Skip to main content

Happy Easter!

As Easter is almost upon us, I look for the name EASTER in the Deceased Online database . . . with some surprising results.

The origins of the word Easter used as a forename are unclear. Some etymologists believe the name comes from an Anglo-Saxon goddess, Eostre. Others associate it with the Old Testament queen, Esther, whose story is commemorated in the festival of Purim that precedes the Jewish spring festival of Pesach, or Passover. There is also a theory that some girls were named Easter as a variant or misspelling of the more commonly used Esther.

The earliest mention of an Easter in the Deceased Online database is Easter Ashcroft, who was buried at St Paul's Church, Bedford on 1 September 1696. As you can see from the scan of the burial register below, this Easter was the daughter of another Easter, the wife of Mr John Ashcroft.

Later in the database there are some interesting forename and surname combinations, including Easter Penny, who was buried on 30 January 1915 in Old Deer, Aberdeenshire. Sadly, this daughter of farmers of Kenknockie died at just 12 years old.

63 year old Easter Bird was laid to rest on the 8th October 1840 at the nonconformist burial ground of Bunhill Fields in central London.
Searching in the General Register Office's indices of English and Welsh births, I discovered, perhaps unbelievably, that there was a child whose parents had named her Easter Day! Easter Jane Day, to give her her full name, was registered in September quarter 1850 in Oswestry district.

But my favourite seasonal name in the Deceased Online database has to be what I hope everyone will be wearing this weekend: Easter Smiles.
This entry is taken from the register of West Ham Cemetery in the London Borough of Newham for 24th November 1925.

Do let us know via our Facebook and Twitter pages if you have any EASTERs in your family tree - or even an EGG or a FRIDAY?

And finally, wishing all database users a very enjoyable Easter weekend from everyone at Deceased Online!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

London's Spa Fields

Deceased Online has just uploaded around 114,000 burial records from Spa Fields in the modern London borough of Islington Spa Fields today, with the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer in the background Spa Fields Burial Ground became notorious in the 19th century for its overcrowded and insanitary conditions. Located in the parish of St James, Clerkenwell, the grave yard was not far from the ever-increasing City of London. Spa Fields was known also as Clerkenwell Fields and Ducking-pond Fields in the late 18th century, hinting at a dark side to what was then a summer evening resort for north Londoners. What would become a cemetery was a ducking pond in the rural grounds of a Spa Fields public house. It was here in 1683 that six children were drowned while playing on the ice. In his History of Clerkenwell (1865) William J. Pinks wrote that visitors, "came hither to witness the rude sports that were in vogue a century ago, such as duck-hunting, prize-fighting, bull-baiting
29 comments
Read more

Nottingham Collection

This week, Deceased Online expands its Nottingham Collection with the addition of records from the early Victorian cemetery, Nottingham General. Enter Nottingham's General Cemetery from Canning Terrace and be prepared to step back in time to the late 19th century. Like many of the Victorian cemeteries in the Deceased Online collections, Nottingham General was designed to take the burden from parish churches whose graveyards had become overcrowded. Also, like many other Victorian cemeteries, this was administered by a newly-formed body, the Nottingham General Cemetery Company (1836) . The Grade II listed gatehouse , the chapel and the adjacent almshouses were built between 1836 and 1838 by S. S. Rawlinson . Burial registers were kept from the opening date of cemetery in 1838. Concerns were raised in the 1920s that this municipal cemetery was now overcrowded and from 1929 the cemetery was closed to new burials other than those who owned burial rights. Headstones in
1 comment
Read more

Wakefield Collection: Cremation Records now available on Deceased Online

Records for both crematoria in Wakefield, Yorkshire have been added to the Deceased Online database Above: Pontefract Crematorium The two sets of crematoria records have been added to Deceased Online 's Wakefield Collection .  Wakefield district contains nineteen cemeteries and two crematoria. Many of the records go back to the mid and late 19th century when the cemeteries opened, and range across a wide geographical area. The full list of  Wakefield  cemeteries live on Deceased Online,  with opening dates in brackets,   is as follows: 1.  Altofts Cemetery  – Church Road, Altofts, Normanton  (1878)   2.  Alverthorpe Cemetery  – St Paul’s Drive, Alverthorpe, Wakefield  (registers from 1955) 3. Castleford Cemetery  – Headfield Road, Castleford  (1857) 4.  Crigglestone Cemetery  – Standbridge Lane, Crigglestone, Wakefield  (1882) 5. Featherstone Cemetery  – Cutsyke Road, North Featherstone  (1874) 6. Ferrybridge Cemetery  – Pontefract Road, Ferrybridge, P
1 comment
Read more