Recorded in many forms including Tees, Teas, Teaz, Teece, Ties, Tice, and Teese (English and American), as well as Taye, Tease, Teaze, Tacey, Teasy and Teaser (Irish), this is a surname of one origin, but it would seem, ultimately several nationalities. It is almost certainly locational and describes a person who formerly lived by the River Tees in Teesdale, in the English county of Northumberland. Locational surnames by their nature are usually "from" names. That is to say names given to people as easy identification after they left their original homes to move somewhere else. Spelling being at best erratic, and local dialects very thick, often lead to the development of "sounds like" spellings. In this case the surname is well recorded in the city of London in Elizabethan times and shortly afterwards in Ireland, where it would seem that nameholders were probably "planters". The surname is an early recording in Ulster, with Robert Teaze appearing in the surviving church registers as a witness at Templemore, County Londonderry, on May 14th 1667. Other early recordings include those of John Tysse, at St Giles Cripplegate, in the city of London, on December 18th 1555 in the reign of Queen Mary of England (1554 - 1558), whilst Sibill Ties is recorded at St Mary Whitechapel, Stepney, on October 30th 1567. Later examples include John Tees at St Johns church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on October 10th 1680, and Mary Ann Teasy who married William Kelly at Clonmore, County Louth, Ireland, on May 25th 1845.

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