Disclaimer

From time-to-time I post things that list a number of individuals who are my distant cousins. Some recent examples are people from my church, classmates of mine from high school, etc. This may cause people to wonder – is there something so special about me that all these people are my cousins? The answer is “no”. Rather, it’s a combination of two things. First, I had the fortune of being born in New England (CT) into a family where both of my parents had long roots in New England. And second, I have spent many, many hours researching all lines of my ancestral tree back at least as far as when my ancestors came to this country.

All of my ancestors were immigrants to this country. And most of them came to this country during the Great Migration (GM), the period of time during which roughly 20,000 people came to New England from the British Isles (England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales). This is usually noted as beginning in 1630 when the Winthrop Fleet sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and ending when the scale of migration stopped in 1641 due to the English Civil War (see reference). But just as some scholars extend this earlier by 10 years so as to include the Pilgrims landing in Plymouth, I also have chosen to extend it by 10 years later through the 1640s to pick up the stragglers who got delayed by the unavailability of ships during that civil war.

If I trim my family tree so that all the branches end at an immigrant, here are some current statistics that demonstrate this:

·       1147 – GM ancestor (i.e., nearly 6% of the total number of people who came here in that period are my direct ancestors)

·       51 – Immigrants from British Isles but not until 1650 or later

·       4 – Immigrants from other places (one from Switzerland, one from the Netherlands, 2 Ashkenazi Jews from England (but Germany/Poland before that))

·       32 – Brick walls (truncated lines where immigrant roots not yet determined), I believe that all of these will also eventually be traceable back to the British Isles except one who is from the Netherlands

Because my ancestral lines are so overwhelmingly British, and because they are so broad within the GM individuals (and there were so many marriages between descendants of these individuals), if I can find in someone else’s family tree a line that goes back to colonial New England, I can be nearly certain that I will be able to find a “cousin connection”.

The 300+ years from the birth of those who participated in the GM until my birth in 1948 is about enough time for 11(+/-) generations, so they tend to be my great*8 grandparents to my great*10 grandparents. This means that individuals who are about my age would be somewhere between my 9^th to 11^th cousins. If the person is born in an earlier generation, then the “removed” would note the difference in generations, e.g., someone in my great-grandparent’s generation could be my 8^th cousin, 3x removed as his/her great*7 grandparent would be the same person as my great*10 grandparent.

There are also times when I’m doing my research that I find a surname that also occurs in my family tree that is from the same part of England. In those cases, I will follow back my ancestral line a few generations to see if the intersection with someone else’s ancestral line is back in England before 1630. In those cases, my connection to the other person might be as something like a 13^th cousin (or its equivalent with a few “removed”s added in).

Thus, while it’s fun to find genealogical connections to people, for me it’s not all that rare.

 

 

 

Origin of the Pierrepont Family

The Pierpont Family Association is an association of the members of the New England Pierponts. The PFA began nearly 100 years ago (they have been meeting annually since 1923). Their website (http://thepierpontfamilya.wixsite.com) begins

“With roots dating back to 1905, the Pierpont Family Association has maintained a wealth of knowledge and records of our ancestral past. … Our family has descended from Normandy in France, Nottingham in England and throughout the United States. While the Pierpont Family Association is most prevalent in the USA, we are keenly aware of our great connections the world over.”

The introduction in their genealogy chart (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//gen/pier/piergen.htm) states the following about Sir Hugh de Pierrepont, generation 1 in their family tree:

“Sir Hugh de Pierrepont, A. D. 980, lord of the ‘Castle of Pierrepont in the south confines of Picardy, and diocese of Laon,’ a branch of the Pierreponts who were lords of Castle Pierrepont, two leagues from S.Saveur, Normandy, whence they derived their name.”

It further notes:

“supposedly from a nearby stone bridge substituting for a ferry, built by Charlemagne or during his time. Chronicle of Flodoard refers to Castrum Petraepontis as an important place in 938.

