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This ancient name can be traced back to the villages of Great and Little Massingham in North Norfolk, near the town of King's Lynn. It is well recorded in the surrounding villages of Field Dalling, Langham, and in the county town of Norwich itself, suggesting that the nameholders, or at least many of them, do derive from the original 13th century land owning family.

Derivation

The name is tribal and probably Anglo-Saxon, and translates as the 'hamm' (place or village) of the Maessa (Mass) tribe (ing). These people are also recorded in Lincoln, as 'Massingberd', the castle (berg) of the Maessa tribe. The early recordings include Adam de Messingham in Lincoln in the Hundred Rolls of that county for the year 1273, and John de Messingham in the London Rolls for the same year. Thomas de Messyngham is recorded in the Poll Tax Rolls for the city of York in 1379, whilst amongst the early church recordings is that of William Massingham who married Ursula Wade at Fincham, Norfolk, on June 13th 1595.

Other examples of the recordings showing the surname development are those of William Messengham, christened at Sharrington, Norfolk, on July 1st 1691, and Mary Massingham who married Thomas Wilson at Norwich Cathedral, on October 14th 1701, in the reign of William of Orange (1689 - 1702). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Walter de Massingham, which was dated 1272, in the Hundred Rolls of the county of Cambridge, during the reign of King Edward 1, known as 'The Hammer of the Scots', 1272-1307. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as the Poll tax.