Skidmore (surname)

Family name
name = Skidmore


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pronunciation =
meaning =
region = England
origin = English
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Skidmore is a surname which originated in England in the early Middle Ages, believed to have come to England with the Normans around the time of the Norman Conquest. "Thirty Generations of the Scudamore/Skidmore Family in England and America", Skidmore, Warren, Akron, OH, 1998. ]

Origins of the Surname

From the days of the Norman Conquest until roughly Tudor times, the Scudamore/Scudemore surname (of which Skidmore is a variant) was mainly associated with a few gentry families in Herefordshire (at Kentchurch, Rowlstone, Ewyas Harold and Holme Lacy), and also in Gloucestershire ( at Westerleigh), and Wiltshire (Upton Scudamore), and Hertfordshire (at Rickmansworth). American genealogist Warren Skidmore has stated in his extensive research on the surname: "Up until Tudor times, Skydmore was Skydmore's cousin everywhere.".

These families are all believed by genealogists Warren Skidmore and William Frank Skidmore - two eminent genealogists to study this family name, from which their own is derived, - to have been descended from one man, Ralph de Scudemer, who was born in Normandy about 1040. (It is believed that "Scudemer" may have been a place-name in Normandy or Brittany, the location of which since been lost.)

Ralph was a stonemason, brought over from Normandy by the English King Edward the Confessor before the Norman Conquest to help to build castles along the Welsh border, as the Saxons knew little of stone castle-building, while the Normans were already masters of the techniques.

The first of these castles which Ralph helped to construct was at Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire. "Thirty Generations of the Scudamore/Skidmore Family in England and America", Skidmore, Warren, Akron, OH, 1998. ] Although the castle at Ewyas Harold no longer stands - it was razed in the 18th or 19th century, and the stone carried off to be "recycled" in some of the houses in the village - its motte and keep, perched on a low hill overlooking the village and the gently sloping Herefordshire countryside, can still be plainly seen a millennium later.

Ralph made quite a name for himself as a mason, as he is mentioned five times in the Domesday Book of 1086, often as an undertenant at the castles which he helped to build: "Opeton" (Upton Scudamore) in Wiltshire; "Fifhide" (later Fifield Scudamore, now Fifield Bavant, Wiltshire); an unnamed parcel of land at Ewyas Harold, which Warren Skidmore postulates was probably "Kaureos", now Corras in Kentchurch; "Poscetune" (now Poston, Herefordshire); and Little Hatfield (also in Herefordshire?). These same lands which Ralph was mentioned in conjunction with in the Domesday Book can be traced down over the next few generations as they were passed down through the laws of primogeniture to the families and descendants of his three sons, Reginald, Walter, and Hugh.

By the mid-12th century, the descendants of Ralph - with elder son Reginald's successors taking over the family's "caput" at Upton Scudamore in Wiltshire, while Walter's descendants remained in Herefordshire - were found listed as witnesses to charters bearing the clearly Norman surnames "d'Escudamor" and "Escudamore." These names would morph into the Scudamore surname over the next generation or two, and then later sometimes into "Skydemore: and "Skydmore" by 1400.

The name "Skidmore," sometimes also spelled "Skydmore," is a variant of the surname "Scudamore." As late as the 17th century, and possibly later, it is documented that some people of this surname used both names interchangeably. For example, a family might be known as "Skidmore" during the week, but then suddenly be called "Scudamore" when attending church services on Sunday. The patriarch of the Birmingham family mentioned below, for example, William Skidmore (c. 1590-1664), was most often recorded as "Skidmore" in church registers and tax lists, but spelled his name "Skudemore" in his will. "Skidmores of the Black Country and Birmingham", Moffatt, Linda, 2004.]

By the sixteenth century, around the time that Parish Registers began to come into common use following the Reformation, the shorter variant "Skidmore" came to be more common, and began to spring up in other areas of the United Kingdom where it had not previously been documented in the aristocratic or landowning families. Coincidentally or not, it was also around this time that it ceased to be the case that "Skydmore was Skydmore's cousin everywhere," i.e. it could no longer be said with certainty that all people using this surname were definitively descended from Ralph "de Scudemer." "New" Skidmore/Scudamore families such as the large, proliferant ones in the western suburbs of Birmingham (often called the 'Kingswinford branch after the village of Kingswinford, now in Staffordshire) and "the Chalfonts" - Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire - could not be proven by traditional genealogical means to have been related to the earlier families in Herefordshire and nearby Hertfordshire respectively. Y-chromosome DNA testing done in the 1990s and 2000s would later prove that the "Chalfont Skidmores" were in fact a branch of the Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire family, while the Birmingham Skidmores did not appear to be genetically related in the male line to any of the other known UK Skidmore/Scudamore families. [http://www.skidmoregenealogy.com/dna.htm] The results of these tests required the revision of some of the traditional genealogical family lines to include and disinclude other branches.

Skidmore Family History Group

There is a Skidmore Family History Group in the United Kingdom, which was founded in 1988 by Linda Moffatt (née Skidmore), a member of the aforementioned Birmingham/Kingswinford Skidmore family. It is open to all Skidmore descendants, and to those with an interest in the family or the surname. Membership includes a semi-annual newsletter, an annual Gathering, and the opportunity to make contact with long-lost cousins. Mrs Moffatt also recently published a book on the Kingswinford branch of the family, "Skidmores of the Black Country and Birmingham", based upon decades of her own painstaking research done from original sources.

Coat of Arms

The official Scudamore coat of arms - which, it should be noted, was licensed exclusively to the Wiltshire family who were ostensibly descended from the senior male line of Reginald Escudemor (c. 1070-bef. 1148), son of Ralph de Scudemer - consists of "gules, 3 sterrops or," or three golden stirrups on a red background. This represented the medieval family's status as prominent knights, sherriffs, and lawmen. A sample of this crest can be seen [http://www.skidmoregenealogy.com/ here] , in the upper right-hand corner. While only the Upton Scudamore gentry were officially entitled to use this coat of arms, it was often adopted by other medieval Scudamores, rightfully or not. It is today largely accepted as the more-or-less "universal" coat of arms of anyone bearing the Skidmore/Scudamore family name.

Other Miscellany

The village now called Upton Scudamore in Wiltshire, England, was named after the family which owned it in the Middle Ages and until the 19th century was often spelled "Upton Skidmore"."

"(Note: the following statements are from an earlier version of this page and require correction as they may contain false and/or incomplete information.)"

The Scudamores were a famous family in Herefordshire in the Middle Ages. John Scudamore was sheriff of that county during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr. fix|link=Wikipedia:Contents|text=citation needed He married Glyndŵr's daughter Alys. The descendants of this union are now known as the "Skidmore" family and live at Kentchurch Court. fix|link=Wikipedia:Contents|text=citation needed

Kentchurch Court, a medieval fortified house near Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, is still occupied by Scudamore descendants, although not in the direct male line. It is located halfway between Hereford and Abergavenny, Wales, off the A465 Highway, just north of the Welsh border.