Twitchings

This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a topographical name for a "dweller at the place where two roads met". The derivation of the name is from the Olde English pre 7th Century "twicen(e)" (a derivative of "twa", two), a crossroads or a fork in the road, where two roads met. Topographical surnames were among the earliest created, since both natural and man-made features in the landscape provided easily recognisable distinguishing names in the small communities of the Middle Ages. Gilbert ate Thuychene is listed in the 1297 Ministers Accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall and Richard Twichener is noted in the 1432 Calendar of Letter Books for Kent. In the modern idiom the surname can be found as Titchener, Tutchener, Tichner, Tickner, Twitchings, Twitching and Tutchings. Recordings of the surname from English Church Registers include: the marriage of Nicholas Tutchener and Margery Fuller, which took place at Morsham, Sussex, on May 28th 1564; the marriage of John Tutchinge and Isable Stillerd, which took place on January 14th 1592, at Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset; and the christening of Sarah, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Tutchings, on November 18th 1716, at St. Dunstan's, Stepney, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas de la Twichene, which was dated 1275, in the "Subsidy Rolls of Worcestershire", 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.