Sickling

Sickling is an Olde English pre 6th century tribal name. It derives from "Sicela-inga" (the Sicela people) and one of the places most associated with the tribe is the village of Sicklinghall, situated between Harrogate, Leeds and Wetherby in Yorkshire. Sicklinghall is recorded in Domesday Book (1086) as "Sidingale" a form that suggests that the Norman clerks employed on the entries in the register had problems with the local dialect! By the year 1150 it was more properly recorded as "Siccinhale", and in 1220 it appears in its near modern form of "Sikelingehal". The surname is later, being variously recorded as Sackling, Sacklen, Sicklen, Sicklinge etc, from circa 1550. The surname although quite rare is widely recorded, although the epi-centre is the Ripon-Bedale area of Yorkshire, perhaps suggesting that the nameholders were originally connected with the monasterial estates prominent in the region. The recordings include Dorytie Sickling who married Edward Cook at Well, Nr Bedale on May 1st 1628, Rebecca Sickling christened at Easingwold on March 12th 1676, although curiously the very first recording (see below) is of a Yorkshire Sickling who witnessed a charter to the Nuns of Berwick. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Sicklinhale, which was dated 1199, in the town records of Berwick, Scotland, during the reign of King William, the Lyon, of Scotland 1165 - 1214. 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.