Widdows Family History

English:: sometimes a variant of the now extinct name Wid(d)ow usually with post-medieval excrescent -s but occasionally perhaps with Middle English genitival -s (compare Widdowson). It derives from Middle English widwe wedewe wodewe (Old English widewe wuduwe) ‘widow or widower a person of either gender whose spouse has died and who has not remarried’.

The female sense of the word was always commoner than the male sense which has now died out but the male sense is more likely to have given rise to the hereditary surname Widow. Most often a variant of Woodhouse, a commoner name than that in 1 above.

The two names were easily confused due to the loss of medial /h/ in local pronunciation.