with five children. A few things intrigued me about this couple: their names, their large blended...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 7, 2015 | Surname Saturday
This unusual name is among the oldest known surnames, possibly of Norse-Viking and Olde English pre-ninth century origins, according to The Internet Surname Database. The name may have been derived from a combination of a Norse word, “kaka” (meaning cake) and the...
