These pages are being put together from:

• family records that my mother and my aunt Mildred Dyckes Wipper gave me
• "The Amazing Dyckes Family Album and New World Registry" that was sent to my father by Helen Dyckes of Pennsylvania (No sources were given with those pages.)
• many internet sources
• and anything you would like to contribute

If you have information or corrections, please send them to me. There is a What's New section at the bottom of this page so that you can quickly tell what has been added or changed since your last visit. Please participate. The internet makes it possible for us to pool the information that we have—and which will otherwise be lost.

The Name

From: Surname Meanings: A-D * Broken Arrow Publishing

Dykes is a variation of the English place name Ditch, which described the man who lived by a ditch or dyke, from Middle English diche < Old English dic = earthwork. In medieval times, the ditch was a form of defensive fortification to protect a settlement.

Deetch, Dikes, Dike, Deekes, Deek, Deakes, Deex, Ditcher, Deetcher, Deeker, Dicker, Decker, Diss, Dickman, Digman are variations.

Dieckmann, Dieck, Zumdieck, Tendyck, Tomdieck are Low German cognate forms.

Van Dijck, Van Dijk, Van Dyck, Van Dyk, Van Dijken, Van Dyken, Dijkman, Dykman are Flemish cognate forms.

Deickstra, Dijkstra, Dykstra, Dijkema, Dykema are Frisian forms.

Notice that Dyckes does not appear in this list. The closest matches seem to be Flemish (Dutch)—although, in theory at least, Dutch does not include the letter y.

More variations on the name.
An article on the relevance of surnames in England.

Origins

British? At least one branch of the family came to the United States from England—Henry George Dyckes and his wife were born in Kent. There are several people named Dyckes listed in British phonebooks.
See the British Families page.
See the Missing Links page.
A description of Kent written in 1887.
Kent Genealogy

Belgian? I once tried running the name on an internet genealogy site (Hall of Names International Inc.), and was informed that it is of Belgian origin—specifically the province of Brabant (which is where Brussels is located). Dutch (called Flemish) is spoken there, so it is not entirely unlikely. No further information was available without a fee.

Belgian families from Brabant Wallon and Hesbaye began to emigrate to the U.S. in 1852. Most were farmers who had been hurt by years of bad harvests and other problems (including, like the Irish, potato disease). Many settled near Green Bay, Wisconsin. (the Walloon emigration)

Dutch? It has been speculated that members of the family may have emigrated to England from the Netherlands (or Belgium) in the early 1600s to take part in the draining of the fens near Ely.

American Branches

There seem to be at least two branches of the family in the United States. The Henry George Dyckes branch settled in East Setauket, on the north coast of Long Island, in the state of New York. The John Dyckes family, according to Thomas M. Dyckes of Columbus, Ohio, was originally from Connecticut. They settled in Cleveland because of a revolutionary war land grant called the Western Reserve. He also says that they are related to the Henry George branch through his Great-Great-Grandfather's brother, who lived in Fredonia.

Kevin Dyckes wrote me that Helen Dyckes had written "John Dyckes came from Baltimore, Maryland, to Cleveland, Ohio, by horse and wagon." This suggests a link to the Maryland names that have turned up in Internet searches.

Records show a third branch (and probably more) in the Mid-Atlantic seaboard area and the South. I have no idea where they came from.

Dyckesville, Wisconsin

Unfortunately, it was probably not named for anyone in our family. Here are excerpts from a letter my father passed along.

Route 2 Box 263
Luxemburg, Wisconsin 54217
November 19, 1987

Dyckesville is an unincorporated community 20 miles northeast of the city of Green Bay and is located on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. It is located on the east shore of Green Bay, which is part of Lake Michigan. There are probably 250 year around residents, but our population increases during the warm months when people from Green Bay and elsewhere move out to their cottages along the water. The permanent residents either commute to Green Bay as I do, or they commute to the shipyards at Sturgeon Bay, 24 miles northeast of here. We also have some retirees who live here year around or some who live here in the summer and go south for the winter. Our mail comes from Luxemburg, nine miles away.

As for recorded history, the first land grants were made in 1836 to Daniel Whitney, a relative of Eli Whitney , inventor of the cotton gin. The first settlers were a band of immigrants from Belgium who came in 1854. Even today, this area is probably the largest Belgian-American settlement anywhere in the United States. (I'm not a native of the area). In the year 1861, about the time of the Civil War, Louis Van Dycke bought a large tract of land in northwestern Kewaunee County. He donated three acres for a Roman Catholic Church. The church was built and oddly enough it was named St. Louis Church. The subsequent village was named Dyckesville, after the donor of the land (Van Dycke).

He lived here for a number of years, had numerous children, but eventually moved to Green Bay. There are Van Dyckes living in Green Bay, but no Dyckes are in the local telephone directory....

Sincerely,
Gerald V. Abitz
President

      Dyckesville,
      Brown County,
      Wisconsin

U.S. Census Names