The surname DIBBLE originated in
medieval times in England for better identification of each individual.
Prior to that time a person was known only by the single name
which was given at birth. Later it became necessary to distinguish
one man named John or Thomas from others with the same name so
a descriptive word would be given to each individual. There were
four major sources from which these additional names arose: a
person's occupation, a location, a descriptive nickname, and
baptismal from the name of the father. Of these, the name Dibble
began as a baptismal name and was used to further identify one
who descended from Dibb, from Dibald or Theobald (people, bold).
In the beginning, the name Dibble belonged only to the person
it described. Generations later it became hereditary and was
passed down from a father to his children to become their family
name. Like most names, Dibble has undergone some spelling changes
since it originated. The name Dibble was likely to be written
down and spelled as to what the writer thought he heard with
the various accents of the times like Dible, Dibel, Dibell, Deeble,
Dybol, Dibbs, Dibbles, etc. The Dibble name may even be spelled
like Thibodeau or Thibault (French) in other countries.
Genealogy research found the earliest "Dibble" ancestors
originating from Somerset, England in the early 1500s. Other
ancestors spelled Deeble or Deble may have come from St. Germains,
Cornwall, England in the late 1400s. There were many families
with the Dibble surname located in different towns within the
county of Somerset, which is located in southwest England. Unless
a Dibble individual was a prominent person or a criminal the
only mark he was likely to leave for posterity was the supposedly
compulsory record of his baptism, marriage or burial written
in a church register by the incumbent of the local parish church
or his clerk.
There were a very large number of parishes in Somerset but only
about half of them had church registers prior to dates we may
be researching and many have huge gaps of missing records. Only
some of these records actually survived the church fires and
various wars. It was an age of successive outbreaks of plague,
famine, war, iconoclasm and sackings of clergy, and many church
records were lost forever. It is very rare indeed to be able
to follow any Dibble individual through baptism, marriage and
burial in the church registers. It is nearly impossible to be
convinced that a Dibble baptism followed by a Dibble marriage
about 25 years later refers to the same Dibble individual.
After researching most of the church records, wills and other
written documents available we have not found the missing link
to who might be the "original Dibble". The internet
and email has helped all genealogy researchers worldwide combine
their efforts only to find the same dead end - incomplete and
missing records. Genealogy research has proven that there were
many Dibble families in southwest England. One can only guess
that the surname Dibble had been used there for quite some time
and that we were much more likely to have descended from Saxons
than from French immigrants. So even though we have not identified
the original Dibble, where he was born, married or died, we do
know that if we search far enough back in time we will find that
we are all related.
The most recent official records released by the government show
that today there are about 8,600 people named Dibble in the U.S.
and it is the 5,178th most populous name. One of the goals of
this site is to encourage anyone named Dibble worldwide to share
their ancestral data wherever they may have settled in the world.
We would love to learn more about you so please sign our guestbook or enter your email above and join the Dibble Family Group on Yahoo |