Brief Life History of Alison
When Alison Forrest was christened on 1 October 1665, in Prestonpans, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, her father, William Forrest, was 26 and her mother, Jean Plaine, was 27.
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Family Time Line
Sources (2)
- Alison Forrest, "Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950"
- Alison Forrest, "Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950"
Parents and Siblings
1639–1669 Male
1639–1669 Female
Siblings (2)
1665– Female
1669–1709 Male
Name Meaning
English: topographic name for someone who lived in or near a royal forest, or a metonymic occupational name for a keeper or worker in one. Middle English forest was not, as today, a near-synonym of wood, but referred specifically to a large area of woodland reserved by law for the purposes of hunting by the king and his nobles. The same applied to the European cognates, both ancient Germanic and Romance. The English word is from Middle English forest ‘forest’, Old French forest, Late Latin forestis (silva). This is generally taken to be a derivative of foris ‘outside’; the reference was probably to woods lying outside a settlement. On the other hand, Middle High German for(e)st has been held to be a derivative of Old High German foraha ‘fir’ (see Forster ), with the addition of a collective suffix.
Irish: this name is also frequently attested in Ireland, where it may be a variant of Forrestal .
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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