Strange of Bideford

Question

I was working on Gloucestershire’s unsourced list when I came across the following. There is an unsourced Strange tree relating to a Strange family who lived in Bideford, Devon, though with no sources and place names in different counties hundreds of miles apart, so it’s hard to tell. 

From a quick google I see John Strange d. 1647 was mayor of Bideford. So perhaps a Notable?

I suspect the name should also be Strange (rather than le Strange, the medieval version). There is a tree on Tudor place about the same family I think- it has names in common such as Edward etc. Would the Devon team be interested in picking up on it? 

Answer 1

It would be best if the active profile manager had a look at them first as they know who the profiles were intended to represent.  They should not have created unsourced pre-1700 profiles as this is breaking the honor code. But a message to the PM would be good - give them a chance to do the right thing. They might simply have forgotten to come back to them.

Answer 2

Yes, even on medieval profiles we've tended to use Strange as the LNAB for this family name (presuming this is the same family name found in other parts of England) which was a variant that already started appearing in the later middle ages.

I am not sure this is always the perfect compromise, but at least your proposal would match what has been going on so far.

We can put other variants in CLN.

Actually the most common spelling for some centuries seems to have been a one word version Lestraunge. The au want a typical way to spell French words, as in John of Gaunt (named after Ghent, where he was born, modern French Gand).