Brief Life History of William
When William Black was born on 18 February 1811, in Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, Arthur Black, was 33 and his mother, Mary Hean, was 36.
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Family Time Line
Sources (1)
- William Black, "Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950"
Parents and Siblings
1777– Male
1774–1864 Female
Siblings (8)
1804– Male
1806– Female
1807–1876 Male
1809– Male
1811– Male
+3 More Children
World Events (8)
1813 · The Court of Session Act 1813
Age 2
1815
Age 4
1843
Age 32
Name Meaning
English and Scottish: chiefly from Middle English blak(e) ‘black’ (Old English blæc, blaca), a nickname given from the earliest times to a swarthy or dark-haired man. However, Middle English blac also meant ‘pale, wan’, a reflex of Old English blāc ‘pale, white’ with a shortened vowel. Compare Blatch and Blick . With rare exceptions it is impossible to disambiguate these antithetical senses in Middle English surnames. The same difficulty arises with Blake and Block .
Scottish: in Gaelic-speaking areas this name was adopted as a translation of the epithet dubh ‘dark, black-(haired)’, or of various other names based on Gaelic dubh ‘black’, see Duff .
Americanized form (translation into English) of various European surnames directly or indirectly derived from the adjective meaning ‘black, dark’, for example German and Jewish Schwarz and Slavic surnames beginning with Čern-, Chern- (see Chern and Cherne ), Chorn-, Crn- or Czern-.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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