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MENEZES Family History

This interesting and unusual surname is of Spanish and Portuguese origin, and is a locational name from any of the several places called Meneses or Menezes, notably in the province of Palencia, Spain. These places were originally established by settler from Mena. Mena derives from the Old Spanish "mean", battlement (Latin "minae" (plural)), and may also have been used in a transferred sense for anyone who lived on a pinnacle or high spot. During the Middle Ages, when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often took their former village name as a means of identification, thus resulting in a wide dispersal of the name.