Tasker

Recorded as Tasker and sometimes Tosker, his interesting name is English but of French origin. It is an occupational name for a person who did piece-work, applied particularly to "one who threshes corn with a frail as task-work or piece-work". The derivation is from the Anglo-Norman French "tasque", Old French "tasche", Latin "taxa", and Middle English "taske", task, assessment. In medieval England, people generally, did not exclusively follow one occupation and there must have been many jobs which required such casual labour, especially anything associated with agriculture. Among the early recordings in London are the marriages of James Tasker and Elizabeth Glover on July 1st 1582, at St. Olave's, Hart Street, and Jarrerd Tasker and Frauncis Turnough on February 3rd 1583, at St. Gregory by St. Paul. Thomas Tasker was christened on November 1st 1589, at St. Andrew Hubbard with St. Mary at Hill. One Mary Tasker, aged 19 yrs., a famine emigrant, sailed from London aboard the "Prince-Albert" bound for New York on June 23rd 1846. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John le Tasker, which was dated 1279, witness in the "Assize Court Rolls of Northumberland", 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.