Bartels-Ellis

Double-barrelled surnames, usually created following a marriage between two families, have no overall meaning as a unit, but the separate parts have their own meaning and derivation. In this instance, the name Bartels has two distinct possible origins. Firstly, it may be a patronymic from the male given name Bartel, itself a diminutive of Bart from Bartholomew, ultimately from the Aramaic "bar-talmay" i.e. "son of Talmay", a name meaning "having many furrows" in the sense "rich in land". The second possibility is that Bartles is locational from a place in West Lancashire called Bartle. The final "s" attached to the name preserves the Old English genitive ending i.e. "of Bartle". On August 24th 1739 Anna Margaretta Bartels, an enfant, was christened in St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, London. Ellis derives from the Medieval male given name Elis, the vernaculour form of the Greek Elias, from the Hebrew Eliyahu meaning, "Jehovah is God". One, Elyas de Westone appears in Documents relating to the Danelaw, Lincolnshire circa 1160. In January 1634 Richard Ellis, aged 29 yrs, embarked from London on the ship "Bonaventure" bound Virginia. He was one of the earliest recorded namebearers to settle in the New World. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Elyas, which was dated 1200 "The Poll Tax Returns Records of Yorkshire", during the reign of King John known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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.