Blues Man

F&I No. 11: Jimmy Tittle
From Bluesweb; website of Dixiefrog records:
Jimmy Tittle has been involved with music most of his life as a musician, songwriter, singer and performer. At the age of eighteen he was fortunate enough to experience first-hand the enormous talents of Merle Haggard, as a member of his touring and recording band, “The Strangers”. Jimmy recognized immediately the genius of Haggard’s songwriting and considered him to be the quintessential writer of working class poetry. Jimmy toured and performed with Merle for the next five years playing bass guitar, earning him six Super Picher awards as well as The Academy Of Country Music’s Touring Band Of The Year award four consecutive years.
Jimmy left the Strangers to pursue songwriting and formed a country band with Ricky Frizzell and Danny Husky, the sons of two legendary “Honky Tonk” heroes, Lefty Frizzell and Ferlin Husky. The band toured the south extensively gaining a large following until a tragic accident took the life of Danny Husky. Jimmy returned to Nashville and worked as a session musician while continuing to write.
In 1982, Jimmy was invited to join the cast of another legendary performer, Johnny Cash. They traveled the world over the next seven years. Jimmy participated in numerous television specials and soundtrack albums, and has small acting roles in a film and several music videos. Jimmy left The Johnny Cash Show in 1989 to pursue an independent career in writing, recording and performing.
Bug Music in Nashville signed Jimmy in 1989 to an exclusive songwriter’s agreement and soon had his songs recorded by artists such as Jann Browne, Johnny Cash, Evangeline, Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash. “On The Surface” was co-written by Jimmy and Rosanne which she recorded on her critically acclaimed album, “Interiors”. Jimmy has also co-written songs with : Mary Stuart, John Hiatt, John Stewart, LeRoy Preston, Dave Alvin, Cindy Bullens and Rodney Crowell.
Dixiefrog Records in Paris / France contacted Jimmy and he signed a recording contract which introduced him to the European market with his two first album in 1990 (“Jimmy Tittle”) and 91 (“Fade to black”). Sony Music France released his third CD titled “Real Life” as well as a compilation of all previous works titled “Rooms Full Of Money, Heart Full Of Pain”.
Jimmy’s works with Sony Music helped him to reach a broader audience in Europe. His records are released in France, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Spain, Germany, Italy and Australia. Jimmy’s current CD “It’s In The Attitude” was released March 15, 1995 on Dixiefrog and is attracting the attention of an even larger audience.
His blending of Country, roots and southern Rock and Roll music is the result of many miles, powerful influences, and most importantly... heart and soul.
Jimmy is married to Johnny Cash’s daughter Kathy and was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral in 2003.

Tittle Cott or is it Tickle Cock?

From the Yorkshire Post 11 March 2006
Residents cock-a-hoop after winning fight to keep saucy underpass name
Joanne GinleyRESIDENTS have launched a successful campaign to save a saucily-named underpass after they got an inkling a name change was being mooted to spare people's blushes.
Planners wanted to change Tickle Cock Bridge to Tittle Cott Bridge as part of a regeneration scheme being filmed for a Channel 4 TV series.But residents in Castleford stood up as one, criticised planners for their modesty and said: "We want our Tickle Cock back."Brian Lewis, who chaired a residents' meeting, said: "It's part of our heritage and we want to keep the name."With all the sex on television before the 9pm watershed anyway we can't understand why the architects were being so coy."The railway underpass in the town centre has been called Tickle Cock by locals for at least a century and dates back to Victorian times. It is thought the name refers to a "monkey run" where the lads and lasses of Castleford did their courting.Painter David Prudhoe, 58, said: "It's been called Tickle Cock Bridge since way before I was born."Others may think it is rude but locals are not offended by the name. We don't need a new name, it has already got a fine one."Everybody wants to keep the name. I think it's a laugh. It is a nice name and we don't want the name changing. "Imagine the uproar nationally if some faceless committee decided to change the name of the Traitor's Gate in London. There would be an outcry."Mr Lewis, a local historian who works for the Regional Development Agency, said: "The district council had instructed the architects designing the project that the bridge was called Tittle Cott and that appeared on the plans."I was horrified. It is another example of the nanny state telling us something we don't want to do. "They apparently fear the sexual innuendo of the name yet for generations local people have been using the name without thinking."He added: "It dates back to the late 19th Century or early 20th Century and would function in the same way as any 'monkey run' where you paraded up and down trying to find a boyfriend or girlfriend."It is part of our history and it is not the right of council officers to impose on the population what they think is politically correct."The people of Castleford do not want Tickle Cock Bridge renamed."Mr Lewis said he now understood that the locals would get their wish and Tickle Cock Bridge would be kept.The Castleford project is a regeneration scheme in-volving Channel 4, Wakefield Council and other partners.A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: "Some people call it Tickle Cock Bridge and others say Tittle Cott. There is no plan to rechristen the underpass."
You can find out more about the plans for the bridge at the Castleford Project website.

