Birtles Family History

From Birtles (in Prestbury, Cheshire), Birchill Farm (in Hassop, Derbys), or possibly Birchills (in Walsall, Staffs). The place-names are from the plural of Old English bircel ‘small birch’ with occasional confusion of the final syllable with Middle English hill, hull ‘hill’ and hale ‘corner of land’ (etc.).

Pronunciation of /ʧ/ in Birch- has been simplified to /t/ before the following /l/, whence modern Birtles. However, the -th- spellings in the medieval forms are probably misreadings of -ch-; the letters c and t are commonly indistinguishable in medieval court hand.

There is also a post-medieval variant of Birtle with an excrescent -s. This might suggest a post-medieval variant of Birchall plus an excrescent -s and the sound change from /ʧ/ to /t/ noted in the previous paragraph.

Furthermore, Birchall itself could be viewed as a variant of Birtles. In which case, the following bearers belong at the first reference.