“Laon/Picardy has a town of Pierrepont but there did not seem to be any “castle” or manor house in 1988; S.Saveur is in Normandy below Cherbourg, with Pierrepont sites nearby. The two locations are clearly considered one in [Moffat’s book on Pierrepont Genealogies].

This genealogy later documents that a grandson of Hugh de Pierrepont, Sir Robert de Pierrepont, accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 and he was initially granted lands at Hurst Pierrepont which lay near Lewes, north of Brighton, in Sussex. Later the family moved north and established Holme-Pierrepont, the ancient seat and burial-place of the family, 3 miles SE from Nottingham, and 98 miles north from London.

The purpose of this paper is not to dispute the facts from 1066 onward, but to look at the origins in France.

 

Source Documents

The wording in the Pierpont genealogies is taken verbatim from a book, “A Genealogical Abstract of Descent of the Family Pierrepont from Sir Hugh de Pierrepont, of Picardy, France, A. D. 980.” This book was compiled by Edward J. Marks and published in New Haven, CT, in 1881. The text is identical to the above quotation. It then adds a second paragraph which reads:

“The place derived its name from a stone bridge, with which Charlemagne supplied the place of a ferry.”

Except for the comment from 1988 about the then absence of a castle, the PFA has been using this wording unchanged since its beginnings. But let’s look at some of the words used in this quotation and then some more current research to see if we can get any better information.

For some of this, I’d like to thank the keepers of the history page of the de Pierrepont Institute in France (see http://www.depierrepont.net/histoire) [a rough translation provided by Google Translate is below in the appendix].

 

Did Charlemagne build the Bridge?

Both the PFA genealogy and the book by Marks note that the family name comes from a bridge, “Pierre” in French is “stone” and “Pont” is “bridge”. In Latin, the language most in use at the time, the word is “Petrus Pons”. But when would such a bridge have been built, and why?

Marks words are “The place derived its name from a stone bridge, with which Charlemagne supplied the place of a ferry.” This is slightly modified to be less certain in the PFA genealogy to read “supposedly from a nearby stone bridge substituting for a ferry, built by Charlemagne or during his time. [emphasis mine]” But what is the most likely timing/rationale?

Charlemagne is the French translation of Charles the Great (or in Latin Carolus Magnus) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne). He lived from 747 to 814 and was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans from 800. But did he order the building of stone bridges?

The grandson of Charlemagne was Charles the Bald (823-877) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_the_Bald) who ruled the western third of the Holy Roman Empire. At the time the Vikings were annually ravaging not only the Frankish coastlands but, with the aid of Europe’s numerous navigable rivers, much of the interior. To prevent this, Charles the Bald issued the Edict of Pîtres (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_P%C3%AEtres), which declared that fortified bridges should be built at all towns on rivers to prevent the dreaded longships from sailing into the interior. This is potentially the cause of the stone bridge being built which eventually gave the Pierrepont family their name. But we will revisit this again below.

 

Was Hugh the First Pierrepont?

Despite his being numbered as generation 1 in both the PFA genealogy and the book from which that genealogy is derived, the answer is “no”!

Note very carefully the wording about Hugh:

“Sir Hugh de Pierrepont, A. D. 980, lord of the ‘Castle of Pierrepont in the south confines of Picardy, and diocese of Laon,’ a branch of the Pierreponts who were lords of Castle Pierrepont, two leagues from S.Saveur, Normandy, whence they derived their name.” [emphasis mine]

If you look closely, there are actually two castles mentioned. The one occupied by Hugh was said to be “in the south confines of Picardy, and diocese of Laon”. The other is “two leagues from S.Saveur, Normandy”.

Also, Hugh is clearly noted as being from “a branch of the Pierreponts”. This is a clear admission that there were others of this name before Hugh. As the Institute de Pierrepont webpage [below] notes, the use of Pierrepont as a family name likely occurred in the year 925 after the siege of Eu by King Raoul. It is not known what the name of this first individual was, but he was quite possibly the grandfather of Hugh, given the 55 years between 925 and 980.

