Wickenden History - The map above describes a piece of Wickenden history - before there was a Wickenden! It traces the migration of members of a large tribal group called Wicingas from their arrival in Wingham, Kent, around 450 CE to their establishment of a den in Cowden, Kent, around 525. How do we know? Because when they landed after crossing the Strait of Dover, they established a cluster of small hamlets called Uuigincgga-ham (from Wicinga + Ham). The name was shortened through contractions to Wingham, and a cluster of towns with that name can be found today located between Canterbury and Thanet.
After deploying around East Anglia as mercenaries for the Britons, they revolted. The conflict ended at the Battle of Badon around 493, at which point some of them, calling themselves Wicken, proceeded west from Wingham, past Canterbury, down through the Stour Gap and across the ancient forest called the Weald. The map above shows that along the way they established a number of dens, farms and settlements in the woods (hurst). Assuming, for the sake of simplicity, that they moved to a different location along the sixty mile route every five years or so, they would have reached Cowden around 525. There they established both a den, initially recorded as Wingindene, and a homestead called Wickens. The den became known as the Wicken den, as did the residents, and the name spread from there for the last 15 centuries (525 - 2025). If a new generation came along about every 25 years, then the Wickendens have been around for 60 generations!
New Subscribers - We have 54 "customers" who have accessed our website. Of these, 49 signed up as "subscribers" to receive communications from our group. We have had 8 new members since last year - 3 registered as subscribers and 5 did not. Two of the subscribers are from the UK and one is from the USA. We hope to find time to do some "marketing" of the website this year to all Wickendens but especially to those who have been active on other Internet platforms and genealogy websites. Additional subscribers are always welcome, so please share this message with other Wickenden family members and friends. Visitors to the website will be asked if they would like to subscribe to receive group messages such as this one. Readers are also invited to comment on or contribute to any section of the website.
New Contributions to Family Pages- We always welcome new materials, including pictures, articles, family trees, etc. regarding any of our families. Updates based on recent holiday gatherings or reunions are also valuable contributions. Remember that we can always add links to other existing files and websites. We especially want to encourage those of each generation to add a set of profiles to their family history with pictures and other information. These profiles can be added as a new page to this website, or they can be set up in a separate website and linked to a family page in this one. It is also useful for everyone to add their location to the interactive map of Wickendens.
Thank you again for your interest in our website. In case you missed any previous Updates, they are all posted in the News section of the Website. Please have a safe, healthy, prosperous, and fabulous 2025!
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