Yoxen

This unusual and interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from some minor or unrecorded place, perhaps a "lost" village. There are an estimated seven to ten thousand villages and hamlets that have now disappeared from Britain since the 12th Century; the prime cause of these "disappearances" was the enforced "clearing" and dispersal of the former inhabitants to make way for sheep pastures at the height of the wool trade in the 15th Century, and natural causes such as the Black Death of 1348, in which an eighth of the population perished. The original place is believed to have been in the Lancashire, Cheshire area, because of the early recordings found there, and derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "geoc", yoke, yoke of oxen, and "tun", fence, enclosure; hence, "enclosure for oxen". In the modern idiom the surname can be found as Yoxon, Yoxan, Yoxton and Yoxen. Recordings of the surname from English Church Registers include: the marriage of Richard Yoxan and Margreat Henryesdought, on October 15th 1590, at Walton on the Hill, Lancashire; the marriage of William Yoxon and Anne Cooke at St. Katherine by the Tower, London, on December 8th 1689; and Ann Yoxen married Alphonso Cosar on February 14th 1726, at Allhallows, London Wall, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Jenett Yoxon, which was dated November 26th 1565, marriage to Robert Hodgeson, at Bebington, Cheshire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. 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.