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HADLEY
The Name Hadley is actually of Saxon origin...These invaders were from the Rhine in Germany and settled in easten England in about 600 AD. Before 1066, when they lost control of England to the Normans, they were in Complete control of the island with the exception of Wales and Scotland. The original Saxon name is believed to have been HATLEGH. The first written name we have seen until this writing is the Domesday Survey's Hatlege. The name was also spelled HATLEGA, or HEDLEGA which are more phonetic versions. They were Saxon, they had a more guttural type of an accent. When athe Normans....successfully defeated the Saxons in 1066, Saxon names became Normanized. Versions such as de Hadley, De Haddesley, de Haddleigh are transitional examples of the original Hedlega.
D.B. Hadley from Whitehill House in Upham Hampshire, England has written to me regarding the subject of the origin of the name Hadley.
"Dear John,
Thank you for your letter. I am sorry for taking so long to reply. Firstly, as to the origin of the family name-Dr. Basil Cottle's Penquin Dictionary surnames haws the following entry: Hadley= Heather Hill. Peter Hadley's "A HADLEY HISTORY<" may 1978 quotes H.P. Guppy from "HOME OF FAMILY NAMES, 1890," as saying that Worcestershire is the home of the HADLEYS; that they derived their name from places in adjacent counties of Staffordshire and Shropshire. There cetainly were a good many HADLEYs in those counties in the 1500s. Peter Hadley also quotes John Weever's "ANCIENT FUNERAL MONUMENTS FROM 1631" as follows: "After he, Gurmond or Gurthrum, a Danish King, had governed these counties of Suffolk and Norfolk a space of 12 years complete, he died and was buried in the Kings Town called HEADLEGA ( so HADLEY was called in the Saxon language) ' In Suffolk, among the East English in the 889." So, 889 is the fijrst documented case that we have seen where our written name actually exists."
In this first written example Hadley means King's town, Chief town or Head town. He goes on abouat ALan de Hadley and all these other HADLEYs in Shropshire, but continues to say, "I am afraid that none of this is conclusive to support the name except to say that it has been around a long time, and may be connected with 'Heather"".. IT is interesting that in 1134 William de Hadley and his sons Alan and William signed their name de Hedlega as witnesses to two charters by Hamo Perevel to Shrewsbury Abbey. This would be the first written document using the surname Hadley (de Hedlega), as signed by a family member. As a family name, Hadley appears in England in the twelfth centru as de Haddeleigh, and de Haddesley. Later, Cadogan de Hadley simplified the name whichy was retained by his descendants who held Bulkley in Cheshire.
It is important to note that although Hadley is a Saxon place name, the first to use it as a surname were cetainly Norman. The Normans were Vikings who had settled in the area of Normandy, France. So the name is of Saxon origin, but our ancestors were of Norman genetics.
A little later the name appears as Hadleigh, but aws early as the fourteenth century it is spelled Hadley, Hadeley or Hadly. As England developed as an independent kingdom, the Norman influence lessened and many surnames were Anglicized.
....THe HADLEY motto, which is "GOD IS MY HELP", I learned from Ted and Vera HAdley who have been studying the Hadley family for over 20 years in England. They are not related to us.
We have seen the name change over time through all of these variations. One of the things said in one of the (Hadley Society) books was that it became Hadley in the 1400 or 1500 and stayed that way. ( the above had been taken from a transcript of a presentation to the Hadley Society in 1999 by John Hadley)
The Hadley Society are dedicated to the descendents of Simon Hadley II, who had come to the U.S. from Ireland. As for the Last paragraph the author goes on to state that the Hadley name stayed with the HADLEY spelling in 1400..was not true as his family used the HADLY variation. Today there are still numerous variations of the name such as, Hadleigh, Haddley, Hadly, among others.
Our ancestor, George Hadley was the first Hadley to come to the American shores in 1639. He had traveled across the Atlantic to settle in Ipswich Massachusetts. There are a number of places in the U.S. that were names for George Hadley and a number of his descendents. One being named after our own great-grandfather, George Henry Hadley, one Hadley Road in Black River, New York.
Sources: www.hadleysociety.org
www.familyhistory.com
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