Staresmeare

This interesting and unusual surname is a variant of Staresmore, which is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is locational from a now "lost" place thought to have been in Northamptonshire, due to the popularity of the name in this county. The name is derived from the Middle English (1200 - 1500) sterre, starre, a star, from the Old English pre 7th Century "steorra" and the Old English "mor", marsh, fen, moor; the first element was used as a byname to describe someone with a streak of white hair, therefore, in this case the placename could mean "Starr's moor". an estimated seven to ten thousand villages and hamlets are known to have disappeared in Britain since circa 1100, due to such natural disasters as the Black Death of 1348, in which an height of the population perished, or to the widespread practice of "clearing" large areas of land to make sheep pastures during the height of the wool-trade in the 14th and 15th Centuries. The modern surname can be found as Staresmore, Starsmore, Starsmere and Starsmeare. Among the sample recordings in London is the christening of Richard Thomas Stansmeare on November 14th 1828 at St. Luke's, Chelsea. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Lucy Staresmore (christening), which was dated 1535, at Frolesworth, Leicestershire, during the reign of King Henry V111, known as "Good King Hal", 1509 - 1547. 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.