History of the Manicom Family
(Virtually ALL of this painstakingly researched by Brian Manicom of South Africa with some additions by me)

ENGLISH SURNAMES

Surnames were introduced into England by the Normans,
who had adopted them shortly before 1066.
They first compiled a register of nobles and men of influence
in what we know as the Domesday Book in 1086 to enable them to tax the feudal estates.
This was the first list of English surnames that we know of.

In the course of time surnames became a mark of 'gentler blood',
and it was 'deemed a disgrace for gentlemen to have but a single name'.
It was only in the time of Edward II (1307-1327)
that it became general practice for lower classes to adopt surnames.
Most early surnames were descriptive of the original forbears, referring to the place they came from,
physical appearance, their occupation or nicknames, all often having humorous overtones.

The derivation of MANEKIN could be from the surname MAN,
meaning either 'a man-servant' or someone from the Isle of Man.
KYN / KIN could be a baptismal reference to 'the child of',
or the diminutive 'little' if taken from a nickname, hence 'little man'.

Prior to 1538 records were haphazard, and mainly kept by the monks for the nobility.
Early surnames in England could be changed at will,
only becoming hereditary by custom in 1538,
when Parish Registers were instituted during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547).

Spelling varied considerably on the 4 occasions that most people had their names written down:
*Birth
*Marriage
*Christening of children
*Death

Before the 1800's, the majority of the population were illiterate,
so the surname was communicated phonetically to the officiating ministers,
mostly Oxford trained, and written down as they heard it.
Obviously, factors such as local dialect, unclear pronunciation,
and changes in the style of English over the centuries
would influence the spelling used in successive written records.
Modern Manicoms have all had experiences of their surname being spelt in a many different ways.
Legislation only fixed English surnames on July 1st 1837
with the establishment of the Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages at Somerset House.
By the 1800's the family name had stabilized as MANICOM.

HINTS IN THE 1200's

In those early lists of surnames mentioned above we find:
1211 - Geoffrey MANEKIN ~ London

1215 - The barons forced King John to accept the Magna Carta.
This was the humble beginning of English democracy.

1337 to 1453 - The Hundred Years War Between England and France
over former Norman territory in France.
1348 to 1349 - About 30% of the population of England was killed by the Plague.
c1370 - John Wycliffe, a professor at Oxford, translated the first complete Bible into Modern English.
1397 - Dick Whittington (d. 1423) first becomes Lord Mayor of London.

A FREEMAN had both rights and responsibilities.
The main right was to trade freely within a city.
Responsibilities included attending mayoral elections and watching out for malpractice among traders.


Between 1460 and 1471
the Houses of York (White Rose) and Lancaster (Red Rose)
fought the War of the Roses over succession to the throne,
with Lancaster under Edward IV winning.
1492 - Christopher Columbus discovers the West Indies.
1497 - The Portuguese explorer, Bartholomew Diaz, discovered Natal.

MANEKIN of Livonia (modern day Latvia) have a coat of arms as one of the Knights of Livonia.
This was a Roman Catholic military order
similar to the Knights Templar who were involved in the Crusades.
The knights 'evangelized' Livonia at the point of the sword between 1202 and 1561,
when the order was disbanded by the Pope for excessive zeal in massacring dissidents.
MANATON of Cornwall also have a registered coat of arms,
as does MANICOM of South Africa.

References: The Origin of English Surnames by P.H. Reaney
A Dictionary of British Surnames by P.H. Reaney
A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames by C.W. Bardsley
Armorial General Rietstap
A Book of Crests by James Fairbairn
Encyclopaedia Britannica

SPECULATION IN THE 1500's

1547 - Ivan the Terrible takes title 'Tsar of all the Russias'.

1548 - Henricus & Johis MANATON and families - Ugborough Devon

This is an intriguing mystery that needs to be solved !!
A number of MANATONs lived in Devon in the 1500's.
The above-named particularly large family
lived in the old Anglo-Saxon village of Ugborough to the east of Plymouth
from the early 1500's,
then seemed to diminish greatly from the village early in the 1600's.
At about the same time,
the MANATON family appeared in Clyst Honiton, which is near Exeter.
Is this the same family?

1503 to 1505 - Leonardo da Vinci painted 'Mona Lisa' .
1516 - Thomas Moore wrote 'Utopia'.
Oct 31st 1517 - Martin Luther fixes his 95 theses on church door at Wittenburg -
- regarded as start of the Reformattion


The Tudor period was characterized by famous personalities and the development of British power.
1509 to 1547 - Henry VIII modernised the Navy
to create the platform for the growing dominance of the island nation.
He was responsible for breaking the Church of England away from the Catholic Church in Rome
following a dispute over his divorce from the Spanish Catherine of Aragon.
1558 to 1603 - Queen Elizabeth I had a wonderful 45-year reign.


