Sea

Recorded as Sea and See, this rare surname is English and topographical. As such it does seem to describe a person who lived in sight of the "sea". This is proven by the very early recordings of Richard Attesee in the Subsidy Tax rolls of Yorkshire in the year 1297, and Bertam del See of Colchester, Essex, in the year 1312. However whilst these people may well have lived by the coast, the Olde English word for water was "sae." This was used to describe any water, including lakes, pools, and even quite small ponds. Furthermore until most of East Anglia and parts of Somerset and Yorkshire were drained by Dutch engineers working between the 14th and 18th centuries, the "sea" as we know it penetrated right into the middle of the country. It was also one of the main reasons why in the past well before railways and mechanised transport, inland people had a diet which contained a large amount of fish. It was caught on their doorstep. The surname was it seems popular in the town of Bridgewater in Somerset, with an example being William Bythesee in 1362. This man lived by not the sea as such, but one of the large canals now known locally as drains, but which seven centuries ago would have been "seas".