This is an English locational name from any of the various places so called, although they do not share the same derivations. Alderton in Essex is first recorded as 'Aelwartone' and means 'Aelfweard's tun' meaning an enclosure or village. The Aldertons in Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Wiltshire are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Aldntone' and this means the 'tun' or village of 'Ealdhere's people'. These examples are from Anglo-Saxon personal names becoming village (place) names and later, surnames. The Aldertones in Shropshire and Suffolk (recorded as 'Alretuna' in Domesday Book) derive from the Old English 'alra', alder (trees) and 'tun', and means 'the village by the alder wood'. One William Alderton was an early settler in America, leaving London on the 'Primrose' in 1635 bound for Virginia. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of George Alderton, married Olivia Withers, which was dated 1547 Capel St. Mary, Suffolk, during the reign of King Henry VIII, 'Bluff King Hal', 1509 - 1547. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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