Heritage of the last name Link?

Question

Anyone know?

Answer 1

Link Name Meaning and History

German, Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a left-handed person, from Middle High German linc, Dutch linker, links, Yiddish link ‘left (side)’. In Europe left-handed people were long regarded with suspicion as clumsy, awkward, deviant, and even untrustworthy.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

There is a good chance both answers (English and Dutch/German/Jewish) are right. The only way to find your heritage is to trace it, one generation at a time.

Answer 2

Surname: Link

This name with variant spellings Linck, Lince and Linch is of English topographic origin for one dwelling by a bank or slope. The derivation is from the Olde English pre 7th Century "hlinc" translating variously as "a bank separating strips of arable land on a slope, rising ground or a ridge". Dialectual variants of "hlinc" included "linch" and "lench". The surname is first recorded in the early half of the 13th Century, (see below). One, Gilbert de la Lynche appears in the 1275 "Subsidy Rolls of Worcestershire" and a Robert Bynithelinche in the 1278 "Assize Court Rolls of Somerset". In 1279 one, Robert Lincke was recorded in the "Hundred Rolls of Cambridgeshire" and on October 31st 1647 Elizabeth Link and John Wears were married in St. Matthew's, Friday Street, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey Linch, witness, which was dated 1228 in the "Fine Court Rolls of Suffolk", during the reign of King Henry 111, known as "The Frenchman", 1216 - 1272. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling