Kaiser Family?

Question:My family's the Joseph Pendarvis (Pendarves) family from Cornwall, England and I'm researching it. Also the Kizer (Kaiser) family from Switzerland with John Ulrich Kaiser. These are the surnames I really need information on. Please post any info. Especially things like surname origins. Thanks.

Pendarves
Pendarvis
Humphries
West
Goring
Hasford
Rumph
Knight
McKenzie
Summerlin
Mason
Womble
Kizer
Kaiser

Also can you find information on Joseph Pendarvis and the African-American slave Parthenia (also spelled Pathena)? If you need anymore info, ask and I'll post if I can answer.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My family's the Joseph Pendarvis (Pendarves) family from Cornwall, England and I'm researching it. Also the Kizer (Kaiser) family from Switzerland with John Ulrich Kaiser. These are the surnames I really need information on. Please post any info. Especially things like surname origins. Thanks.

Pendarves
Pendarvis
Humphries
West
Goring
Hasford
Rumph
Knight
McKenzie
Summerlin
Mason
Womble
Kizer
Kaiser

Also can you find information on Joseph Pendarvis and the African-American slave Parthenia (also spelled Pathena)? If you need anymore info, ask and I'll post if I can answer.

This is what I found on www.ancestry.com for you,
We have no name meaning and origin for Pendarves

Pendarvis
English: habitational name from Pendarves or Pendarves Island in Cornwall.

Humphries
English and Welsh: patronymic from Humphrey.

West
English and German: from Middle English, Middle High German west ‘west’, hence a topographic name for someone who lived to the west of a settlement, or a regional name for someone who had migrated from further west.

Goring
English: habitational name from places in Oxfordshire and West Sussex named Goring, from Old English Garingas ‘people of Gara’, a short form of the various compound names with the first element gar ‘spear’.
German (G?ring): see Goering.

We have no name meaning and origin for Hasford

Rumph
Altered spelling of Rumpf.

Knight
English: status name from Middle English knyghte ‘knight’, Old English cniht ‘boy’, ‘youth’, ‘serving lad’. This word was used as a personal name before the Norman Conquest, and the surname may in part reflect a survival of this. It is also possible that in a few cases it represents a survival of the Old English sense into Middle English, as an occupational name for a domestic servant. In most cases, however, it clearly comes from the more exalted sense that the word achieved in the Middle Ages. In the feudal system introduced by the Normans the word was applied at first to a tenant bound to serve his lord as a mounted soldier. Hence it came to denote a man of some substance, since maintaining horses and armor was an expensive business. As feudal obligations became increasingly converted to monetary payments, the term lost its precise significance and came to denote an honorable estate conferred by the king on men of noble birth who had served him well. Knights in this last sense normally belonged to ancient noble families with distinguished family names of their own, so that the surname is more likely to have been applied to a servant in a knightly house or to someone who had played the part of a knight in a pageant or won the title in some contest of skill.
Irish: part translation of Gaelic Mac an Ridire ‘son of the rider or knight’. See also McKnight.

McKenzie
Scottish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Coinnich, patronymic from the personal name Coinneach meaning ‘comely’. Compare Menzies.

Summerlin
German: diminutive of Summer 5.
English (Bedfordshire): unexplained.

Mason
English and Scottish: occupational name for a stonemason, Middle English, Old French mas(s)on. Compare Machen. Stonemasonry was a hugely important craft in the Middle Ages.
Italian (Veneto): from a short form of Masone.
French: from a regional variant of maison ‘house’.

Womble
English: habitational name from Wombwell in South Yorkshire, named with the Old English byname Wamba meaning ‘belly’ (or this word used in a transferred topographical sense) + Old English well(a) ‘spring’, ‘stream’.
Dictionary of

Kizer
Americanized form of Dutch Keyser or German Kaiser.
Jewish (from Ukraine): habitational name for someone from the village of Kizya, now in Ukraine.

Kaiser
German: from Middle High German keiser ‘emperor’, from the Latin imperial title Caesar. This was the title borne by Holy Roman Emperors from Otto I (962) to Francis II (who relinquished the title in 1806). Later, it was borne by the monarch of Bismarck’s united Germany (1871–1918). It is very common as a German surname, originating partly as an occupational name for a servant in the Emperor’s household, partly as a nickname for someone who behaved in an imperious manner, and partly from a house sign.
Jewish (Ashkenazic): ornamental name from German Kaiser ‘emperor’, adopted (like Graf, Herzog, etc.) because of its aristocratic connotations.
Muslim: from Arabic qay?sar ‘emperor’, which, like 1, is of Latin origin, from the imperial title in the Roman Empire.

Hope this helps.

Surnames can come from more than one national origin and so the origin is not too important in genealogy.

Ancestry.Com has meanings and origins of surnames. You can get a temp membership or your public library might subscribe to it.

Now don't take as fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid.
Most of the information is not documented.
The info is submitted by folks like you and me. Even if you see the same information repeatedly, that doesn't necessarily mean it is right. A lot of people are copying without verifying.

Rootsweb is a free site and under its World Connect has the same trees Ancestry.Com has on its Ancestry World Tree. You can check out the names there. If you see something that interest you, probe on a name and it will take you to a screen which will give you the name and email address of the submittter.

Now since you are interested in names, see the links below regarding peddlers of surname products

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerp...

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/Faq.ht...