 

The Pierrepont Places

One of the interesting features of the depierrepont.net website is the inclusion of a map showing all the places carrying the family name. In addition to Holme Pierrepont and Hurst Pierrepont in England, there are 11 such places in France. Let me list them here in west-to-east order with a few facts about each:

[Pierrepont places]

 

1.     Saint Sauveur de Pierrepont – this is the church mentioned in the PFA genealogies to which they attribute the origin of the family name. It is on the Normandy peninsula. The community there has a current population of 138.

2.     Saint Nicholas de Pierrepont – a few miles from Saint Saveur, this is another small community with a population of about 300. This is the “Pierrepont sites nearby” noted in the PFA genealogies.

3.     Pierrepont en Littry – a small community in Molay Littry.

4.     Pierrepont en Lantheuil – a holiday home to the east of Caen. Includes the Church of the Sainte-Trinite de Pierrepont, Chateau de Pierrepont (a bed and breakfast), and Ferme de Pierrepont (a small farm with rentable cabins). It was built in the eighteenth century and was the home of the family of St. John de Crevecoeur, a Norman nationalized American, consul of France in NY, who is famous for his “Letters from an American farmer” (1792).

5.     Pierrepont pres Falaise – a small community with population about 90. See notes below for more information.

6.     Pierrepont en bray – a street on the outskirts of Grandcourt, France

7.     Pierrepont en Beauvaisis – a street near the village of Ponchon

8.     Pierrepont sur Avre – a former community in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Population was 475. In 2019, it was merged into the new community of Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers)

9.     Pierrepont en Laonnois – a communie in Aisne in Northern France near the city of Laon. Population about 400. This is the location referred to in the write-up on Hugh.

10.  Pierrepont pres Longuyon – a small town near Longuyon on the France-Belgium border.

11.  Han devant Pierrepont – a small community near Longuyon

Notes on location 5

James Pierpont, former president of the PFA, wrote me a few weeks ago about this location and said the following:

“[W]e have a different location in France from which we can refer to as our named original homestead. My wife, two sons and I made the ‘pilgrimage’ to Pierrepont in Normandy during our time living in Edinburgh in the late 1970's. That Pierrepont represents it is the place where Charlemagne directed the construction of the stone bridge from which we were ‘named’. In Google Earth if you look for ‘37 Le Bourg, Pierrepont, France’ you will see the (rebuilt) church which represents it was the center of the town when the bridge was in existence. We were fascinated to walk around and see the still remaining obvious age of the surroundings. The location is nearby and almost directly south of Caen, France which was William the Conqueror's headquarters and it is represented that Hugh De Pierrepont as one of Williams key henchmen during the 1066 invasion was known as a ‘local’ leader with military experience having fought with William in an altercation with the powers in what was at the time Eastern France. How much of this is possible to fact check is quite limited but the local community south of Caen, thinks it is correct.”

The website of the town (www.paysdefalaise-fr) says: “The name of the village could refer to a stone bridge spanning the La Fontaine stream in the Gallo-Roman period. Pierrepont is crossed by the “Grand Chemin” connecting Brittany to Paris, passing by Mont Saint-Michael… Pierrepont’s past is linked to that of a lord of the same name who accompanied William the Conqueror in his conquest of England.”

Note that William the Conqueror was born and grew up in Falaise, just a few miles from the village of Pierrepont (https://www.tripsavvy.com/castle-of-william-the-conqueror-1517425). In 1060, he built a new castle in Caen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Caen).

 

So, notwithstanding the self-promotion of location 5 above, which other of these eleven locations might be of most interest to the Pierrepont family? For the answer to that, let’s revisit Hugh and the bridge.

