Tinmouth

Recorded originally as Tinmut or Tynemure but now as Tinmouth and Tynemouth, this is an Anglo-Scottish surname, but possibly more Scottish than English. The earliest known recordings are Scottish, and it would seem that back in the 13th century the name may have been locational from the River Tyne in Lothian, near the town of Dunbar. If so, it was only later that it becmae associated with the River Tyne, and the place known as Tynemouth, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall, in the county of Northumberland, England. Locational surnames are however 'from' names. That is to say names given to people after they left their original homes for whatever reason, to move somewhere else. In the years after the Conquest of England by the Norman-French in 1066, the area to the north of Yorkshire was considered to be English, but in the 'Border Country' and outside of the king of England's writ. So it is also possible that although the early recording are found in Scottish, the people concerned may have been English.These recordings include Magister Thomas de Tinmut, a charter witness at the abbey of St Andrews, in Fife, in 1209, whilst Thomas de Tynemure also appears as a charter witness, but to the Abbey of Arbroath in 1226. Later church register recordings from Northumberland include those of Thomas Tinmouth at Bamburgh on February 23rd 1673, and another Thomas, this time called Tynemouth, at Horton near Blyth, on March 31st 1692.