This very unusual surname, recorded in Church Registers of Cornwall and London from the late 16th Century under the variant spellings Tresad(d)ern, Tresoderne, Tresadean, Trisadden and Tresedan, is ultimately believed to be of locational origin either from Tresaethon in Carnarvonshire, Wales, or from some minor, unrecorded or now "lost" place originally situated in Cornwall. The component elements of the placename are the Welsh "tref, tre" (Cornish "trev, tre"), homestead, settlement, village, town, with the Cornish "sowden", from "souder-den", soldier-man; hence, "homestead of the soldier (man)". Alternatively, the latter two elements may be the Celto-Saxon "sud, suth", souther, and "den", a deep-wooded valley. An estimated seven to ten thousand villages and hamlets are known to have disappeared in Britain, mainly as a result of the enforced clearing of rural settlements to make way for sheep pastures at the height of the wood trade in the 14th Century, and also due to such natural causes as the Black Death of 1348, in which an eighth of the population perished. On July 2nd 1717, Susanna Tresadden and William Reynold were married at Redruth, Cornwall, and on December 24th 1843, Samuel, son of George Tresadean, was christened at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, London. The christening of Dorothy Emma Trisadden also took place at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, on December 15th 1850. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Rychard Tresoderne, which was dated January 19th 1586, a christening witness, at Constantine, Cornwall, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. 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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