This interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname deriving from either of the places in Nottinghamshire near Tuxford called East Markham West, or Chinton, Markham. The original places recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Marcham", and as "Westmarcham", and the placename means "the homestead on the boundary", derived from the Old English pre 7th Century "mearc", boundary, border, boundary mark, with "ham", estate, settlement, homestead, or village. Locational surnames were acquired especially by those former inhabitants of a place who had moved to another area, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. One Henry, Markham is listed in the Register of the University of Oxford for 1585, and the marriage of Richard Markham and Mary Yetsweirt was recorded at Sunbury-on-Thames, London, on May 24th 1576. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Jordan de Marcham, which was dated 1204, Records of Pleas before the King's Justices, during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. 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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