Tittle Hall

The arrow points to Tittle Hall Cottages in Boxted, Suffolk, England
Presumably Tittle Hall itself no longer exists, but there is a story associated with it to be found here. Any further information gratefully received.

Resting places

The Tittle Cemetery near Lynn, Winston County, Alabama Tittle Cemetery, Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee
Tittle Cemetery is located on the side of Elder Mountain in the Lookout Valley/Tiftonia area of Chattanooga. It lies off Cash Canyon Road on private property belonging to William Foster. It is a family cemetery believed to have been established by David Tittle. Further information here.
Anyone know of any more?

War Hero

F&I No. 10: Captain John Moore Tittle.
An ancestor of mine, Captain Tittle was born on 17th July 1792 at the family seat of Farmhill, Coleraine in the far North of Ireland. His father, also John Tittle was a member of the Corporation of Coleraine for 40 years and was appointed Prothonotary (a sort of clerk of the court, with the power to affix the seal of the court on documents) and Landwaiter (I think this is a sort of customs officer; derived from ‘landing waiter’).
At the age of 17 John Tittle served in the 38th Regiment as part of the Walcheren expedition. This was a military expedition during the Napoleonic wars to try and seize the port of Antwerp. Unfortunately, due to poor leadership, it got bogged down (literally) on the marshy island of Walcheren, with many of the soldiers catching malaria. Two years later Captain Tittle saw active service in the Peninsular War. This was a war in which British and Portuguese forces, under Wellington, fought against Napoleon’s forces in the Iberian Peninsular (Spain and Portugal). Captain Tittle took part in the storming of Badagoz, the battle of Salamanca, various skirmishes on the retreat from Burgos, action at Osma, the battle of Vitoria, the siege of San Sebastian and the investment of Bayonnne. At the siege of San Sebastian he acted as an engineer and was severely wounded on 31st August while showing a ford to Col James of the Portuguese service. He received the war medal with four classes.
At 27 he was serving in South Africa as commando through what was then known as Cafferland. Earlier the British had taken advantage of the fact that the Dutch were temporarily indisposed (being overrun by Napoleon’s forces) and taken possession of their colony at the Cape of Good Hope. They declined to give it back after the war. As a concession to the Dutch colonists the British, for a while, let them have their own ‘parliament’ called the Burgher Senate. On 11th March 1820 Captain Tittle married Johanna Catherine Vos, daughter of James Vos Esq., president of the Burgher Senate. Their first daughter, Anne, was born on the Cape in 1821 and they then returned to Farmhill where their second daughter, Johanna Catherine, was born in 1823. A son, John Moore followed in 1824. However, four months after giving birth to their forth child, James, in 1826 Johanna Catherine died.
In 1834 the Captain served as Mayor of Coleraine for a year.
In 1844 John Moore remarried, this time to Sophia Hardy of Loughgall, Co Armagh and he was widowed for a second time in 1863. He died on 5th September 1874.

Tittle Row

Tittle Places: Tittle Row, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England
Once a separate hamlet (see map left) but now a neighbourhood on the edge of Maidenhead (see map below). Derivation unfortunately unknown.
The name Tittle Row was also given to a small street in Coventry, England for a period in the middle of the eighteenth century. The street had previously been known, and is now know, as Ironmonger Row (see below). The reasons for the change to Tittle Row are unknown. I hope it was a bit nicer when it was know as Tittle Row.

Tittle = Tickle

In Black Country dialect the word tickle is pronounced "tittle".
For readers unfamiliar with this part of the world: the Black Country is the large industrial (or perhaps now post-industrial) conurbation to the west of Birmingham, in central England.
In an earlier comment Edgar Gregor told us...
In the Frodsham area of Cheshire the name is sometimes spelled "Tickle" in the parish registers of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Edinburgh Art Student

F&I 9: Robina Tittle
The picture shows students in a life class at Edinburgh College of Art somewhere between 1911 and 1916. The one sitting on the floor is Robina Tittle. Robina (born March 1887) was a student at the Trustees Academy School of Art from 1905 before joining the Edinburgh College of Art as one of its first students in October 1908. She was awarded a Minor Travelling Bursary of £15 in the 1911-1912 session and was awarded a diploma in drawing and Painting at the end of the 1913-1914 session. These photographs show a more relaxed side to student and staff life at the College early in the last century. [Information taken from Trustees Academy School of Art Student records and Edinburgh College of Art Student records.]