 

Hugh and the Bridge – Revisited

The writeup about Hugh includes the following: “Castle of Pierrepont in the south confines of Picardy, and diocese of Laon,” This clearly matches location 9 above, i.e., Pierrepont en Laonnois. It also says that “Castrum Petraepontis [was] an important place in 938.” There is an interesting Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_bridges_in_France) which lists medieval bridges in France. There are four bridges in this list with the name Pierrepont attached to them. Each of these has a location and a “first attested” date associated with it. There are also comments regarding some of them.

·       Pierrepont, cant. Marle – in Aisne, dates of 938 and 1165, and the comment “Castrum Petraepontis” (again, this is clearly the location referred to in the description of Hugh, i.e., location 9)

·       Pierrepont – in Calvados, date of 1145, and the comment Petrepons (the district of Calvados includes Falais, i.e., location 5)

·       Pierrepont – in Olse, date of 1198 (close to location 7 above)

·       Pierrepont-sur-l’Arentele – in Vosges, date of 1302 (not near any of the above Pierrepont locations)

 

The Normans

Hugh must have been a Norman (i.e., a “northman” from Scandinavia) who was a friend of William the Conqueror. Two of Hugh’s grandsons accompanied William during the Norman invasion of England in 1066. France was invaded by the Normans in two phases (790-930, then 980-1030). But the extent of their land holdings was limited to a section of the northern coast of France.

[Normandy limits]

 

But since Normandy did not occupy all of France, then the homes of the Normans would necessarily be limited to those locations that are part of it. In the list of Pierrepont places above, this would include (1)-(6), but not (7)-(11) as these were too far east. Most significantly, that means that Castrum Petraepontis in Laon is NOT anywhere near Normandy and would certainly not be the home of someone who was close to the headquarters of William the Conqueror in Caen.

 

Bringing it all together

A major issue in all of this is that the name Pierrepont is a word that (1) can be used to describe a place, i.e., a stone bridge, (2) can be used to indicate a nearby feature such as a castle or a small town, or (3) can be the surname of an individual. All three of these uses can be seen in the preceding sections, and it’s one of the reasons why there are so many places with the Pierrepont designation today. And, thus, it can be a great source of confusion.

Resolving the “bridge issue”

If Charlemagne was associated with building a bridge that replaced a ferry, the river involved would have to be wide enough to support the use of a ferry. Of all the places named, the river Aisne in Laon is the only one that is large enough to require a ferry. Thus, if Charlemagne were to request the building of a bridge to support the movement of his army, it makes sense that this would be a location for such a bridge.

While Charlemagne’s grandson Charles the Bald did request the building of bridges to stymie the Viking longboats, history only records two such fortified bridges being built (one on the Seine and one on the Loire). But the one in Laon on the river Aisne was on a tributary of the Seine and over 100 miles from Paris, so such an inland location would not have needed this type of fortified bridge.

Most of the other Pierrepont locations are only located near “rivers” that are not much more than glorified drainage ditches. Certainly, those would not have attracted the attention of such men as Charlemagne or Charles the Bald.

Resolving the “Normandy issue”

As noted above, since the Pierrepont ancestors were Norman, any locations involved would have been in Normandy. Thus, while there are Pierrepont locations scattered throughout France, any that are not in Normandy are either (a) ones where the name was assigned in later centuries as the French de Pierrepont family spread throughout the country, or (b) ones which were named after other stone bridges and not the ones associated with the Pierrepont surname. Thus, only a few of the above-named places should be considered as the home of the early Pierrepont family members.

[Normandy detailed map]

 

Saint Seveur and Saint Nicholas in upper left, Pierrepont pres Falais about 6 miles west of Falais

Even though the location in Laon has been named in literature as far back as 938, it is still just another stone bridge (and nearby castle? – although no such structure existed there in 1988) from that time period, and not one where the Pierrepont family likely lived at the time. Just to put it in perspective, it’s 225 miles from Laon to Caen where William the Conqueror had his headquarters. But it’s only 25 miles from Pierrepont (near Falais) to Caen.

