Recorded in the modern spellings of Hartshorn and Hartshorne, this is an English locational surname from a village of the same name in the county of Derbyshire.Both the village name and the surname have undergone some transition over the centuries, the village being first recorded in the famous Domesday Book of King William 1st, in the year 1086. Then it was spelt "Heorteshorne", which translates as "the stags horn", a horn being an outcrop of rock or land. Another possible explanation is that "the horn" was a physical feature in the countryside which had or maybe still has, some resemblance to a stag. Early surnames were often, as in this case, granted to the lord of the manor and his descendants, it being the easiest form of identification and status to call a person by the name of the place which he or she, owned. In due course this surname became hereditary, and as branches of the family developed, some would leave the original homestead and move elsewhere, whilst retaining the "family" name. Early examples of the surname recording include Richard de Hertishorn of Derby in 1273, and Alice Hertishorn, in the Fines Register of the county of Derby, in the year 1422. The first known recording of the surname is believed to be that of Henry de Hertishorn, in the Hundred Rolls of Derbyshire in the year 1272. This was in the first year of the reign of King Edward 1st of England, 1272 - 1307.

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