Re: William TITE - Born Forncett, Norfolk
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In reply to:
William TITE - Born Forncett, Norfolk
Christine Scarfe 10/18/04
My paternal g/father William Tite came from Banham. Not 100% sure birthdate, but believe Nov 1888. My late father (also William, born 1906) told me he remembered as a boy being taken back to Banham from India for the duration of WW1 as his father's regiment (14th Hussars) went to Mesopotamia to fight the Turks in 1915. Dad remembered 2 elderly relatives, husband and wife,whom he met in Banham: apparently they had both been born 1820 and died within a few months of each other in 1919. He remembered also that Grandad's mother, a woman of strong character,had been a suffragette supporter. I have only recently begun to research my family and have visited Banham, where the only trace of the family I found was 1 grave of a Tite who died early in the 20th c whose relationship to me I do not know, plus 2 other Tites listed on the WW1 memorial on the village green. According to my father, the family oral tradition was that they had arrived in England as Huguenot refugees from France, in a party of about 30 which had escaped across the Channel. I have tried to substantiate this but the surname is not so far as I'm aware listed as a Huguenot one. General research of the surname has proved confusing: it is commmonly stated to be of Viking origin and reference is made to it being found in the Borders as a name among the Dark Ages Boernician tribe, who had some Danish and Saxon infusions. I have also found it mentioned as a Flanders surname, while the Tite Inn near Chipping Norton says the name comes from an archaic English word meaning a small stream. All rather confusing to-date! I have come across clusters of Tites around the country, in Dorset and the East Midlands. also, a genealogist empolyed by my late sister about 20 years ago produced a report stating the Tites were listed as a family who had supported William the Conquerer and had been given lands in the north as a reward, a house once stood near Lancaster he said. But who knows? We'd all like to find something out of the ordinary in our origins, but even sharing an uncommon surname doesn't necessarily mean there is a connection.Anyone out there with anything you think might be of interest?