When Alpha Freer was born in August 1834, in New York, United States, his father, Alva Freer, was 21 and his mother, Phebe Ann Streeter, was 19. He married Almira Odelia Newton on 21 August 1853, in Washtenaw, Michigan, United States. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 4 daughters. He lived in Alaiedon Township, Ingham, Michigan, United States in 1880 and Leslie, Ingham, Michigan, United States in 1900. He died in 1917, in Michigan, United States, at the age of 83.
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1834–1917 Male
1837–1923 Female
1855–1923 Male
1862–1942 Male
about 1866–1923 Female
1867–1930 Male
1870– Female
+3 More Children
1813–1896 Male
1815–1893 Female
1834–1917 Male
1835–1911 Female
1838–1910 Female
1842–1856 Male
1842–1880 Female
+2 More Children
English: sometimes from Middle English frere, frier ‘brother, friend, comrade’ (Old French frere). During the 13th century, however, the word increasingly denoted ‘member of one of the mendicant religious orders’, the usual modern sense of the word friar. The first friars arrived in England in 1224. As with Abbot , Monk , Nunn , and Prior , late medieval use of Frere as a nickname was probably uncomplimentary, for by the mid 14th century the once popular friars had become a byword in satirical literature for self-indulgent, smooth-talking hypocrisy. Friars were not allowed to marry, but some of them probably fathered children. After the Reformation former friars were free to marry, and one such is said to have been the progenitor of the Friers of Melrose parish, Roxburgh, an instance, if true, of post-medieval surname creation. The name may also be occupational, for someone who lived or worked at a friary (Middle English frere ‘house of friars’).
Americanized form of French Frère (see Frere ).
German: cognate of Friedrich .
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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