FROM KIRKEMANN TO KIRKMAN
| The name Kirkman comes from the English "kirk", the
Danish "kirke", the Dutch "kerk", the German "kirch" and
other Northern European variations which all mean a person who lived near a church or
worked in a church. Census records and church documents show the names of the Captain and his descendants were Anglicized from Kirkemann to Kirkman between 1860 and 1920. The Danish "e" was quickly eliminated after the Captain became an American. Great-grandmother Ellen Lee spelled her name Kirkmann in the 1900 census but the second "n" was dropped shortly thereafter. The 12 Kirkmans buried in Zion Episcopal Church's graveyard have one "n." Interestingly, a 1996 check of phone books at the Danish embassy in Washington, D.C. showed families headed by Neilsen and Preben Kirkemann living in the Kalundborg, Denmark. |