Taking up the challenge!
OK, I've taken up the challenge: the Guild of One-Name Studies has challenged its members to commit to producing ten blog posts within 3 months in 2020. If you look back at the list of my previous blogs, you'll see that's a massive increase in activity! Over the years that I've been studying the surname CLOSE (and variants, including CLOSS) I have collected data on over 27,000 individuals, so there's no shortage of material. To start things off, let's look at today's date: 16th December - 345 years ago today, on 16th December 1674, a certain Thomas CLOSE was born in what is now Fairfield, Connecticut, USA (although of course it wasn't the USA then!), the third of ten children. His father, also Thomas (c1637-1709), had been brought across the Atlantic from Grinton, Yorkshire, England by his father, known as Goodman John CLOSE (c1600 - 1653). Although the CLOSE surname appears to have died out among the descendants of Thomas b 1674, it has c