This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is an occupational name for "one employed to keep the shuttles threaded in weaving". The derivation of the name is from the Olde English pre 7th Century "thraed", thread, with the suffix "-er", denoting a person that performs a specified action, occupation. The shuttle was a bobbin-like device used in weaving for passing the weft thread between the warp threads. Job-descriptive surnames originally denoted the actual occupation of the namebearer, and later became hereditary. The surname was first recorded in the mid 14th Century (see below), and William Treder was noted in the Yorkshire Poll Tax Returns, dated 1379. In the modern idiom the surname can be found as Threader and Thredder. Recordings of the surname from London Church Registers include: the marriage of Robertt Thredder and Jone Shipton on May 31st 1566, at St. Margaret Lothbury; the marriage of Robert Threader and Alice Wells on July 13th 1581, at St. James', Clerkenwell; and the christening of Franc, son of Thomas Threader, on November 10th 1594, at St. Giles' Cripplegate. One of the earliest settlers in the New World was Nicholas Thredder, who was listed as "living" in Virginia in 1624, after going over in 1623 aboard the "Katherin". The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Thredere, which was dated 1365, in the "Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London", during the reign of King Edward 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1327 - 1377. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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