God keep our tittle

I found this on the web some time ago. No idea what it is about.

Sentenced to death for burglary

From the proceedings at the Old Bailey 11th January 1717:
William Tittle , of Marybone, was indicted for breaking the House of William Taswell in the Night time on the 16th of December last, and stealing thence a stuff Ridinghood value 12 s. and other Goods . The Prosecutor's Wife deposed, That her House was broke open, and the Goods stoln. The Watchman deposed, he seeing the Prisoner have the Goods suspected him, and upon Examination he own'd where he had stoln them. The Prisoner had little to say in his Defence. The Jury therefore brought him in Guilty of the Indictment.
He was sentenced to death. However we are assured that many, in fact most, death sentences at this time were not carried out. Through benefit of clergy, use of pardons, and respited sentences due to pregnancy or in order to perform military or naval duty, many of those sentenced to death were not actually executed. Since these mitigations often took place after the Proceedings were published, this information is usually not included in the trial texts, though it sometimes can be found in the texts for subsequent sessions.

Steve the Composer

F & I No. 8: STEVE TITTLE
Steve Tittle was born May 20, 1935 in Ohio. After his school years as a trumpet player in concert and jazz bands, and four years as a U.S. Navy musician, he studied music education and composition at Kent State University. Following three years of school music teaching he went on to study composition at the University of Wisconsin and he has received the degrees Master of Music (1966) and Doctor of Musical Arts (1974) from that institution.
Since 1970 Tittle has taught in the Music Department of Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he was the founder/director of the Experimental Sound Studio and the experimental-music group Murphy's Law, with its ongoing series of concerts since 1974. He was a founding member (1972) of the Halifax new-music organization inNOVAtions in MUSIC, and served as its artistic director from 1982-86. He has also given concerts and produced an LP as a solo performer (with tape) under the name (one of the) merely players. Since 1990 he has been a member of the new Halifax composer/performer-collective UPSTREAM, for which he continues to compose new (and re-arrange older) music.
In addition to his many works in the standard concert-music genres, Tittle has often composed for tape/live combinations, jazz groups, radio plays, dance and theatre productions, and other collaborations, He has also scored several documentary films (for the NFB and others) and has done arranging for everything from small groups to full orchestra.
Tittle feels that his style has been influenced by nearly everything in his background, including jazz and various non-European musics. Striving for a balance between structural clarity and intuitive spontaneity, he hopes that the style is reasonably accessible even in the more complex pieces.
Information from the Canadian Music Centre website.

How many Tittles?

How many of the world’s citizens share the surname Tittle?
According to Surname Profiler (see Tittle concentrations below) five in every million Britons is a Tittle. That means there should be about 290 British Tittles. 29 in every million citizens of the United States is a Tittle. That means and estimated 8729 American Tittles. Total for Great Britain and the United States: 9020.
There does not seem to be much evidence of Tittles in the other countries in which the British settled on mass, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, but there is a fair smattering around the various islands of the Caribbean. And of course there will be a few elsewhere in the world. So I reckon it would be fair to estimate that the total number of Tittles worldwide is around 10,000.
If anyone has an alternative method of estimation, please let us know.

Great portrait artist

Famous & Interesting 7: Walter Ernest Tittle
Born Springfield, Ohio, 1883; Died New York, 1966
One of America's greatest portrait artists, Walter Tittle studied under William Merritt Chase in New York. During his successful career, Tittle lived and worked in both England and the United States and became a member of the Royal Society of Arts, London, the Society of American Etchers, the Chicago Society of Etchers and the Print Makers' Society of California. His work in etching, lithography and painting include such famous portraits as Joseph Conrad, Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw. Although he rarely numbered his original lithographs, engravings and etchings it is known that Tittle's prints were usually published in editions of only thirty-five impressions.
Today the graphic art of Walter Tittle is included in the following collections: the Library of Congress and the National Gallery, Washington, DC, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New York Public Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Joseph Conrad (top left) is one of Walter Tittle's most famous works of art. During the last year of his illustrious life, Joseph Conrad sat for both Tittle's engraved and painted portraits of him. Today an impression of this drypoint engraving and the painted portrait are included in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Tittleshall

