Warmisham

This unusual and interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a dialectal variant of the locational name Warmingham, from a place so called in Cheshire. The derivation is from an Old English pre 7th Century personal name 'Waermund', with 'ham', an estate, manor or homestead, thus 'Waermund's estate', or 'the homestead of Waermund's people'. Warmingham is first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Warmundestrov', and later in the 1260 Court Rolls as 'Wermingham', and in 1289 as 'Wernyngeham'. Former inhabitants of villages often took the village name as a means of identification, when, during the Middle Ages, they began to travel more widely, to seek work, thus resulting in a wide dispersal of the name. Among the early recordings in Cheshire is the christening of Marie Warsmisham on June 2nd 1583 at St. John the Baptist, Chester. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas Warmisham (witness), which was dated April 29th 1583, St. Oswald's, Chester, Cheshire, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, '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.