Sir Walter Raleigh started the original ill-fated colony in Virginia
and introduced potatoes and tobacco into England.
1558 - Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada off Plymouth, the home of the British Navy.
1591 - William Shakespeare produced his first play.


abt 1588 - John MANEKYN on the Ship "St Thomas, snake of Winchelsea"


CLARIFICATION IN THE 1600's

The earliest proven link for today's MANICOMs is
John Manaton / Maneton / Maniton / Manikom / Manikin / Manikim
who was born about 1610 in Devon,
married Frances about 1632,
in Clyst Honiton, just to the east of Exeter in Devon.
All MANICOMs that I am aware of, are descended from him.
MANICOMs then moved to East Budleigh and Lympstone, south of Exeter.


1608 - First use of telescope by Galileo.
1611 - Authorised (King James) Version of Bible in England.
Dec 21 1620 (Dec 16 old style) - The Mayflower reaches America – founds Plymouth, New England .

East Budleigh is a quaint rural village with white thatched houses standing on crooked streets,
with the old village church as the focus.
The village is close to Wythycombe Raleigh, home of Sir Walter Raleigh .....
Tales of this local hero must have inspired generations of MANICOM boys.


Lympstone is a small fishing village on the east bank of the Exe estuary between Exeter and Exmouth.
The economy probably depended more on smuggling than fishing in the early days.
It was once destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt
and the stone post office / general store is the oldest building in the village.


1642 to 1646 - The English Civil War between the Royalists under Charles I (1625-1649)
and the Puritan / Parliament alliance under Oliver Cromwell over religious freedom took place.
It engulfed the West Country (Devon and Cornwall),
splitting families who fought for opposing sides.

With brother fighting brother, I do not know how the MANICOMs fared during this disturbing period.
Cromwell won the war, executed Charles l and set up the Commonwealth.
This did not last and Charles II (1660-1685) was invited to restore the Stuart dynasty in 1660.

European nations began to explore and settle the new continents.
1606 to 1641 - The British under Sir Walter Raleigh created settlements in Virginia.
1620-1660 - the Pilgrim Fathers emigrated from Plymouth to New England.
1652 - Jan van Riebeck established a Dutch settlement at Cape Town South Africa.
by 1700 - MANICOMs were living in Boston, New England.

circa 1610-1719 - CLYST HONITON Devon - this group of variations in 1 family

*1705 - Richard MANISCOMBE - Exeter Devon
(referred to as Richardum MANISCOMBE at marriage to widow, Honoram GLASSE)

*1719 - Richard MANICAN / MANICOM - East Budleigh Devon

~ East Budleigh Parish ~
(Reproduced with kind permission of East Devon District Council-UK)

PLYMOUTH IN THE 1700's

Henry VIII based the British Navy in Plymouth as the most convenient base to fight the Spanish.


MANICOMs moved to Stoke Damerel / Devonport and Plymouth to join the Royal Navy.
The Business Directory listed many MANICOMs as seamen,
with a number listed as straw bonnet makers, carpenters and victuallers to the Navy.


When Spanish power was finally broken by France in 1688,
the French became the dominant continental power,
becoming more aggressive after the French Revolution in 1789.
To counter this new threat, the navy was moved to Sheerness in the Thames estuary.


Once again, MANICOMs followed the ships and settled in the East End of London.


The 1700's were a dramatic era that saw the beginning of the Industrial Revolution about 1750.
1752 - Benjamin Franklin invents a lightning conductor.
1769 to 1779 - Captain Cook explored the Pacific.
1776 - American War of Independence ending with the Declaration of Independence.
1789 - The French Revolution guillotined many of the French nobility.
John Wesley rode back and forth across England preaching the gospel in the 1700's,
and as many historians claim, thus averted a similar revolution in England.

EMIGRATION IN THE 1800's

There were five wars against the French between 1688 and 1815.
1805 - The French under Napoleon were finally defeated by the British Navy under Lord Nelson
at the sea battle of Trafalgar
and in 1815 by the British and Prussian armies under the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo.


During the 1800's England was undergoing a financial crisis following these expensive wars
and the massive unemployment resulting from the Industrial Revolution.
Charles Dickens described the hardships of this era in his many novels.
The British started settlements in Australia,
annexed the Cape from the Dutch in 1802,
and joined in the scramble for Africa.
Many British people emigrated to seek a better future.
1803 - Louisiana Purchase - Napolean sells French possessions in America to United States.


