Connecting the NE and VA/MD Pierpont Family Lines

The Problem

The ancestral line of the NE Pierponts has been fairly well documented (see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//gen/pier/piergen.htm). And the family tree of the VA/MD line of Pierponts (also Pierpoint) is also well documented. But the latter generally starts with an immigrant Henry Pierpoint who was born in Hertfordshire, England around 1612 and who came to America in 1623. (There are also lines associated with some of Henry’s relatives who came around the same time – I’m not going to deal with them here as they have been researched elsewhere such as in The American Genealogist (see https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/virginia-genealogist-the/image/?pageName=54&volumeId=8743).

I have seen a claim that Henry (1612) is the grandson of Sir Henry Pierrepont (1545) and it’s that connection that I want to explore here.

Other Family Trees

First, there are entries in WikiTree (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pierpoint-51) that show Henry (1545) and his place in the family tree. If you go back up this tree in that database, the information there is pretty consistent with the above NE Pierpont tree where Henry (1545) is tagged as entry “17>23”. The line from Henry (1545) can be traced back to the Henry (1310) who married Margaret Fitz Williams and who is the connection point to the blog I wrote on “Presidential Connection” earlier (http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/03/presidential-connections.html).

Since the info in WikiTree and the info in the NE Pierpont genealogies seems consistent, I’m not going to discuss any of that here, but just the relationship from Henry (1545) to Henry (1612).

WikiTree also claims that Henry (1545) married Agnes [Harvey], who had a son Amos Pierpoint. Amos then married Ellena [Kirby] and had a son Henry (1612).

Geni (https://www.geni.com/people/Amos-Pierpont/6000000001678361024) has Amos Pierpont, son of Agnes [Harvey] Pierrepont and also having a son Henry. It also notes Amos as having 3 older brothers, Moses (1576), Robert (1580), and Richard (1585). It does not show Amos as having a father, only Agnes as his mother.

The documented descendants of Henry (1612) include his children having the names Amos, Moses, and Francis. Given that names often repeat in families, this is certainly a good argument for the connection.

Other Research

The American Genealogist magazine had an extensive article on Henry and his ancestry (see https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image/?volumeId=11876&pageName=236&rId=134815567). Let’s take a look at that research to see if we can find any further connections.

The article noted that there was a hiatus in English registers in the period 1640-1660 when there was a civil war going to that records of marriage and baptisms are improbable. Thus, the focus of their investigation was (a) looking a names for repetition, (b) seeing if a family in England disappeared about the same time as they appeared in America.

They note that Henry (1612) and his wife had a total of 9 children – five born in England (Amos, Jabez, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Moses) and four more born in Maryland (Charles, Francis, Mary, and Sarah).

Then, in looking at English records, they note a Henry (a child of George) who lived in Benington, Hertfordshire and who married Agnes Harvey in 1572 and then died in 1623. In his will (which appears in full in this magazine article beginning on page 238) he gives bequests to his sons Amos, Robert, Moses, Richard, and his daughter Cathred, These records thus confirm both the information about Henry and Amos and their family in both the Wikitree and Geni databases above.

Thus, we seem to have confirmation of the family line from George to Henry to Amos to Henry. This takes the lineage of the MD/VA line back three more generations into the area of Benington, Hertfordshire, England. This article also goes into the connection between Henry (1612) and the other Pierpont/Pierpoint families in VA/MD.

The George Problem

However, one questions if the George in the above research is the same George as in the NE Pierpont records. The George in this article and who almost certainly was the great-grandfather of Henry (1612) lived in Benington, Hertfordshire, married Margareta Cook in 1543 and they had four children, Joana (m. Richard Barton), Margareta (m. Richard Field), Robert (m. Jone Thorogood), and Henry (m. Agnes Harvey).

The George in the NE Pierpont records lived in Holme Pierrepont (near Nottingham). He was first married to Elizabeth Babbington, then to Winifred Thwaites. Their children included Annora, Elizabeth, Henry (1545), Gervase, and William (1547). William was the grandfather of John Pierrepont who came to Massachusetts in 1640 and began the NE Pierpont family line. This Henry died in 1623.

So we apparently have two Georges living about the same time, each having a son named Henry. One lived in Hertfordshire (N of London) and one lived in Holme Pierrepont (E of Nottingham). This Henry died in 1615.

Since the wills of both Henrys are available, and document the different years of death, we can be certain that these are not the same Henry. And thus, there are also two different Georges.

Conclusion

While it was good to get some confirmation of the ancestry of the Henry who started the VA/MD branch and to be able to document another three generations of his family, it also seems that the family tree in WikiTree has their “wires crossed”.

WikiTree has a line from George (who reportedly died in Holme Pierrepont in 1517) to George (who died in Hertfordshire after 1568) and thence to Henry. Geni on has a line starting with Agnes but does not make any connection to the Holme Pierrepont families. There are also a few family trees in ancestry.com who make that same cross connection from George (born and died in Holme Pierrepont) to Henry (born in Hertfordshire) (for an example, see https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/53930262/family?cfpid=160067339511).

Thus, after my own extensive research, I come to the same conclusion as is currently stated in the NE Pierpont family tree:

See Genealogical Records of the Pierpoint Family, complied by A.B. Stickney. Pittsburgh, PA, 1954-1958. Mimeograph typescript, stapled, no covers, 19 pages print on one side, ex-lib. with several stamps and ink notations by compiler. Also stapled in are two reprints of published articles by the author: "The Pierpoints of Hertfordshire, England and Ann Arundel County, Maryland", reprinted from a 1957 issue of The American Genealogist 33 pp. 236ff (available in jpg images through American Ancestors [by subscription] at http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image/?volumeId=11876&pageName=236&rId=134815567); his conclusion: "The above evidence, although circumstantial, indicates clearly the origin of the Matylamd Pierpoints and their relationships to each other" (241); and "The American Ancestry of John Pierpoint of (West) Virginia", reprinted from a 1958 issue of The Virginia Genealogist at https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/virginia-genealogist-the/image/?volumeId=8743&pageName=51. Further on Arundel County MD, see https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Anne_Arundel_County,_Maryland_Genealogy.

This has been supplemented here by the extensive genealogy by Kathryn Pierpoint Hedman (1953; 2nd ed 1973 = KH), which is based on the earlier work by Hattie M. Pierpoint, The Pierponts of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia (1939). See below for links to the Table of Contents and the Index, as well as to an online copy of the 1953 edition. As is noted on p.2 of the online edition, "THE NEW ENGLAND LINE OF THE FAMILY WAS FOUNDED BY JOHN PIERREPONT WHO SETTLED IN IPSWICH, MASSACHUSETTS IN 164O. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NEW ENGLAND LINE AND THE VIRGINIA LINE HAS NOT YET BEEN DISCOVERED." To my knowledge, that statement still stands in 2016.