Resolving the “timing issue”

As the depierrepont.net website notes, the use of the surname Pierrepont first occurs after the siege of Eu in the year 925 (Eu is a city on the River Somme, about two miles from the coast in the NE corner of Normandy). This timing makes sense in that it was associated with an individual who was a Norman, and who would have had offspring who then lived elsewhere in Normandy in 980 (e.g., Hugh), and who would have been included as officers in William the Conqueror’s army in 1066 (e.g., Robert).

While one cannot always believe local “legend” such as that posted by the town officials in Pierrepont pres Falais, this local information seems to be consistent with all the aspects above, i.e., there is a local bridge which dates from 1145 or before (albeit a very small one), and it is in the expected location in Normandy.

 

My Conclusions

I believe that some of the research into this subject in the past was confused because of the use of the word Pierrepont to mean a stone bridge, a nearby location, or a surname. And without the modern Internet tools and mapping software, the above kind of research would have been impossible to do.

Going back to the current wording in the PFA genealogies where it said:

“Sir Hugh de Pierrepont, A. D. 980, lord of the ‘Castle of Pierrepont in the south confines of Picardy, and diocese of Laon,’ a branch of the Pierreponts who were lords of Castle Pierrepont, two leagues from S.Saveur, Normandy, whence they derived their name.

“supposedly from a nearby stone bridge substituting for a ferry, built by Charlemagne or during his time. Chronicle of Flodoard refers to Castrum Petraepontis as an important place in 938.

“Laon/Picardy has a town of Pierrepont but there did not seem to be any “castle” or manor house in 1988; S.Saveur is in Normandy below Cherbourg, with Pierrepont sites nearby. The two locations are clearly considered one in [Moffat’s book on Pierrepont Genealogies].”

I would suggest that it read:

“Sir Hugh de Pierrepont, A. D. 980, lived in Normandy. While the family name dates from around 925, he is the first of that name that we have been able to trace. There are three Pierrepont sites in relatively close proximity in Normandy, two churches and a town: Saint Saveur de Pierrepont, Saint Nicholas de Pierrepont, and Pierrepont pres Falais. It is not known for certain which site may have been the home of Sir Hugh, but the latter claims him as their own.

“The family name is derived from the French/Latin name for ‘stone bridge,’ of which there are many in France. So, while this name is given to many other locations in that country, it is these three locations in Normandy which are associated with the surname rather than a bridge.”

 

Appendix – Translation of de Pierrepont Institute webpage

History – a few points of reference on 12 centuries of the history of a patronymic

The surname PIERREPONT (Petrus Pons) comes from the Edict of Pîtres (864) by which the Carolingian king Charles II the Bald ordered the fortification of bridges to prevent the Norman longships from going up the rivers of the kingdom.

 

The old family tradition dates the rise of the Pierreponts to chivalry by King Raoul (923-936) because of their distinction during the siege of Eu in 925. This tradition reported many times by notaries, historians, and genealogists makes "the house of Pierrepont one of the noblest and oldest in this province". However, the house of Pierrepont was born in history under this name a century later through its contribution to the monastic renewal of the Duchy of Normandy as attested by the founding act of the abbey of Saint-Michel du Tréport (1059), in the same county of Eu.

 

Related on the outskirts of the year 1000 to the house of Abbeville and Ponthieu itself from the Carolingian counts of Ostrevent of the previous century, this first dynasty was then installed on the borders of Normandy and Picardy (Vimeu and Ponthieu), and in County Laon.she becomes related to the Counts of Eu, the Sires of Coucy, the Montaigu. After the conquest of England alongside Duke William, she held land mainly in Sussex and Notthinghamshire and Suffolk and considerably increased her fortune.

 

After the second crusade, Michel Bur established the extinction of the first dynasty under this name, and the house is only continued in direct line in England under the name of Fitzraynald de Poynings. Hugues de Montfelix, whom Professor Bur considers to be a bastard of the Count of Champagne Thibaut the Great (1090-1152) married in 1138 the heiress Aélis de Pierrepont. It is he who notes the name of this house in its French and English possessions as evidenced by the cartularies of the abbey of Foucarmont and of several charters of the abbey of Lewes for acts of the half of the 12th century.