Tittle places: Tittleshall, Norfolk
Tittleshall is a village in Norfolk, England about 20 miles East-North East of Norwich. The picture (left) shows Tittleshall village hall.
One evening in the late 1980s when I lived in South London I went to collect a take-away curry which I had ordered on the telephone. When I announced myself as Mr Tittle I received the reply; “Which Mr Tittle?” Now I reckon the chance of meeting another Tittle that I don’t know, while collecting a take-away curry is about 10,000 to 1.
Once I had met the other Mr Tittle and we had both remarked upon the co-incidence he said "I suppose you know about Tittleshall". His story was that our family hailed from Tittleshall, that it had once been the capital of England and that we had been royalty of some sort. It all sounded nonsense to me; the sort of family myth that gets handed down and embellished through the generations.
Does anyone know anything about this story?
There is an, unfortunately poorly maintained and occasionally faulty, Tittleshall website here.

Radio Pioneer

Famous & Interesting 6: LaDonna Tittle
Radio personality LaDonna Tittle was born in Chicago. She attended Dunbar Vocational School in Chicago, graduating in 1964. She then attended Chicago State University, graduating in 1971 with a B.A. in art education and drama with a minor in journalism.
Tittle started her career in radio soon after college, working the midday and evening shifts on Chicago radio station WBEE the year she graduated. After a stint as a weekend radio personality for WNOV radio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Tittle returned to Chicago in 1973 to work the midday and evening shifts for WBMX, where she showcased rhythm and blues songs.
Over the next three decades, Tittle made a name for herself not just on the airwaves of Chicago, but also as a model and an actress. She has done voiceover work in commercials for Kraft, Ameritech, Crisco Oil and Fashion Fair, and has acted in various religious and secular plays in Chicago, including productions for the city's Goodman and Steppenwolf theatres. She also appeared in the film The Relic .
Having served stints as an on-air personality for other Chicago radio stations, such as WJPC, WWHN, WNUA, and WGCI, Tittle is also a host and producer for the Web satellite radio station WGCR, which can be accessed in 294 countries. She is also pursuing a master's degree in art and communications from the Art Institute of Chicago. Tittle is the recipient of numerous public service awards, including the Operation PUSH Woman of the Year Award and the Black Radio Exclusive Air Personality Award.
(information and image from The History Makers website)

Tittlemice

No compendium of Tittles would be complete without mentioning the mice in the family. The poacher Tommy came first in the nursery rhyme first recorded in 1844:
Little Tommy Tittlemouse
Lived in a little house;
He caught fishes
In other mens' ditches.
He was followed in 1910 by Beatrix Potter's Mrs Tittlemouse (no first name supplied) whose obsessive efforts to keep her house spotlessly clean are undermined by a series of visitors of various insect and amphibian species.

Poet's dark looks inherited from a Tittle

Famous and Interesting 5: Margaret Tittle
The poet Robert Browning (left) was known for his dark complexion and curly black hair (when in Italy he was taken for a local). It appears this came from his grandmother, Margaret Tittle, a woman of mixed race who owned a sugar plantation on St Kitts in the Caribbean.
Remarkably Browning's wife Elizabeth Barrett (right) also had some African in her DNA, hers coming via Jamaica.

Some additional information from Kathleen D. Manchester, Historic heritage of St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla (the Author, Trinidad, 1971) pp.16-17. A notable personality was the Rev. John Tittle, who arrived in St. Kitts in 1730, and got into difficulty by encroaching on the public road at North Square Street where he lived. He is interesting in his own right, and also as an ancestor of the poet Robert Browning.
The Rev. gentleman was appointed by the SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) as attorney for Ponds and Lucas Estate, on condition that he ship all sugar to England to the Society. Yet, by a strange coincidence, privateers kept seizing his ships, which were then diverted to New York, where his brother lived! The SPG eventually dismissed him, after a court case in St. Kitts, when he was to answer several charges of misdemeanor. However, sustained by local support, and secure in his two cures of St. Peter’s and St. George’s, he refused to accept dismissal.
He married between 1731 and 1733 Margaret Starchan, daughter of the surgeon Dr. George Strachan of St. Kitts. Their daughter, Margaret Tittle, married in 1778 the first Robert Browning; and their son Robert, born in 1781, was sent to St. Kitts to work on his mother’s plantation. Young Robert lived and worked on prosperous Anderson Estate, which the Rev. Tittle had managed fro William Coleman, the London merchant, and himself. But Robert conceived such hatred of slavery that he gave up all his West Indian prospects, even supporting himself in St. Kitts by means unconnected with the system. His son was the poet Robert Browning.

