As a member of family Townsend, I do not agree with the explanation of the origin of our name in your material. My father said we were descended from a Norman family named Toussaint. That is someone born on All saints day!Cryptologists have confirmed that if you go back to before Samuel Johnson and his time, Townsend is a corruption of Toussaint. It is not difficult to see that in those days the S was a huge letter in old manuscripts with a big loop above the line and also below thus the u is easily corrupted into the double U. This would explain why some spellings of the name have an h viz. Townshend.It is so easy to say he came from the end of the Town! This view is perpetrated throughout the literature and everybody accepts that view as it is the easy option.
My father said we were descended from a Norman family named Toussaint. That is someone born on All saints day!
Cryptologists have confirmed that if you go back to before Samuel Johnson and his time, Townsend is a corruption of Toussaint. It is not difficult to see that in those days the S was a huge letter in old manuscripts with a big loop above the line and also below thus the u is easily corrupted into the double U. This would explain why some spellings of the name have an h viz. Townshend.
It is so easy to say he came from the end of the Town! This view is perpetrated throughout the literature and everybody accepts that view as it is the easy option.