Also at this period, the advent of the Plantagenets to the thrones of England and Normandy to the detriment of Etienne de Blois, grandson of the conqueror and uncle of Hugues de Montflelix led to the loss of the upper Norman lands of Pierrepont en Bray. 

Their children settle their descendants:

·       in Champagne (eldest branch of the Counts of Roucy, until its extinction in Azincourt in 1415)

·       in present-day Belgium where Hugues was elected duke bishop of Lièges in 1200

·       in England (younger branch installed in Hurst in Sussex then in Nottinghamshire in Holme Pierrepont and continued until the 18th century)

·       in Lower Normandy (Branch of Pierrepont en Lantheuil bearing gules to the chief denché d'or, and branch of Cotentin bearing Azure to the chief gules with three pals d'or) in the wake of the commission of the duchy by Philippe Auguste in 1204 and the victory of Bouvines

Let us note that a branch of the branch of Lantheuil will give such virulent leaders to the Protestant party in Normandy in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries that a part of its descendants will emigrate to London then the United States (Roxbury Massachussetts, 1643). One of the descendants of this branch will found two centuries later the famous Protestant bank Pierpont Morgan (JP Morgan)

The Champagne, English and Cotentin branches will die out before the Revolution, the latter has seen its name continued to this day by the Garaby de Pierreponts. These events and the Napoleonic wars will get the better of the branch of the Marquis de Pierrepont des Biards, whose name is noted by the David du Mutel de Pierrepont who emigrated to Argentina under the Restoration.

In Europe, the Pierrepont de Feugères, cadets of the Pierrepont de Saint-Marcouf branch, perpetuate the titles and names of this house in direct line today.

 

Hogan’s Heroes

My daughter was watching some reruns of Hogan’s Heroes the other night while wrapping Christmas gifts. The next day we were talking about that and wondered why those who played German soldiers on that show were so willing to portray them as such losers. But it turns out that was a fairly expected role for them, given their own personal backgrounds. Here are the characters we refer to and a quick summary of their personal history:

·        Colonel Wilhelm Klink – Otto Klemperer – born into a Jewish family in 1920 in Germany, the family left Germany for the US in 1933 when Otto was a teenager. He served in the US Army in WWII, and was stationed in Hawaii.

·        Sergeant Hans Schultz – John Banner – born in 1910 to Jewish parents in Austria-Hungary (now part of Ukraine). In 1938, while in Switzerland, Hitler annexed Austria and Banner fled to the US. In WWII he served in the US Army Air Forces as a supply sergeant. John lost a lot of his family to the Holocaust.

·        General Albert Hans Burkhalter – Leon Askin – born in 1907 to a Jewish family in Vienna. He fled to the US in 1940 after having been beaten by the Nazis. His parents were murdered in the Treblinka death camp. Served in WWII as a sergeant in the US Army Air Forces.

·        Major Wolfgang Hochstetter – Howard Caine – born in Tennessee in 1926 to a Jewish family. Served in the US Navy during WWII.

·        Corporal Karl Langenscheidt – Jon Cedar – born in Detroit in 1931, enlisted in the US military and served in Italy during the Korean War.

·        Fraulein Helga – Cynthia Lynn (born Zinta Valda Ziemelis) – born in Latvia in 1937, fled prior to the Soviet re-occupation in 1944 during WWII and came to the US in 1950. Only appeared in first season.

Of these individuals, four were Jewish, and three of them had been born in Germany/Austria but came to the US. All five of the men had prior experience in the US military during WWII. But there is one other cast member who should be mentioned here:

·        Corporal Louis LeBeau – Robert Clary – bon in 1926 in Paris, France as the youngest of 14 children in a Jewish family. Deported to a Nazi concentration camp where he managed to survive because he sang to an audience of SS soldiers to entertain them on Sundays. When he was liberated from Buchenwald in 1945, he found that 12 other members of his family had been murdered in Auschwitz. However, three of his siblings had not been taken away and survived the Nazi occupation of France. He always wore long sleeves on the show to cover up the tattoo on his forearm.