Tittle concentrations

Where do you find the most Tittles?
Surname Profiler is a great site which enables you identify where instances of your surname are most concentrated.
It seems that the most Tittles can be found in the North West of England in the county of Cheshire. The 1881 census shows Crewe as the top Tittle area, but by 1998 this Tittle title had passed to Warrington. The top Tittle town is shown as Tarporley in Cheshire, which is between Crewe and Warrington. The 1998 map (left) shows that quite a colony of Tittle's now seems to have settled in Herefordshire.
You are six time more likely to find a Tittle in the United States than in Britain. Alabama is the top Tittle state with five times more Tittles than the average for the USA.
Surname Profiler also tells us where Tittles are concentrated according to Mosaic social profiles. And it appears that over four times more Tittles are found in the category of Corporate Chieftains than any other. As Mosaic explains: Corporate Chieftains contains very wealthy people, many of whom are senior business managers, living in large detached houses in outer metropolitan suburbs. Where did I miss out?
It also reveals that our name is high status (only 8% of people have higher status names) and urban (90% of names are more rural than ours).

Modern renaissance woman

Famous & Interesting 4: Cindy Tittle Moore
Dog expert, feminist writer, collector of Arthurian and Robin Hood books, Cindy appears to be a modern renaissance woman (unless I am mistaken and there are really three Cindys). I believe she resides in Orange County, California.
Click here to view one of her doggy sites.

Despite her ubiquity, this was the only photo I could find, which I suspect is rather out of date. So if you are out there Cindy, send us a new pic.

Tittlewhack

Tittlewhack comes from the Isle of Man. One source says: The common name for mashed potatoes was tittlewhack - a word derived from the sound made by the wooden pestle used to mash big tubs of potatoes...tittlewhack was served in a dish along with a cup of cold butter.
But this description is far too prosaic. It seems that tittlewhack was not so much a dish as an institution, as this account by George Quarrie (known as the Bard of Kirk Bride) which appeared in the Manx Quarterly in 1921, tells us:
"In the North of the Isle of Man, where the land is dry and peculiarly adapted to the growth of potatoes, the long winter evenings, once upon a time, used to be occasionally whiled away by tittlewhack sprees. A case in point occurs to mind, where a large, stone flagged kitchen was the scene, its ceiling almost entirely hidden by hams, shoulders and flitches of bacon, among which, about the centre, high up and not too much in evidence, was a large Christmas kissing-bush, about a yard in diameter, gaily decked in country fashion with ribbons, rosettes, apples, oranges, etc. There were also the liberal 'hibbin and hollin ' decorations still around the walls and on the high mantelpiece, whereon about a dozen candles burned on their various heights of candlesticks-from the short bedroom ones, having trays, snuffers and extinguishers, to those tall, old-fashioned, ornamental ones from fifteen to thirty inches high-all of well polished brass. These lights, backed by several tiers of burnished dish-covers and various pewter drinking vessels, metal tea and coffee-pots, etc., gave a bright, comfortable appearance to the still extant remains of the old-time open fireplace. From the 'swee,' or crane in the chimney, on such an evening hung the big family pot, full to the lid of the favourite 'Bill-John' potatoes, boiling away with their skins on.
Around the room on the big, high-backed settles, on chairs, stools, forms, etc., and out in the long back kitchen adjoining, some dangling their legs from the long table there, and some seated on the stone 'bink' among the milk cans, were the farmer lads and lasses, all bent on fun and mischief,practicingg everlasting larks on one another, with frequent appeals to the high privileges of the big ' kissing-bunch,' as they generally called it.
"When the potatoes were done, they were emptied into many dishes along the tables, and all joined in at the peeling which, as the tubers were steaming hot and liable to fall to pieces, was quite a ticklish kind of work. When peeled, the potatoes were put back into the great pot, and this was set down on the floor on a sheet or tablecloth, which prevents the slipping of the three little pot-legs on the stone floor. All the young fellows now take turns at mashing or ' bruising ' the potatoes, until not the smallest lump is left in the whole mass. Into this, dish after dish of that night's milking, new from the cow, is poured, and then commences the long and brisk stirring by which that delightful dish 'Tittlewhack' is made.
"The pot-stick-a plain, round, wooden porridge stirrer-is briskly moved through the creamy mass so as to execute the figure eight, the operator all the time moving round and round the pot while so stirring.
The sound the pot-stick makes on the sides of the pot very closely resembles the words 'Tittle whack.' Hence the name of the toothsome dish
"It is utterly impossible satisfactorily to describe the fun and many drolleries accompanying this turnabout among a lot of rustics, male and female, old and young. Some of the old cottagers, particularly, provided great merriment. Old Juan-a-Beth, for instance, who, so far as the writer knew, was never seen by mortal man without the broad rim of his old weather-beaten stove-pipe hat resting on his ears and almost entirely hiding his eyes. As Juan put down his cutty clay pipe with the gravity of a man about to lay his neck on the executioner's block, and took hold of the pot-stick, everybody laughed at what was genuinely and irresistibly funny. It was the very farthest thing from Juan's wish or intention to be funny, but lie could no more help making you laugh than lots of others in this world can help making fools of themselves trying to be funny. The screaming stage was reached when Kerry-na-Coolyeh (who well knew Juan's awful austerity) actually attempted to kiss him as he stood right under the license-giving bush. Juan's resentment of this unparalleled liberty made comedy of the most enjoyable kind.
"John Willie's fiddle soon covered the floor with dancers. . . ."

