What were the origins of the Jickling family?  How did this strange sounding name evolve?  Were the early Jicklings immigrants from Scandinavia?  From the Low Countries?  From France?

P.H. Reany in his A Dictionary of British Surnames [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976] speculates that Jickling is a diminutive of Jekyll or Jukel, a Breton name.  This theory would have the Jicklings originating in Brittany in north west France and coming to England with the Norman conquest in 1066.  After the battle of Hastings, the victorious French soldiers were given lands to settle in Norfolk.  Reany finds a Jukelinus de Smetheton in the Curia Regis rolls of 1200 [Cur (4)].

A publication on The Norman People [Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1975] equates the names Jekyl and Jackel with a place name of Jacle in Normandy.  They report a William de Jakele as possible English descendants in 1272.  Walter Rye in his Norfolk Families [Norwich, 1913] links the Jickling name with Jekelone.  The first Jekelone he finds at East Rudham in 1366 when William Jekelone received a fine.  We found Jekelone, Jeckler and Jecklin in the church registers of Wells for the 1650s.

In 1382, the Consistory Court of Norwich, the county seat of Norfolk, was notified that a John Jegelyne of Stanfield had died with a will [84 Heydon].  Stanfield is a small village 6 miles north west of East Dereham, Norfolk.  Could this be an early Jickling?  We know that the name was spelled in many different ways in the early years.  The name was spoken to a record keeper by family members, who typically could not write themselves, and was recorded as the transcriber heard it.  Thus we have records for Gickling, Jecklin, Jecklynge, etc.  It was 1680 before there was some degree of uniformity in the spelling of the name.

In 1492 James Jekelyn of Stanhoe willed his property to his son John [Normande 56].  Stanhoe is a short distance east of Docking in north west Norfolk.  James' will, in Latin, is available on microfilm [MF 31] at the Microform Searchroom at Shirehall in Norwich.  In July 1993 Charles Farrow, who knows Latin, and I reviewed it together.  It is difficult to read although the microfilm provides a clear image.  It begins "Jacobus Jekelyn" of "Stanhou", which is Latin for James Jekelyn of Stanhoe.  The will dated 30 Oct 1492 -- two weeks after the discovery of America -- was proved (verified) at Snettisham on 3 Dec 1492.