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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: mofid42 on Friday 14 September 12 00:04 BST (UK)
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I have two women, mother and daughter, on my tree who both have the first name Tanzier or Tansier
The mother was born in London in 1908 and her daughter also in London in 1928
Its such a unusual name and they appear to be the only people in on-line BMD records who have the name.
I am wondering where it may have originated.
Any ideas?
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It could be a variation of Tansy http://www.behindthename.com/names/letter/t
Stan
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Thank you Stanmapstone
That certainly is one possibility.
I did wonder if it was a corruption of Tangier.
Tanzier senior was the twelfth child of her parents and the only one to have such an unusual name ...maybe the parents had heard it somewhere when looking a for a name but where uncertain of the exact spelling.
added: Her full name was Tansier/Tanzier Unity Lockyer and when she married she gave her daughter the same two first names.
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I thought of the name Tamzyn, and wondered if there'd been a mistranscription. However if she named her daughter the same, that would seem unlikely.
???
(PS - not sure but I have a feeling Tamzyn is a Cornish name?)
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Well this is a real whodunnit, which is kind of ironic as
Unity Tansier Hall was a crimewriter \ writer allegedly and there are several books on amazon by her - if its the same Unity Hall she was also a journalist
(seems she changed her name round from Tansier Unity Hall to Unity Tansier Hall)
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Hi Deb D...thanks for the suggestion of Tamzyn.
Her name definitely seems to be Tanzier so its not a mis-transcription.
I did a Google search and did find a couple of living people with the name Tanzier as a first name and some the 1940 US census who had the name as a surname but no obvious signs of its origins
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Hi Davidft
Yes you are right Tanzier Unity Hall was the daughter and she was a journalist/writer and later in her life an agony aunt for the News of the World.
Most of the time she called herself Unity Hall, even after she married (several times). She had quite a colourful life. I have discussed her before on another thread, but not by name.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,609790.msg4591066.html#msg4591066
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OK so you may also know there was someone registered with the Tanzier name in 1962 - do you know this person or if not have you tried to contact them to see if they know where the name comes from ?
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What type of record was the 1962 entry?...was it a marriage?
If so then that is for Tanzier Unity Hall's second marriage.
Why she used a different surname is a bit of a mystery , although she did live briefly with a man with that surname but as far as I can tell she did not marry him.
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yes it was a marriage - so i guess that rules that one out
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The mother's age seems to have been a year out at death:
Death, May 1984
Tansier Unity Hall born 27 Aug 1908
Islington 13 1393
Birth, Sep qtr 1907
Tansier Unity Lockyer
Hendon 3a 369
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Hi avm228
Yes, that is the mothers birth and death details.
I find that year out thing happens quite a lot...the day and month are correct but the year is out by one or sometimes more than one year. Can be very confusing when its a common name!
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Yes, it's not uncommon at all for the supposed age at death to be wrong. I raised it because you said in the first post of the thread that she had been born in 1908, so I took it you did not have the 1907 birth registration details.
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On your other thread you say you do not have details of the location of Unity Hall's 1990 marriage to P.W. (I won't mention the bridegroom's name in full in case he is still living).
The Times announcement of 23 March 1990 says that this marriage took place on 18 March 1990 at the United Nations Chapel in New York.
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How far have you traced the family back? I see from earlier censuses there are people with similar surname variants eg Tanzer, Tanzey etc
It could be possible its a corruption of a surname from an older part of the family
I see on the registration of the parents marriage Esther's name is given as Esther Ellen T Barton. Do you know what the T stands for ?
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Hi Avm228
Thank you for the information from the Times.
Would you mind telling me where you located the entry as I have been trying to find it.
I found an entry on Ancestry which is only an index to notices from the Times but it doesn't give the location of the marriage.
I tried to find the entry using my library access to the Times but could not find the entry. The website I was using only seemed to have news articles.
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I got it from the Times Digital Archive through my (Islington) library membership.
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Hi davidft
I have traced the family back on the fathers side to the 1700's but not come across anyone with the surname Tanzer or similar.
I have not gone very far with the mothers family as she was the one that married into the family, and as this is not my direct line I don't normally go much further than the parents names for spouses.
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Thanks avm228...I don't have access to that one with my library
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I see on the registration of the parents marriage Esther's name is given as Esther Ellen T Barton. Do you know what the T stands for ?
The images for the marriage and banns are on Ancestry.
For the banns she is down as Esther Ellen Taxford Burton
For the marriage she is transcribed as Esther Ellen Telford Barton although the original does look like Taxford
Her father is William a painter
So the T is either Telford or Taxford and the name may be Burton not Barton
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Hi Davidft
Just to confuse things further the name also appears as Tuxford on some records.
Of the three I think it is meant to be Tuxford but the family name is a bit complicated to follow. (Its a while since I tried to work them all out so my memory is a bit hazy)
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Not sure if this thread is still live but Unity Hall was my mother’s cousin and I can probably fill in a few facts if anyone is interested