Morkham

Perhaps surprisingly this is not an English North Country surname but is of Cornish origin. It is locational and recorded in spellings which include Morcomb, Morecombe, Morcom, Morcum and Morkham, and is well recorded in Cornwall. The famous Victorian town of Morecambe in Lancashire was not 'created' until Napoleonic times, and is not a source of the surname. With this surname it was first prominent in the town of Bodmin, and within a century was to be found throughout the county. The original place is now regarded as being a "lost" medieval village, the subsequent spread of the surnames being so fast as to suggest that the original village was "cleared", either by plague or more likely changes in agricultural practices. The name means either "the valley (cumb) in the centre of the moor", or possibly "the valley that runs to the sea (mer)". Locational surnames were generally given either to the local lord of the manor and his descendants, or more usually to the people who left to seek work elesewhere. The easiest method of identifying a stranger being to call him or her, by the name of the place from whence they came. Early examples of the surname recording taken from authentic surviving church registers of the county include George Morcombe, the son of Sampson Morecombe, christened at St Columb Major on February 27th 1594, and Jane Morcom, christened at Falmouth, on February 3rd 1754. The first known church recording is probably that of Armynall Morcomb, at Bodmin, on July 7th 1559, in the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st. (1558 - 1603).