When Belcher Clark was born on 6 September 1764, in Wilbraham, Hampden, Massachusetts, United States, his father, Rev Seth Clark, was 41 and his mother, Mary Edwards, was 38.
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1723–1813 Male
1725–1799 Female
1747–1830 Male
1748–1751 Female
1750–1787 Female
1750–1795 Female
1753–1833 Male
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English: from Middle English clerk, clark ‘clerk, cleric, writer’ (Old French clerc; see Clerc ). The original sense was ‘man in a religious order, cleric, clergyman’. As all writing and secretarial work in medieval Christian Europe was normally done by members of the clergy, the term clerk came to mean ‘scholar, secretary, recorder, or penman’ as well as ‘cleric’. As a surname, it was particularly common for one who had taken only minor holy orders. In medieval Christian Europe, clergy in minor orders were permitted to marry and so found families; thus the surname could become established.
Irish (Westmeath, Mayo): in Ireland the English surname was frequently adopted, partly by translation for Ó Cléirigh; see Cleary .
Americanized form of Dutch De Klerk or Flemish De Clerck or of variants of these names, and possibly also of French Clerc . Compare Clerk 2 and De Clark .
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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