Matlock

This interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is a locational surname deriving from the place called "Matlock" in Derbyshire. The placename is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "meslach", in the Curia Rolls (Derbyshire) of 1196 as "matlac" and by 1204 as "matloc". The name means "the oak (tree) where a moot was held", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century "maethl", - speech, moot and "ac", oak (tree). In Anglo-Saxon England a moot was an assembly, mainly in a shire or"hundred", dealing with local legal and administrative affairs. Locational surnames were used mainly by those former inhabitants of a place who moved to another area. Elizabeth matlock was christened at St. Andrew's, Enfield, London on November 2nd 1623. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of George matlock (marriage to Anna Stonnes), which was dated September 26th 1615, Bolsover, Lancashire, during the reign of King James I of England and VI of Scotland, 1603 - 1625. 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.