Camock

This name, with variant spellings Cammack, Camock, Cammacke, Camocke, Camacke, Cammocke and Cammock, is of locational origin from a now "lost" place believed to have been in the Border Country. The name contains the Celtic element "cam" meaning "bent" or "crooked" , probably with reference to land on a river bend. Locational surnames, such as this, were developed when former inhabitants of a place moved to another area, usually in search of work, and were best identified by the name of their birthplace. The surname first appears on record in the early part of the 16th Century (see below), and one John Cammock was a landholder in Corrouchane, Scotland, in 1557. In the modern idiom the surname can be found as Cammack, Cammacke, Camacke Camock, Camocke, Cammocke and Cammock. Recordings from English Church Registers include: the marriage of Mergeria Cammock to Thomas Laine in Edmonton, London, on March 29th 1570; the christening of Isabell, daughter of Thome Camock, in Scarborough, Yorkshire, on March 28th 1605; the marriage of John Camacke to Agnes Thompson in Kirkland, Cumberland, in 1611; and the marriage of John Cammack to Frances Wake in Holy Trinity, Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Cammok, which was dated circa 1525, in "Records of Cumberland", during the reign of King Henry V111, known as "Bluff King Hal", 1509 - 1547. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.