Hi everyone,
My link to the Ellams family is a bit further back than many of you: one of my maternal great x 3 grandmas, Ellen Ellams, was born to William and Mary Ellams in 1817/1819 in Helsby. So, having established my creds:
Really my message is about the origins of Ellams - there are German Ellams' too, so one guess would be that orginally this name entered England (and Scotland) via the Germanic invasions... (Ellams may well have "gone up" to Scotland when southern Scotland formed part of the pre-Conquest Northumbrian kingdom, and the northern British, who peopled the region [and still do] spoke a blend of Anglo-Saxon-Scandanavian.)
Does this all muddy the waters more....
bye for now, Anne