What is the genealogy of my las name?

Question:My last name is Stidham. What is the origin of it. My grandparents are from England, Scotland, Sweden, and Ireland, but won't answer about where exactly Stidham comes from, so I am left at a standstill. Please help!!!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My last name is Stidham. What is the origin of it. My grandparents are from England, Scotland, Sweden, and Ireland, but won't answer about where exactly Stidham comes from, so I am left at a standstill. Please help!!!

Based on a few minutes playing with Google, your best bet seems to be either of Swedish origin (with the spelling changing over time) or of English origin.

At least some of the Stidhams (originally Stiddem) came from Sweden, according to this website: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~stiddem/h...

According to ancestry.com, the name stidham is "Apparently an English habitational name from a lost or unidentified place. However, the surname does not occur in current English records." http://www.ancestry.com/facts/stidham-na... So the name may also be of English origin.

Another site suggest that the name means "The meaning of the surname STIDHAM is - one who came from, or lived near Stidd." http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani...

This site also claims the name as English, including a coat of arms and a motto.
http://houseofnames.com/coatofarms_detai...

Look it up on the internet or in geneology books. I have no idea.

It seems to be my experience that most of the -hams are from England. (i.e. Buckingham, Birmingham, etc.)

many names were spelled the way the writer thought they sounded instead of the way they were originally spelled. Also the name may have originated in one country and was changed when your ancestors moved to a new country.

Have your grandparents given you a reason they don't want to discuss where they came from? Maybe there is something in the past that caused them to change their last name. That was done quite frequently way back when. Don't upset your grandparents. Just do your research and keep quiet then you don't upset them.

English is a polyglot or mongrelized language as England being out in the Atlantic has had invasions from many peoples. First were the Celts, then the Romans and then the Germanic Anglo, Saxons and Jutes. The ham at the end of a name comes from the German hamlet. So English surnames ending in ham usually indicate that the root person of your surname lived close to a hamlet or town.

Later the Danes came and then the French speaking Normans.

People did not have surnames until the last melennium. When surnames were taken it was quite possible for legitimate sons of the same man to have different surnames and still each shared his surname with someone with whom he was not related.

See the link below from the most prestigious genealocal organization in the United States, The National Genealogical Society

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerp...

Rootsweb(free site) has over 37,000 entries in family trees for Stidham. Just pull up the site and put Stidham or a complete name in the World Connect Block. If you see something that interest you, probe on a name and it will take you to a screen that will give you the name and email address of the submititter.

Just don't take as absolute fact everything you see in family trees on any website, free or paid. The information is user submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even if you see the same information repeatedly by many different submitters, that is no guarantee it is correct.
A lot of people copy without verifying.

This is all I could find for you, it came from www.ancestry.com btw.
Stidham
Apparently an English habitational name from a lost or unidentified place. However, the surname does not occur in current English records.
Hope this helps.

Last names do not HAVE genealogy... people do. Of your grandparents, only one of them is actually a Stidham by birth. And gut feeling tells me that Stidham is probably a variation of something else. Of hand, it is very possible that Steadham could be the original.
Just to get you thinking... what would happen, if you traced your actual ancestors, and find that there was an adoption way in the past? Another analogy (with no disrespect intended), many African Americans have surnames that came from their prior owners. They could have a French name.. it would not mean they had French blood.
If you do the research back far enough, using reliable records, you would probably find a point that the parent had a different spelling.
Your surname is not your ancestry. I am guessing they won't tell you where it comes from, because they really don't know.
But.. it is not that important anyway.

Yo las name was from the island of ebonics.

There is no word in the English language that's spelled "las". I believe you were trying to spell, "Last", perhaps?