General Notes

GEORGE MANKIN(1), was the first known Mankin to cross the Atlantic and settle in Charles County, Maryland. He probably arrived in 1650 as a companion to the household of Thomas Brooke(2), gentleman, whose father John Brooke had outfitted a ship. John Brooke became known later as a fiery Roundhead, yet his sons were, through marriage, relatives of Lord Cecil Calvert. George is first mentioned by author Gust Skordas in his book, "Early Maryland Indentures" that George Mankin was first recorded in 1666 as having been one of several persons brought over and claimed by Major Thomas Brooke as entitled to receive 50 acres of land for each person whose travel expenses he had paid in the interest of expanding and encouraging the growth of the colony. This was called the headright system of receiving land. George Mankin is listed as one of those whose passage had been paid.
Maryland had been granted to the 1st Lord Baltimore, Sir George Calvert, but settled by his brother Leonard Calvert (2nd Lord Baltimore)in 1634, arriving in two ships The Ark and The Dove. By 1650, the colony was a haven for Catholics and Quakers seeking refuge from religious intolerance in England, and now was under the proprietorship of Lord Cecil Calvert, 3rd Lord Baltimore. Some Catholics, Quakers, and members of the Church of England came as refugees from the Ulster Uprising of 1641, where James 1 st had granted plantations in Ulster in northern Ireland. Many like the Mankin relatives, Calvert and Robinson families, had attempted to settle there from Yorkshire, were in the military service in Ireland, and fled their Irish plantations in this failed plan of dominating northern Ireland.
No record of the exact place of origin of George Mankin has been discovered, although the Lords of Baltimore lived in Yorkshire halfway between Durham and York at "Kiplin Hall" at Bolton-on-Swale near Richmond and Ripon and where the parish records show several Mankin families lived, and which we have discussed earlier in looking at possible origins of the Mankin family who came to America. We know that the Maryland Dent family, as well as the Quaker leader John Calvert, both came from Guisborough, Yorkshire. It appears that Richard Mankin of Fort Christiana, DE, a probable son listed below, was related to major Quaker leaders, Valentine Hollingsworth and John Calvert, both friends of William Penn, and that Edward Mankin, merchant of Philadelphia, witnessed the will of William Howell, who had purchased a manor house at Ashford, Derbyshire, from John Wood and Sir George Wood, the latter a Knight and Justice of the Peace. We assume that if George came from Yorkshire, perhaps he came from the Mankin family of Stainton, Yorkshire, or Great Smeaton, not far from Guisborough, Yorkshire or he could have been from Ashford, Derbyshire (now called Ashford-on-the-Water, Derbyshire). Irish "Mangin" and Welch or even Dutch or Swedish origins are also possibilities. I do not believe in the Scottish origin of the Mankin family at this time, because (1) Capt. Michael Mankin, mentioned below, would not likely ship his own countrymen into indentured servitude, (2) the name "Mankin" is common in Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and noted in Derbyshire, and not found in Scotland before 1800, and (3)the Quaker relatives Calvert, Robinson, Wilkinson, Dent, and Stone are all Yorkshire origintating families.