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THE NAME "ALDWINCKLE"--WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

I've heard the gamut of permutations of my name, from "Bullwinkle" to "Periwinkle", from "Youngwinkle" to "Rip Van Winkle", from "All wrinkled" to "Winkle-stinkle", thanks to grade-school environments.

Anyway, a bit of etymology:

"Aldwinckle", word has it, means "Old Bend in the River", similar to words in German and Old English, and originates from a village with a slightly different spelling, "Aldwincle", near Kettering, Northamptonshire, central England. Here is the front and back of a postcard to prove it.

There is quite a history. Aldwincle village has existed for nearly a millennium--even listed in William the Conquerer's Domus Dei Book, written after 1066. Our ancestors in Aldwincle would, if they left town, have their first names appended with "D'Aldwincle", from the French "of Aldwincle". The name apparently stuck. In the village of Aldwincle's pretty (but defunct) All Saints Church, a brass floor-gravestone covers a 14th-Century William D'Aldwincle, who was apparently knighted, even having a manor and a coat-of-arms.

All the Aldwinckles have since left Aldwincle, so any England trip I make includes a pilgrimage there--a charming hamlet of definitely no more than a hundred people. During my 1996 Eurotrek, with my wife and kids in tow, we dropped by the Post Office and Shop (there's only one), asked for some souvenirs, and could only find postcards. So, to show our "hometown spirit" we bought as many things as possible--even a dozen bags of "Aldwinclized" crisps and Mars Bars. The shopkeeper didn't mind that a bit.

Here we are by the local signpost.

Aldwinckles, like a radioactive isotope, are very traceable. In the village of Cottingham, some miles away, over a dozen 19th-Century Aldwinckles (by now with a "k" inserted) are buried, and we are indeed directly related. According to the guest book at the nave of All Saints, several other Aldwinckles have stopped by here from places as far-flung as Canada, Australia, and even South Africa. Look in a few major city phonebooks--with a name like ours you can't miss 'em! There are even a century or two of them listed in the Mormon Geneological Library in Salt Lake City, although I don't know how many of them have been "saved" yet by LDS faith.

And for you Brits out there who are fans of TV series "East Enders", the young person's hipper answer to "Coronation Street", a Mr Ian Aldwinckle is one of the scripters.

But let's be thorough. On the internet, I did a MetaCrawler Search in 1997 when the technology was still primitive and came up with 47 references, from a huge number of backgrounds.

For scientists and botanists, there's a Dr Herbert Aldwinckle of Cornell University at many places with many publications, at, for example, http://www.research.cornell.edu/Biotech/ResDir9495/Aldwinckle.html. An expert on tree fruits and grape diseases, he just happens to be my father.

For Electrical Engineers, there's a Mr J. Aldwinckle who is working on heady stuff dealing with mu calculus for Wright Patterson AFB. See http://reuben.afit.af.mil:8000/~stevensk/pubs.html

For sportsmen, there's a rugby player (a garbageman by trade) named Jason Malcolm Aldwinckle, a hooker for the Leicester Tigers, at http://www.le.ac.uk/tigers/players/ja1.html.

On the other extreme, there's a rich-looking Graham Aldwinckle in London, member of a very-private-looking yacht club called the Little Ship Club. See http://www.demon.co.uk/allena/lsc/members.htm

For musicians, there is a Robert Aldwinckle, organ and harpsichordist, who can be found at music sites http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/performers/raphi/countertenors/smith.html, and http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/collcat/part2.html. Robert Aldwinckle is my uncle.

For theologians, I found a weird web page for a Systematic Theology academic syllabus--the study of God over the Internet--from a US Deep South university. There is a Russell Aldwinckle, of Mercer University, who is part of the required reading for Christology. See http://tvbs.edu/ht524.html

For computer scientists, there is a John Aldwinckle, graduate student at the University of Calgary, Canada, at http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~share/grads.html. You can even email him at johna@cpsc.ucalgary.ca

And just for family people, there is a Cliff Aldwinckle married and living in Allestree, England, with children Jane, John, and Peter who are about my age. See family tree at http://ng.netgate.net/~millar/jimgene/d0003/g0000098.htm. You can also see a picture of Maureen Statham, who married an Aldwinckle, at http://ng.netgate.net/~millar/genepict/irismaureen.html

Speaking of family, there are more Aldwinckles than you can shake a stick at located at http://www.keynsham.demon.co.uk/fhistory/gedcom/ind0002.htm. Over a hundred years of family trees.

Now I join their ranks on the Internet, from Japan. The Aldwinckle diaspora, it seems, cover just about every corner of the earth now.