This most fascinating and unusual surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a variant of Fazackerley, itself an English locational name from Fazakerley in Lancashire, a minor place in the parish of Walton on the Hill, near Liverpool, which was recorded as "Fasacre" and "Fasacrelegh" in the Court Rolls of Lancashire in 1325. The placename is composed of the Olde English pre 7th Century elements "faes", a border, fringe, and "-aecer", a field, ploughed land, plus "-leah", a wood, clearing. During the Middle Ages, when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often took their former village name as a means of identification, resulting in a wide dispersal of the name. Other variants of the surname in the modern idiom include Phizackerly, Phizackerley, Phizakarley and Phizaclea. The surname is first recorded in the late 13th Century (see below), while Roger de Fazakerley appears in Baine's Lancashire Records in 1394. Rycharde Fazakerley married Joane Hodgkinson on August 20th 1628, at St. Bride's, Fleet Street, London, and Mary, daughter of John Phizacklea, was christened on November 25th 1792, at Urwick in Furness, Lancashire. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Fasakerlegh, which was dated 1276, witness in the "Assize Court Rolls of Lancashire", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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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