This interesting and unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and has two possible sources, the first being that it is a regional name for someone who lived in Tynedale, the valley of the river Tyne, deriving from a British (pre-Roman) river name "Tina" (from a Celtic root word meaning "to flow"), with the Olde English pre 7th Century "doel", valley. However, this surname may also be a locational name from Tindale in Cumbria, which is situated on a tributary of the South Tyne, and has the same derivation as before. Locational surnames were usually acquired by a local landowner, or by the lord of the manor, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, usually in search of work, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. One Thomas Tindall was recorded in "James Cittie", Virginia, in February 1623. Recordings from Cumbria Church Registers include the christening of Hellen Tindall on November 13th 1664, at Torpenhow. The Coat of Arms most associated with the name is a silver shield with a red fess dancette, in chief three red crescents, the Crest being out of a gold ducal coronet, a plume of five silver feathers. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Adam de Tindal, which was dated 1165, in the "Pipe Rolls of Northumberland", during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. 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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