The second compelling reason was the need to obtain funds from taxes and to assess whether land and property owners could contribute even more to the Exchequer. The urgency to raise funds was to fight off the threat of invasion from the Danish King, Canute, and to hold down the rebellious North of England, which had never been fully controlled by the Normans.

The King's decision to undertake this great survey of land ownership was taken during the Christmas of 1085. It was an amazing feat to complete the task in only 8 months. Equally amazing was the feat, attributed to just one man, of summarizing and rewriting the whole record of two million words. He was a Royal Chaplain who later became the Bishop of Winchester. The language he employed was medieval Church Latin. He was under great pressure to complete the work and as the record progresses his handwriting becomes less legible and some errors creep in.

This wonderful historic document is completely preserved and can be seen at The Public Record Office, in London. The Ninth Centenary celebration of the Domesday Book took place in 1986. To mark the occasion the U.K. publishers Editions Alecto produced a replica of the Book, together with an accompanying translation of the Latin wording. One such copy is kept at the Oregon State Library, 250 Winter Street, Salem and may be viewed by prior appointment.

Two explanations are needed at this point. Firstly the "Book" was not a handy volume like Chambers Dictionary. It was originally a collection of parchment booklets handwritten by the future Bishop of Winchester and later thought to have been bound into two volumes, if twelfth century accounts are to be believed. It was in the 12th Century that references were made to "the Book". The second explanation is of the use of the word "Domesday" in the description. The record of lands and their ownership, once recorded by the Commissioners at the County Courts, was the final word - or Last Judgment- and there was no appeal against the facts when they were finally written down. So, in popular parlance, it became known as the "doomsday" or Domesday Book.

It is important to note that this was not intended to be a General Census of the whole population, so it does not record the names of everyone alive in 1086. Because it does record the heads of households and the important landowners it is the first record of those of English or Norman descent. It was the first such formal record made in Europe and preceded others by several centuries. This is its importance to those whose interests lie in the origin of surnames and to genealogists.

Large numbers of the names in the Book are first names only. These are thought to be persons of lesser importance, such as the lowlier (and conquered) Anglo-Saxons. In any event, surnames were by no means common at this time and many were simply known by their first name or by an added description e.g. son of John. There had been no hereditary system of surnames before the conquest and it was the Norman’s who introduced them. It became fashionable among the higher social classes to adopt French names as the family surname and gradually these became anglicized into the forms we know today.