Quote:
Originally Posted by Olde Crone
I have a family named Henshaw, thousands of them. Back in the 1600s, the parish clerk fumbled while writing the w, tried to correct it and made the slopes bigger. It looks like Henshall - and forever after, that is what this branch of the Henshaws were called. If course, it could also have been a tongue tie speech impediment, which makes a w sound like an l. All meant to catch the poor innocent researcher out.
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I believe the w / ll ending variants are pretty common in the Bristol area just because of the local accent.