Turnage Family History
"The Children of Thunor" They will live ...
as long as we remember.
W
elcome to the Turnage Family Association's History section of our website is devoted to the history of our Turnage family, from its beginnings in England up to the present. If you are a descendant of the Turnage - Turnidge family, this is YOUR family page. The Turnage Family Association is the first family club for all Turnages in the World. We are dedicated to gathering and preserving information and records on ALL Turnages - Turnidges and their descendants who have ever lived. You are urged to send us information and copies of records to preserve in the Turnage Family National Library and to post on YOUR Turnage Family Association family webpage.
There has been considerable debate over the years as to the origin and meaning of our family name Turnage - Turnidge. One book was published decades ago on the origins and meanings of British surnames. For a long time, this was considered a "bible" of such information. However, many respectable scholars have since shown that the author placed most of his emphasis upon the nobility and did very little research on family names of "commoners". This was once typical of professional genealogists in England.
That author claimed the name "Turnage" - "Turnidge" came from an occupational name, meaning "a turner of lathes". This is false. On the contrary, a "turner of lathes" is called simply "Turner". The author also claimed our family took its name from a parish in a county that our family never lived in.
I have studied the origins of our family name for many years. I was well aware of the fact that it is like many Saxon or other Germanic words--a combination of two or more words. Years ago, I just assumed the words were "turn" and "age". However, when I began serious research on its origins, I quickly discovered a combination of these two words could not form a sensible word.
The most authoritative sources for the English language is the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Entymological Dictionary of the English Language, both published by Oxford University in England. Using these two main sources and many others, I soon discovered the words are a combination of either "Thunor" and "wich" or "Thunor" and "ness" -- or "Thunor's ness". Thunor was one of the three main gods of our ancient Saxon ancestors and their other Germanic cousins. He was called "Thor" in the Scandanavian countries. He was the god of thunder, the chief god of farmers and at various times in history was also considered the god of war. The word "ness" means a high place or a small peninsula. Such places were used for worship in ancient times among people all over the world.
The Old Saxon word "wich" means a small settlement or town. Many English settlements or places took their name from the names of the Old English gods and "Thunor's wich" meant simply 'a place where Thunor was worshiped. The word "ness" can be used to describe two types of landmarks: either a type of outer banks offshore or a hill. In this case, "Thunor's ness" would be a hill where Thunor was worshiped.
As Old English changed, the ending "wich" eventually became 'age', 'idge', 'itch' and other spellings. These meant a smaller settlement that the suffix "ham" usually meant but both mean a settlement (large or small), such as Birmingham.
There were once dozens of places all over England which incorporated his name. After Christianity was forced upon the country by their kings, the common folk used "hidden" names and kept the memory of Thunor (and their other gods) alive.
Our ancestors in Essex County, England apparently took their name from just such a site where Thunor was worshipped. It means literally "a place where Thunor is worshipped".
You can read more about the origins and meaning of our family name in the book Turnage Family History, Vol. I , published by the family club.
(NOTE: be patient, I will be adding info to this site over the coming months. Visit the site often for updates.)
PLEASE: if you are a Turnage or descendant of a Turnage, send us information on yourself and your immediate family to preserve in the Turnage Family National Library.
Robert Earl Woodham is the son of the late NORMA TURNAGE and grandson of GORDON WILLIAM TURNAGE, all natives of Georgia. Robert Earl's daddy was killed in World War II when he was a child and his Woodham grandfather died soon afterward, so he grew up without knowing either of them. When he was 12 years old and he and his mother were living with his grandfather Turnage, he began seeking more info about his family. Since Granddaddy Turnage was a "walking history book", it was only natural to start working on his mother's family history at the same time. When he entered college at the age of 17, Atlanta, with its big libraries and state archives, was nearby and he began making frequent trips there for family research.
He later went to work for theAtlanta Journal-Constitution, the largest newspapers in the South. He also worked as a writer and editor for newspapers in Cordele, Thomasville and Albany, Ga. and as correspondent for papers in Tallahassee and Jacksonville, Fla. and United Press International. He later became assistant editor of a group of magazines in Atlanta and later as assistant editor of a suburban Atlanta newspaper.
