My Line

…James Lannom, Jr. m. Susannah H. Lannom (1765-1852)
……Nathan Lannom (1789-1876) m. Elizabeth Thorn (1789-1863)
………Milton Lannom (1815-1885) m. Mary Griffin (1821-)
…………William Joseph Lannom (1849-1919) m. Sarah Elizabeth Hurt (1856-1914)
……………Ethel Roper Lannom (1895-1981) m. Wilburn Suber Smith, Sr. (1896-1980)

About the Name

The name seems to have been written as “Lanham” in its earliest form in Maryland and later as “Lannom” as its bearers moved west to Tennessee. The following, from a paper in the family collection, gives more detail about the name.

Research by Ike & Eleanor Harris
September 24, 1985
Copied from Paul Trueman Lanham’s papers

THE NAME OF FAMILY OF LANHAM OR LANGHAM by Media Research Bureau, Washington D.C.

Among those named who served in Revolutionary Forces during the American Revolution were Eli, Elias, Henry, Hillary, John, John D., Kinsey, Nehemiah, Richard & William Langham of Maryland; Lt. Elias, James, John, Richard & William Langham of Virginia; John Lanham of Virginia; James & William Langham of Georgia and probably others.

Samuel, Henry, William, Robert, Thomas, Ralph, Edward, Richard, George, Henry, James & John are names frequently recurrent.

The name of Lanham anciently written Langham is derived from the residence of its first bearers at a place of that name in England. There are Parishes called Langham in the dioceses of Ely, Peterborough, St. Albans, and Norwich, and a district called Laneham in Nottinghamshire. The literal meaning of the name of Langham is “Dweller at the Long Enclosure,’ while Laneham is said to mean ‘Dweller at the Street or Lane Enclosure.’ Langham was by far the better-known form of the name in ancient times, but it also appears in early English and American records in the spellings of Langam, Langeham, Longeham, Langham, Lanam and Lanham, of which the last is the variant most frequently in evidence in America in modern times.

Among the earliest definite records of the name in England are those of William de Langham of County Suffolk, in the year 1273, those of Dionis de Langham, of County Norfolk, in 1273; those of Henry de Longeham, of Lincolnshire in the same year, and those of Henry de Langham whose son William held “three carves of land in Langham in Rutlandshire,” before the year 1282.

The last mentioned William de Langham, of Rutland, was the father of a son named William, who was the father of Robert, who held lands at Winlodham, County Leicester, 85 early as the year 1351.

Biographies

Related Lines

Hurt | Smith