Names Present in 1400s Great Marlow

Whenever in the course of other research I find a Great Marlow person I note down their last name. Even if your tree can't stretch back so far yet seeing this list may help you to speculate whether you do have 1400s ancestors in Marlow.

The names present refer to people who who lived, worked or owned property in Marlow. There will be another list for Little Marlow.

Bear in mind that the pronunciation of English has changed enormously since the 1400s. This is important because you may miss  possible variant spellings of your family name if you don't understand the phonetics involved. I have added some pronunciation notes in brackets next to some names to give you a hand with your own research. The names I annotate are ones with the most surprising pronunciations to our modern ears.

DEVENE

DICKINSON, DYKINSON, DYCONSON, DIGGINSON, DYGINSON. [The g would be pronounced like a harsh k]

FASEBY, FACEBY, FAUCEBY

FLEGGE ["Fleck" with a harsh final ck sound]

HILL

MATHEWE [ "Mattee" or "Martee" or "Maddee" or "Mardee" or more rarely "Mattoo" "Martoo" "Madoo" or "Mardoo" but not with the th sounding like th in thing]

MICHEL, MICHELL, MYCHEL, MYCHELL ["Meekhel" - the kh sounding harsh and throaty like the ch in a loch strongly pronounced. A letter g and diphthong gh could give the same sound so watch for spelling Mighel etc for the same name]

OSBARN, OSBARNE

PAYNE, PAYN

PESEY

SEYMOUR, SEYMOR, SEMER, SEAMER

SMITH, SMYTH, SMYTHE ["Smeet" or "Smeed"]

TALWORTH [" Talwort", "Talword", "Tawlwort" or "Tawlword"]

Post researched and written by Charlotte Day.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this research for family or local history purposes. Please credit this blog and link here so that my sources remain credited for the information they provided.