Biggam Family History

from either Bigholm in Beith parish (Ayrs) or Bigholms in Langholm parish (Dumfriess). The final element of the place-names is Older Scots holm (Old Scandinavian holmr) ‘islet; a piece of dry raised land in marsh’ also ‘stretch of low-lying land beside a river; a meadow’. The first element is uncertain perhaps related to Middle English *bigge synonymous with Middle English Older Scots bigging ‘a building’.

In the 17th and 18th centuries Scottish Protestant ‘planters’ and migrants took the name to Ulster where it survives as Bingham perhaps partly through confusion with the name in (ii). perhaps in some instances an altered form of Bingham.