He also served as Information Officer for the Southwest Georgia Area Planning & Development Commission (13 counties and their cities) and for the Georgia State Planning Bureau. He researched and wrote many professional studies for these two public agencies. All this newspaper and magazine writing and editing background helped greatly in his family history hobby. Now, more than 45 years later, his hobby has become a real passion. His collection of records now totals about 3,000 notebooks and many boxes of family information and documents. He is the author of 14 books (NOT computer printouts) on his family.
Several people have published my research in whole or in part on commercial and private Internet websites. None of these folk have asked my permission -- nor have I given it.
Not one of these folk are members nor supporters of the Turnage Family Association. I don't believe that any have ever been a member. In fact, most of them have never bought copies of my publications but apparently obtained the information from other sources. My guess is that none have ever been to a single local courthouse to gather information on our Turnage family.
NONE of these folk have asked me for permission to use my research for Internet publication nor for permission to quote from my publications. Not only does this constitute plagiarism (which writers and researchers consider the worst crime!), it also is theft of services (MY services!) under the law. "Plagiarize: to steal and pass off as one's own (the ideas or words of another); to present as one's own an idea or product derived from an existing source."
Most of these websites also fail to give me and my publications as a source for their information and THAT makes it theft of services. Some do quote me and my publications as a source. It is obvious in most of these websites that none of them have ever done any serious research on the Turnage family but have instead relied solely upon the hard work of others -- especially myself.
Many folk have also contributed my research to the "Family Tree Maker" "Genealogy.com" website, another commercial website. The FTM website is owned by "Genealogy.com", which was a division of the A&E Television network, which in turn is controlled by ABC Television Network which in turn is part of Capitol Cities/ABC, a multi-billion dollar global media corporation; which is now in turn a part of the Disney Corp. Genealogy.com has since been sold for several million dollars to Ancestry.com. and the company has a deal with Broderbund to sell CDs of info donated by thousands of folk. Another corporation, MyFamily.com now owns "Ancestry.com" which bought out the supposedly "non-profit" Rootsweb and now claims to have more than 1.5 BILLION names in their databases (they don't bother to mention that millions are actually duplicates) and charge monthly fees to view most of their DONATED records.
My information is now FOR SALE by the millionaire fatcats who own MyFamily.com and Ancestry.com. I did NOT spend 56 years of very hard work and thousands of dollars of my money as well as funds of the Turnage Family Association to do all this research just so it could be used and sold by these corporations. I have not authorized any of these folk to do so and I strongly resent this theft of my research by these folk and its sale by these corporations.
Broderbund is selling discs every day with their Family Tree Maker computer program which contain this information directly from my research -- contributed (or sold?) to them by these folk without my permission or knowledge. These corporations have reaped huge profits of millions of dollars off of the work of folk like myself who have not received one cent for our efforts.
I do NOT give permission nor have I ever given such permission in the past, to ANYONE to publish my research in large amounts in any fashion, whether on the Internet or in books. I do not mind folk printing information from my research on their own direct family line but NOT collateral lines -- so long as the source is quoted and so long as the website is your own private site and NOT a commercial for-profit corportion.
One of the persons is not even from the United States -- David Turnidge -- is actually a native of the United Kingdom (Britain) (or at least his email address is from the UK). I have no idea what his motive is for publishing all my research nor do I care. He responded that he got my information 'from a guy in Texas'. Well cuz, that 'guy in Texas' got HIS info from my research. Another is the second wife of a Turnage who, to my knowledge had never done any serious research on our family. At least she did list one of my books as a source...but did NOT ask me for permission to use information from it.
What is ironic and even comical is the fact that some of the info these folk got from my records was nothing more than a guess -- stuff for me to check out later. A lot of stuff was copied from my records and then pawned off on others as 'pure gospel' and is all over the Internet today. These little 'quirks' are a dead giveaway as to their actual original source.
If you will not support the Turnage Family Association's goal of gathering and preserving our family history in the Turnage Family National Library, then do not STEAL the informatiion and pawn it off as your own work.
This is the main reason I have decided not to place large amounts of information on the family club's website...I would rather spend my efforts on gathering more information and records to be preserved.
write or email us at: Only the sections that are highlighted are open yet.
You can obtain copies of the new books published by the Association about our Turnage family origins and history in England by going to the HOME page of the family club. Click on "Books" above.
BACK to Turnage Family Association HOME pageThis website estqblished 17 June, 1998