Brief Life History of William
William Clark was born in 1750, in Virginia, United States. He had at least 1 daughter with Mrs Clark.
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Family Time Line
Sources (4)
- William in entry for Richard Cornell and Lydia Clark, "West Virginia Marriages, 1780-1970"
- William Clark in entry for Richard Cornell and Lydia Clark, "West Virginia Marriages, 1854-1932"
- William Clark in entry for Richard Cornell and Lydia Clark, "West Virginia Marriages, 1780-1970"
Spouse and Children
World Events (3)
1758 · Mount Vernon
Age 8
1776
Age 26
1776 · The Declaration to the King
Age 26
Name Meaning
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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