Larkkem

This interesting name of English origin is either a topographical name for someone who lived in or near a narrow valley frequented by larks, or, locational from a so called 'lost' village of this name. The derivation is the same for both possibilities and comes from the Olde English pre 7th Century 'Laewerce', Middle English 'larke', meaning a lark, with the second element 'cumb', a narrow valley or gorge. The phenomena of the 'lost' village (of which, it is estimated, there are between seven and ten thousand villages that have disappeared from British maps) was a result of enforced land clearance during the height of the textile industry in the 13th and 14th Centuries, to make way for sheep pastures. In the modern idiom variants include Larkcum and Larkem. One Mary Larcombe married James Bacon on 27th May 1787 in St. Annes's Soho, Westminster. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Jone Larcomb which was dated May 15th 1574, married Morgane Roberts at Cannington, Somerset, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as 'Good Queen Bess', 1558 - 1603. 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.