This most interesting and unusual surname, though ostensibly an occupational name meaning "master of the goats" is however, of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a variant of "Buckminster", an English locational name from a place so called in Leicestershire, which was recorded as "Bucheminstre" in the Domesday Book of 1086. The placename derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Bucca", from "bucc", a he-goat, and the Olde English "mynster", a monastery or church, from the Latin "monasterium". Locational names were originally given to the Lord of the Manor, or as a means of identification to those who left their place of birth to seek work elsewhere. The surname is first recorded in the late 12th Century (see below), while the Writs of Parliament record one Simon de Bokminstre in 1295. Roger de Bukeministre is mentioned in the Book of Fees of Lincolnshire, circa 1307. William Buckmaster (died 1545), as Vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, carried the university's reply to Henry V111's court, concerning the King's divorce from Catherine of Aragon in 1530. John Buckmuster, aged 20 yrs., one of the early settlers in Virginia, circa 1620, was part of the muster of Edward Blaney, having arrived on the "Hopwell". The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Adam de Bucemenistre, which was dated 1180, in the "Pipe Rolls of Leicestershire, during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches, 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.1154 - 1189.