'Football' hero

Famous & Interesting No. 3: Yelberton Abraham Tittle
Tittles from the United States (where they have their own special sports so that only they can be world champtions) will be aware of this famous barer of the Tittle name. Y.A. Distinguished himself in the sport that North Americans erroneously call 'football'. As Wiki says:
Yelberton Abraham Tittle (born October 24, 1926, in Marshall, Texas), better known as Y. A. Tittle, is a former American football quarterback who played for the Baltimore Colts, San Francisco 49ers, and the New York Giants. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, inducted in 1971.
See the rest of his Wikipedia entry here.

One jot or one…

Yes, we're in the bible. Mark 5:18 says: "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled". Well in the King James Bible anyway; more modern versions attempt a clearer translation of Jesus' words.
An explanation from Wikipedia:
A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot over an i.
It first appeared in Latin manuscripts in the 11th century, to distinguish the letter i from strokes of nearby letters. Although originally a larger mark, it was reduced to a dot when Roman-style typefaces were introduced.
The only place a modern reader is apt to confront this word is during the introduction to the Antithesis of the Law in the Gospel of Matthew: "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled". The quotation uses them as an example of extremely minor details. The phrase "jot and tittle" indicates that every small detail has received attention.
In the Greek original translated as English "jot and tittle" is found iota and keraia. Iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet (ι), but since only capitals were used at the time the Greek New Testament was written (Ι), it probably represents the Hebrew or Aramaic yodh (י) which is the smallest letter of the Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets. "Keraia" is a hook or serif, possibly accents in Greek but more likely hooks on Hebrew or Aramaic letters, (ב) versus (כ), or additional marks such as crowns (as Vulgate apex) found in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, which are the first five books of the Jewish Bible.

Woman astronaut (sort of)

Famous and interesting Tittles No. 2: Theresa Mary Stevens Tittle (nee Stevens)
A woman astronaut Tittle! However she never went into space. Born on 25 November 1960, Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, she was US Air Force operations specialist who entered the space service in 1985 and left in 1988. She was stationed in the Pentagon and later became a Shuttle Flight Controller.

World War II poster

Island batting hero

Famous and interesting Tittles No. 1: Keithroy Ian Tittle
Ian Tittle is a cricketer for Antigua, Antigua and Barbuda and Leeward Islands. A 32 year old left-handed batsman. See his entry in cricinfo here.
He plays tonight for Antigua and Barbuda in the quarter finals of the Stanford 20:20 Tournament against Nevis.
Update: Unfortunately Nevis won thanks to a storming innings of 213. Antigua could not match that with Ian Tittle scoring a disappointing 6 (run-out).

Origins and connections

What is the origin of the name Tittle?
Does it derive from a nickname given to a talkative person (as in tittle-tattle) or to someone who was small? Do you have any stories or theories? Please post your comments.
Are we all one big family?
Given that Tittle is quite an unusual name, could it be that we had a common ancestor? Or could the name Tittle have emerged seperately in several places. If the latter is the case, then there could be more than one origin. What do you think?