Elvidge

This rare name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, from the Old English pre 7th Century personal name "Aelfheah", composed of the elements "aelf", "elf", and "heah", high. The given name is well recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Aelfec" (Hampshire), "aelfhag" (Nottinghamshire), and "Elfeg", (Derbyshire). The name was sometimes given in honour of St. Alphege, who bore the Norman form of the name, he was Archbishop of Canterbury in the early 11th Century and was captured and stoned to death by the Danes, thereafter being revered as a martyr. The surname development has included William Alfegh (1318, Kent), Robert Elfegh (1526, ibid.) and Margaret Elvishe (1609, Yorkshire). Thomas Elvidge married Jane Shipton on the 27th July 1657 at St. Janes's, Clerkenwell, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Elpheg, which was dated 1297, in the "Kent Curia Rolls", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.