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Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
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London metropolis.
Brown in his Genesis of America gives a copy of his signature which reads
Edmond Pershall.
The reader
should however note that although some of the members of the Ranton branch of the family changed the spelling of
their surname to Pearsall, they did not change the articulate utterance
for their surname, which they had used since the time of the Battle of
Bosworth Field. They still were called PaarŽsaal,
pronouncing the first element-Pear-the same as the name of the fruit,
with the long drawl of the cockney English dialect. The last element they
sounded the same as the last element in the word-Tattersall.
Whereby some of their modern descendants are getting a phonetic value
very much like the first and last elements in the word-parasol. As a
fact, the writer found in Canada
a record where a member of the family was recorded as Parasol. It was
only a few weeks ago that a member of the family of the Ranton branch now living in England, sent the writer
a copy of his book mark in the form of a rebus, wherein he represented
the first element of his name by a picture of a pear. On the other hand,
Edmond Pearsall not only changed the form of spelling his surname to
Pearsall, but he likewise changed the same phonetically to conform to the
sound values of the soft middle English dialect. He and his sons and their
descendants gave articulate utterance to their surname by sounding the
first element-pearŽthe same as the last element
of the old English word appear, or as the clerk of the Grocers guild
phonetically expressed it as Pier (sail). The last element of the surname
they gave its middle English phonetic value of saull.
While now the Long Island and other New York folks, and those who came
from that State, all descendants of Edmond Pearsall, pronounce the last
element in their family name the same as the last element in the word Tattersall, which strange to say is the name of an
English family who likewise originally wrote their name as Tatter-shall.
[Cf also The Century Dictionary and the Century
Cyclopedia of Names.]
Later, when they
had acquired great wealth from the tobacco trade with Virginia, Robert,
brother of Edmond, and Sir John of Horsley his nephew, and Edmond
himself, changed to Peshall, which spelling
they continued until their respective deaths; and so it will be found
recorded in their several last wills. They had become intimate long
before this with one Sampson Erdeswicke, a
celebrated historian and genealogist, who pointed out to them the
spelling of their surname as Peshall according
to certain ancient deeds that he had seen; but inasmuch as these deeds
were made in the second period of the transition of the family name, they
used the spelling of Peshall instead of Peshale. The really amusing part of the matter was
that owing to passage of nearly a century since any one had called
themselves Peshall, it followed by a strange
coincidence that by applying the middle English value to the letters used
in this spelling of their surname, they also changed the sound of the
same. For the records disclose that they called themselves and became
known as Peashall. Robert Peshall
died without heirs male, so this designation went no farther in his line.
Sir John, the nephew, became a baronet under the designation of this
surname, but his children repudiated the same and went back to the old
Staffordshire designation of Per-shall. As to Edmond, his will signed by
his scrivener, calls him Edmond Peshall, and
this is the only evidence that he continued to use it except that his
second
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