This is an ancient English surname of great complexity. It is recorded in a huge number of spelling forms including: Tattersall, Tattershall, Tattershaw, Tattersill, Tattersdill, Tettersell, Tetsall, Tittersell, Totterell, and Tatarshall, but there are many more examples. It is of locational origins from a place in Lincolnshire called Tattershall. This village is recorded as Tateshale in the famous Domesday Book of 1086, and as Tatesala in a survey of that county in 1115, the derivation being from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name 'Tathere', and the element 'hale', which normally means a remote valley. The surname being locational is a "from" name. That is to say a name that was given to people after they left their original homes, as the way to identify a stranger was to call him or sometimes her, by the name of the place from whence they came. Spelling being at best erratic, and local dialects very thick, lead to the development of variant spellings. Even as early as the year 1298 the name is recorded in the London charters as de Tateshale, Tatteshall or Tatersale, but the epicentre is Lancashire, and particularly the area of the towns of Bury, Bolton and Burnley. Early examples in the surviving church registers include Thomas Tattershall who married Mary Oswell at Freiston, Lincolnshire, on December 17th 1561, Edwarde Tattersall, who was christened at St Michael's Church, Cornhill, in the city of London in 1585, and Hugh Tattersdale, a witness at St James Clerkenwell, also city of London, on January 7th 1644.The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Hugo de Tateshal. This was dated 1191, in the Pipe Rolls of Lincolnshire, during the reign of King Richard 1st of England, known as Richard the Lionheart 1189 - 1199. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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