[Based on the research by Timothy Mangham of Oroville, California and Colin & Dorothy Mangham of Bury, England.]
BACKGROUND
The origin of all those surname variations, including a host of other variations, appears to be the Manghams of the County of Yorkshire, England. The first of the name to the New World seems to be Timothy Mangham who was transported to the Maryland Colony in 1666. We find no other records of him or any of his descendents in Maryland. He likely died soon after coming to the Maryland Colony before he had time to establish a family. The next known "Mangham" to the New World was named John and he came to the Virginia Colony just before 1700. He was illiterate and depended on the local governmental clerks (English) to spell his surname in those public records he generated. In those records his name was recorded in several ways, including Mingham, Mangham, Mangann and Mangum. The "Mangum" spelling was the preferred (but by no means exclusive) spelling of those later families who are presumed to be children of the immigrant John. There were frequent reversions to Mangham in later years; the most well known is the family of Solomon Mangum of Orange County, North Carolina who, with his family, reverted to the Mangham surname when they migrated into Georgia about 1800. Descendants of that family believe that the surname spelling was changed because they had established that the name in the old country was indeed Mangham. There are records of North Carolina Mangums going to Tennessee just after 1800 and adopting the surname Mangrum.
WHERE IN THE WORLD DO WE FIND THOSE MANGHAMS?
In colonial Virginia we find the family names Mangum and Mangham used as synonyms by our colonial ancestors. Both names have the same origin. Virginia was, of course, an English colony (named in honor of Elizabeth 1) and our ancestors were British Protestants of yeoman stock. Therefore, we must ask ourselves a question: where in the British Isles can we find the surnames Mangum and Mangham being used synonymously by commoners and freeholders of British Protestant stock? The answer, surprisingly, is quite simple. These synonyms are used concurrently in only one area of Britain-Yorkshire and Lancashire. As a matter of fact, the Mangham spelling is found in large numbers only in this same geographical area. The Mangum spelling is almost extinct today, but in the International Genealogical Index we find that it existed previously in two areas of England. In the area of Yorkshire, as stated, and in the southeastern corner of the country (Kent and Essex) as a variant of the family name Mungam. But it should be emphasized the fact that Mangum and Mangham were used synonymously in only one area of the British Isles, and that is in the Yorkshire-Lancashire area of north-central England. These names (Mangum-Mangham) have never appeared in the vital records of Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, The Isle of Man or the Channel Islands and they are not to be found in these areas today. Therefore, it would be wrong to say, as many people in America do, that the family names Mangum and Mangham are of Irish or Cornish or Welsh ancestry. It is simply not supportable by the historical and genealogical evidence. For example, there are no Welsh or Cornish surnames which are even comparable to the family names Mangum or Mangham. Only in Ireland do we find a surname somewhat similar, and that is the Irish name Mangan. But nowhere in records pertaining to the name do we find the variant spellings of Mangum or Mangham, and there are no Mangums or Manghams to be found in the modern telephone directories of either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. In the modern telephone directories of the United Kingdom we find only a mere handful of Mangum families. The modern common spelling in England appears to be Mangham. And they appear to be. primarily in South Yorkshire and specifically in the cities of Rotherham and Doncaster. I would estimate that about half of the Manghams in the world (England, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand) live in one of these two cities.
BUT WHAT DOES THE NAME MEAN?
If we accept the fact that the genealogical evidence points to north-central England as the original homeland of the Mangum-Mangham family, then the next question that we might well ask ourselves would be: why did our family adopt this particular surname, when did the initial use of the surname arise, and what does it mean? There are a number of possible etymologies, but the ones which will be discussed here are considered the most probable. Originally we believed that the Mangham surname derived from the name Maugham. There was quite a lot of evidence to support that theory. In the earliest vital records of Yorkshire, and particularly of the city of York, we find the family name Maugham consistently being used interchangeably with the spelling variation Mangham. We already know the full history of this family name. Maugham is a toponymic, or a family name which was taken from that of a specific town or village. In this case, the name was adopted from that of a village in the Strathclyde region of southwestern Scotland, near the city of Dalserf in Lanarkshire. The original spelling was Machan (pronounced 'mawn'), and as the family moved south and east into northern England, the spelling was changed to Maughan, and finally to Maugham. And, as noted earlier, another spelling variation was Mangham- the 'u' inverted into an 'n' through the natural corruption of hand-writing and transcription. Indeed, the first instance of the family name Mangham occurs in the city of York, assumed by a family whose individual members are also recorded as Maugham. Therefore, we have acceptable and tangible evidence of the following etymology: Machan - Mauchan - Maughan - Maugham - Mangham and finally to Mangum. In this theory the name Mangum, originally derived from Machan means "river plain" in Scots-Gaelic.
Further examination of the records and the inputs from prominent English surname researchers has caused us to reverse our stand. We now believe that the most likely theory is that Manningham is the procurer of our Mangham/Mangum surname. Colin Mangham, a fellow researcher in England sends the following: "There is a strong possibility that some MANGHAMS may have descended from a person named MANYNGHAM. The Place called Manningham is now part of Bradford in West Yorkshire. The Will of Thomas MANYNGHAM in 1393 makes reference to Pontefract, Doncaster and Ecclesfield, where the name MANGHAM occurs. It also mentions Normanton, Yorkshire and Heckington (now Eckington) near Sheffield, where further research is needed." In a letter written by the prominent English researcher Dr. George Redmonds to Timothy Mangham, he adds further proof of a Manningham origin. He writes "I still think that it [Mangham] is a short form of Manningham. In a will written in the year 1531, ‘Manningham Field Side’ was referred to as ‘Mangham felde side".
We do have many alternate theories, some which have much to recommend them. Colin Mangham of England has done extensive research over many years on his Mangham lineage. He and his wife Dorothy have found many early records with variants of the spelling MALLUM and MALGHUM. He thinks this family took their name from the place MALHAM in Yorkshire. Their research has also included other variants of the spelling including MANGALL, MANGALLS, MANGLE and MANGLES, as within the direct ancestry of Colin Mangham these spellings have occurred.
You may read a full account of our research into the origin of the Mangum surname in the publication The The Mangum-Mangham-Mangrum Journal, issues 39-41.
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UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2016
Sadly, my good friend and fellow researcher Colin Mangham passed away in 2007. Long before that, we were both very much disappoined to learn, via DNA analysis, that his lineage is not related to our U. S. Mangum lineages in any reasonable genealogical timespan. His Haplogroup is 'J' where the Mangum lineages are 'R', meaning any common ancestor goes back many thousands of years. DNA testing of other English and Irish surnames with spelling variations similar to Mangum, such as Malham, Mingham, Mangle, Mangan, etc., has also failed to show any close relationship with the Mangums, although some like the 'R' Haplogoup 'Manninghams' are much closer than Colin's 'J' Haplogroup 'Mangham' lineage. Unfortunately, we have only tested a total of 16 English/Irish individuals representing 10 surname variations. Each of these surname variations are most likey represented in England/Ireland by many, even dozens, of unrelated genetic lineages, so our testing has only evaluated a very insignificant sample of the English/Irish lineages with spellings similar to Mangum. We certainly have not eliminated the possibility that our Mangums are related to one gentically specific English family with or without a surname spelling similar to our Mangum spelling. Our 'Origins' researcher, Mr. Timothy Mangham, still believes our lineage originated in or around Yorkshire in England, but to date we have found only circumstantial evidence. As to an even more ancient origin, long before surnames were used, DNA evidence points to Central Ireland.