1813 - Jane Austen writes 'Pride and Prejudice'.
'Savannah' the 1st steamship to cross Atlantic, reaching Liverpool 20 June 1819 (26 days)
1824 - Beethoven write his 'Ninth Symphony'.
1829 - Louis Braille invents his sytem of finger-reading for the blind.
1833 - Factory Act in England forbids employment of children below age of 9 !!
1835 - Florence Nightingale introduces hygiene into military hospitals in Crimea.
1867 - Dominion of Canada founded and
USA buys Alaska from Russia.
Nov 18 1869 - Suez Canal opens.
Apart from the Crimean War in Europe and the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1901,
the century ended in relative stability under the stately reign of Victoria (1837-1901).

MANICOMs settled in Natal, Texas, Ontario and New South Wales.
America suffered the Civil War between 1861 and 1865,
and a MANICOM (Thomas David) became involved in the conflict on the Northern Union side.

One of his sons rode for the notorious Mexican bandit, Pancho Villa.


1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone.
1885 - Canadian Pacific Railway completed.

Another tale is told of a MANICOM who was a lone prospector in Chile
who would disappear into the mountains with his burro and return with gold.
He would use this to buy rations for the next few months,
and spend the rest on another celebration before returning to the hills.

Early 1800s - The following variations within the same family -

MANICO was another spelling used in Devon.


By the 1800's the family name had stabilized as MANICOM,
although it was still frequently misspelled as in various Census returns -

MANIGON
MANICORN
MANISOM
MANACOM

Still, modern day MANICOMs find our surname spelled every which way possible.
I've even been referred to as MADIGAN.
More often than not,
it is pronounced MANICOMBE
which is probably the closest to the original pronunciation.


There is a MANSCOMBE Abbey in Morecombelake Bridport Dorset England.


1901 - Commonwealth of Australia founded.
Dec 12 : First successful radio transmission across the Atlantic, by Marconi –
Morse code from Cornwall to Newfoundland.
Apr 14 1912 - The 'unsinkable' TITANIC sinks on maiden voyage – loss of 1,513 lives
World War I - 1914-1918

Our branch of the MANICOM family emigrated to Canada abt 1911.


1918 - World-wide 'flu epidemic.
1929 - Abolition of Poor Law system in Britain.
Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovers penicillin
Wall Street crash on 'Black Tuesday'
1939-45 - World War II (the "Peoples War")
1972 - French Caribbean writer from Guadeloupe - Jacqueline MANICOM
1990s - present - Canadian writer, poet and foreign diplomat - David MANICOM
1990s - Minister of IT industry in Canada - Richard MANICOM


These are the Surnames we are researching in DEVON:

* Manikim / Manekym / Manikam / Monekin (circa 1273)
* Manscomb / Manscombe / Maniscombe (circa 1399-1422)
*Manaton (circa 1500-1600s)

These 3 lines of variations are recorded in CLYST HONITON (circa 1600's) ~

* Manaton / Maneton / Maniton / Manoton
* Mannaton / Manneton / Manniton / Mannoton
* Manakon / Manekin / Manikin / Manikorn / Manican
*Mannekin / Mannikin

* Manicomb / Manicombe / Manicoombe / Manycombe (circa 1700)
* Manicom (circa 1719)
Mis-spellings of the surname continued into the late 1800s ~
Manicorn / Manicam / Mamicam / Manicon / Manisom / Manacam

MY THANKS to Various MANICOM Researchers
who have so generously shared their information -

- Tony Slocombe of Devon
who contacted me a few years ago and has given so much info & done UK research :-)

- Brian & Dudley Manicom of South Afrrica
for their years of dedication to family research :-)

- Aimee of South Africa
for all the info she sent me,
most of it researched by her uncle, Brian MANICOM.

- Cheryl in Australia,
for enough family information so that I could link her family to the same ancestors as my husband!
(John MANICOM and his 2nd wife, Susanna SPETTIGUE)

- David J Manicom of Warwickshire
- Roger Manicom of Dorset
- David G Manicom of Somerset
- Marian McCain of Devon
- Elfra Craft of UK
- Fred Manicom of UK
- Maureen of UK

- Kim Manicom G of Canada
- David Manicom of Canada
- Katrina of Canada

- Sandra of Albequerque New Mexico
- Susan of USA
- Shannon of Texas
- Jo Ann of San Antonio Texas

- Rachel of France
who is originally from Guadeloupe FRENCH WEST INDIES !!
So far, we have been unable to make a connection :-(

Return to MANICOM' Direct Ancestor Line

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