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ArchivesRe: Attn Cleveland Kent Evans re: Alifair/Alafair
in reply to a message by "Ella-Fair"
I haven't found any sure explanation yet.
The earliest Alafair in the online Ancestry Library records is Alafair Wright, who was born in Maryland 1768, married Adam Trollinger in North Carolina in 1790 and died in Bedford County, Tennessee in 1860. Unfortunately, no one seems to have been able to figure out who her parents were yet. It is true that most of the later Alafairs live in one of the states she did or in an adjacent state like Kentucky. I don't know if it could be figured out how many of them were actually related to her.
I would think there is at least a 50/50 chance that Alafair Wright's parents were the original creators of the name. There are only two pre-20th-century examples in the Ancestry Library index records in British records, and it seems to me from looking at the photocopy of the original records that one of them was clearly really an Abigail and the census indexer misread the name. The other is from the 1861 Census of Wales, and is a record for a girl named Alafair Lee who was the daughter of Sampson and Alderaife Lee in Breconshire. She was part of a large family and has an older brother whose name looks like Shandras, an older sister Seubee or Senbee, and a younger sister Gravalina, so her parents obviously liked unusual names. She's a couple of generations younger than Alafair Wright of Maryland, but there's an outside chance that her existence means there might be a Welsh origin for the name.
It seems really unlikely to me that this is a surname transfer, because there are is only a total of 17 entries for persons with the surnames Alafair, Allafair, or Alifair in the Ancestry Library census records. Several of these when one checks the original records are obvious examples of the indexer misreading a first name as a last name, and none of them are of people born before Alafair Wright.
P.S. The forms starting with E- seem to be more recent. The earliest example I've found so far is Elifair Costin, wife of James Costin, 36 years old, born in Georgia, and living in Washington County Georgia in 1850.
The earliest Alafair in the online Ancestry Library records is Alafair Wright, who was born in Maryland 1768, married Adam Trollinger in North Carolina in 1790 and died in Bedford County, Tennessee in 1860. Unfortunately, no one seems to have been able to figure out who her parents were yet. It is true that most of the later Alafairs live in one of the states she did or in an adjacent state like Kentucky. I don't know if it could be figured out how many of them were actually related to her.
I would think there is at least a 50/50 chance that Alafair Wright's parents were the original creators of the name. There are only two pre-20th-century examples in the Ancestry Library index records in British records, and it seems to me from looking at the photocopy of the original records that one of them was clearly really an Abigail and the census indexer misread the name. The other is from the 1861 Census of Wales, and is a record for a girl named Alafair Lee who was the daughter of Sampson and Alderaife Lee in Breconshire. She was part of a large family and has an older brother whose name looks like Shandras, an older sister Seubee or Senbee, and a younger sister Gravalina, so her parents obviously liked unusual names. She's a couple of generations younger than Alafair Wright of Maryland, but there's an outside chance that her existence means there might be a Welsh origin for the name.
It seems really unlikely to me that this is a surname transfer, because there are is only a total of 17 entries for persons with the surnames Alafair, Allafair, or Alifair in the Ancestry Library census records. Several of these when one checks the original records are obvious examples of the indexer misreading a first name as a last name, and none of them are of people born before Alafair Wright.
P.S. The forms starting with E- seem to be more recent. The earliest example I've found so far is Elifair Costin, wife of James Costin, 36 years old, born in Georgia, and living in Washington County Georgia in 1850.
This message was edited 9/16/2009, 2:16 PM
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