This interesting Northern English name is locational from a place so called in the North Riding of Yorkshire e.g. Aiskew. Recorded as Echescol on the Domesday Book of 1086 and as Aykescogh in the 1235, Fine Court Rolls of that county, the name derives the Old Norse elements "eiki", oak and "skogr", wood. The surname is found in Middle English as Akeskeugh, but in the modern idiom, the variants include Haskew, Ascough, Ayscough, Askey, Askie and Haskey. There is an old-established Cumberland Family descended from Sir Hugh Askew, who recieved the lands of the Convent of Seaton during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1542. William Ayscough (deceased 1450) LL.D., was Bishop of Salisbury in 1438 and confessor to Henry VI. He was murdered at Edington, Wiltshire after saying Mass (1450). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Ayksaghe, which was dated 1366, The Subsidy Rolls, Lancashire, during the reign of King Edward III, The Father of the Navy, 1327 - 1377. 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.

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