This interesting surname has two distinct possible origins, each with its own history and derivation. Firstly, Hines may be of Anglo-Saxon origin, and an occupational name for a servant in a great household, from the Middle English "hine", lad, servant (originally a collective term for a body of servants, deriving from the Olde English pre 7th Century "hiwan", household). Servants in important households were highly regarded, and requently those who held senior positions enjoyed certain privileges, and the post would often become hereditary. Early examples of the surname include: William le Hyne (Oxfordshire, 1240), and Robert le Hine (Suffolk, 1273). The second possibility is that Hines is an Anglicized form of the Old Gaelic "O'hEidhin", a leading sept of Co. Galway, descended from Guaire the Hospitable, King of Connaught. From the 7th Century the head of this sept was chief of a territory in South Galway. The family held the lordship of Aidhne, and Mulroy O'Heyne, who was father-in-law of Brian Boru, was styled Lord of Aidhne. In the modern idiom the name is spelt: Hinds, Hines and Hynes. On April 14th 1611 William, son of John Hines, was christened in Lavenham, Suffolk, and on May 5th 1846, Charles Hines, aged 22 yrs., a famine emigrant to New York, embarked from Liverpool on the ship "Jane" bound for that port. Sixteen others of the name are known to have embarked for New York during the period 1846 - 1851. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of O'Heyne, who commanded the forces of Connacht, which was dated 1014, in the "Records of the Battle of Clontarf", during the reign of Brian Boru, "High King of Ireland", 940 - 1014. 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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