When Color Sergeant John Robert Oswald was born on 25 April 1834, in Woolwich, Kent, England, United Kingdom, his father, Archibald Oswald Sr., was 35 and his mother, Agnes Shearer Kirkwood, was 22. He married Hannah Lark Bensley on 3 November 1854, in Woolwich, Kent, England, United Kingdom. They were the parents of at least 8 sons and 2 daughters. He immigrated to New York County, New York, United States in 1868 and lived in Woolwich, Greenwich, London, England, United Kingdom in 1861 and Stratford Bow St Mary, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom in 1871. He died on 24 October 1908, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States, at the age of 74, and was buried in Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.
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Dickens A Christmas Carol was first published.
Historical Boundaries: 1848: Mexican Cession, United States 1850: Utah Territory, United States 1851: Great Salt Lake, Utah Territory, United States 1868: Salt Lake, Utah Territory, United States 1896: Salt Lake, Utah, United States
The Crimean War was fought between Russia and an alliance of Britain, France, Sardinia and Turkey on the Crimean Peninsula. Russia had put pressure on Turkey which threatened British interests in the Middle East.
Scottish (Fife and Lanarkshire), northern English, German, and French (mainly Alsace and Lorraine): from an Old English personal name composed of the elements ōs ‘god’ + weald ‘power’. In the Middle English period, this fell together with the less common Old Norse cognate Ásvaldr. The name was introduced to Germany from England, as a result of the fame of Saint Oswald, a 7th-century king of Northumbria, whose deeds were reported by Celtic missionaries to southern Germany. The name was also borne by a 10th-century English saint of Danish parentage, who was important as a monastic reformer. Veneration of Saint Oswald, the king, spread from the German lands to the neighbouring Slavic lands as well. The surname in the (German) spelling Oswald is thus also found especially in Czechia and Slovakia, while in North America it also absorbed various Slavic forms (see 3 below).
Irish (Down): adopted as an English equivalent of Gaelic Ó hEodhusa (see Hussey 1).
Americanized form of Slovenian, Slovak, and Czech Osvald, Slovenian and Slovak Ožvald or Ozvald, and probably also of Slovenian Ožbolt: from vernacular forms of the German personal name Oswald, of Old English origin (see 1 above).
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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