This is an Olde English medieval locational or topographical descriptive surname which describes a former inhabitant of the villages of Stanway in Essex or Gloucesterr, or "one who was resident by a paved (i.e. Roman) Road". The village name first appears as "aet Stanwaegun" in the Anglo Saxon chronicles of 995 A.D. in the reign of Aethelred "the Unready" and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Stanwega" both of Essex. The name development includes Hawise de Stanweye (1274, Cambridge), Rev. William Stanway (1511, Norfolk) and Thomas Stanaway who married Millicest Hickman at St.James, Clerkenwell, London in 1659. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Hervey de Stanweye. which was dated 1273, The Hundred Rolls of Norfolk. during the reign of King Edward I, 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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