Sickamore

Recorded in various spellings including Sickamore, Sicomore, Sucamore, Succamore, Sycamore, and possibly others, this is an English surname. Inspite of its spellings it has nothing directly to do with 'trees'. The sycamore tree was an import from the Americas in the 18th century. It is not a native of the British Isles, and in anycase its entry was many years after the origin of this surname. This is either residential and describes somebody who lived by a stream (sic) at the side of a moor, or it is locational from a similiarly named place, except that no such place is to be found in any of the known gazetters of the British Isles in the past three centuries. This suggests that 'Sic-more' or whatever, is one of the three thousand or so 'lost' medieval villages of which the only public reminder in the late 20th century is the surviving surname, in its myriad spellings. As to why so many places have vanished, has been the subject of several books, but in general the cause can be put down to changes in agricultural practice, the enclosure of the common lands, and to a lesser extent the various great plagues of the Middle Ages, the last being in 1665, war and coastal erosion. When people left their original villages to move somewhere else, they were often given as their name the name of their former village. As few people could read or write, the name spelling often became 'sounds like', as with this name. Early examples of the surname recording taken from surving registers of the diocese of Greater London include: George Sikmoor who married Elizabeth Dunn at St Katherins' by the Tower (of London) on December 29th 1645, Jane Sucamore who was christened at St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on September 19th 1804, and John Sycamore, a witness at St Giles Cripplegate, on February 9th 1818.