This rare and interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from either Micklam, south of Workington, Cumberland, or Mickleham, a parish and village in Surrey. Both placenames share the same meaning and derivation, which is from the Olde English pre 7th Century "micel", great, large, big, and "ham", village, estate, manor, homestead; hence, "large homestead". Locational surnames were given to the lord of the manor, and to those former inhabitants who left to live or work in another area, and in this way the spelling of the name often changed with varying regional pronunciations. John Mykelham is noted in the 1327 Subsidy Rolls of Sussex, and Fraunces Mycklem is listed in the Register of Bisham, Berkshire (1561). In the modern idiom the surname has many variant spellings ranging from Micklem, Miklem, Macklem and Maclome, to Macklim, Macklame, Machlame and Macklam. Recordings of the surname from English Church Registers include: the marriage of Jone Machlame and Harman Jonson on November 15th 1563, at St. Mary Somerset, London; the marriage of Allis Macklim and Nycholas Patricke on September 27th 1570, at Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire; and the marriage of John Macklam and Elizabeth Forster on March 7th 1797, at St. Giles', Durham. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John de Mychelham, which was dated 1296, in the "Subsidy Rolls of Sussex", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.

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