There were three other individuals who had parts where they played Germans, but all of them were American citizens:

·        Fraulein Hilda – Patricia Annette Olson (stage name Sigrid Valdis) – married Bob Crane in 1970 on the show’s set

·        Frau Gertrude Linkmeyer – Kathleen Freeman – played the part of General Burkhalter’s sister

·        Captain Fritz/Feliz Gruber – Dick Wilson – only appeared in a few episodes. Born in England, but lived in Canada and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII. Became an American citizen in 1954.

Family Names

I’ve written a few times before about the origin of family names. This time, I’d like to first explore some of the various “rules” and timing of family names in general. Then I’ll look at the four family names coming from my parents and my wife’s parents. Finally, I have some new information about my wife’s maiden name (i.e., her father’s family name - VanDeCar).

 

Surnames

There is a great article in Wikipedia about surnames (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surname). It gets into a lot of detail which I’ll not attempt to replicate here. But there are a few types of surnames that are involved in the family history below that I’d like to refer to.

Patronymic surnames – These are some of the oldest and most common type of surnames where the surname is based on the name of one’s father. There are examples in many different countries/cultures, such as the Scandinavian (Peterson = son of Peter), Scottish (MacDonald = son of Donald). There is another whole article in Wikipedia just devoted to this topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymic).

Occupational surnames – These developed in different countries at different times, but they are very common in the English-speaking world where they developed around the Middle Ages. Some good examples that come to mind are Smith, Baker, Miller, Shoemaker, Cook, etc.

Toponymic surnames – These are derived from locations or things in nature. Examples include such things as Washington (town/homestead of Wassa family). Some of these names are habitation (place) names, others may be topographic (geographic features).

 

Examples from my family and my wife’s family

My father’s surname was Russell, my mother’s maiden name was Pierpont, my wife’s mother’s maiden name was Wright, and my wife’s father’s surname was VanDeCar. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

 

Russell – I’ve addressed this name on a couple of occasions before (see https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/04/genealogy-story-my-norman-ancestors.html and https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-russell-family-name.html). The origin of this toponymic surname is during the time of the Norman occupation of northern France, where a man with the name Hugh became the baron of a small town called Rozel or Roussel – thus becoming Hugh de Rozel or Hugh de Roussel (literally Hugh of/from Rozel/Roussel). This is a good example of the toponymic surname convention used by “royalty” at the time since Hugh was a baron. The family went to England during the Norman invasion of 1066, where the “de” part was dropped and the spelling modified to Russell and there was later a Russell clan in Scotland. The Russells in the US are from various immigrants from both the English and Scottish lines.

Pierpont – I’ve also addressed this name before (see https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/04/genealogy-story-my-norman-ancestors.html). Another man, also Hugh and also a baron, had a castle in Normandy (just 15 miles from the town of Rozel). But he took this toponymic family name not from a town, but from the well-known stone bridge which was in front of the castle. In French this would have been “Pierre” (stone) “Pont” (bridge), so he was Hugh de Pierrepont. This name with that spelling is still found today with some of my distant French cousins. When Hugh’s grandson went to England as part of the Norman invasion, they dropped the “de” part and the name became Pierrepont and that name may still be found there today. As the family spread throughout England, there were variant spelling including Pierpont, Pierpoynt, Pierpoint, and others. These variations can also be found throughout the US as there were several individuals who immigrated here at different times. My mother’s family is descended from John Pierpont who came to New England around 1640, but there is also a branch of Pierpoints who are the descendants of Henry Pierpoint who came to Maryland around the same time.

Wright – this is an example of an occupational surname that originated in England several centuries after the toponymic names above. There are more specific occupations that had separate names – such as Cartwright or Wainwright, but this is the more “generic” occupation from that time period.

VanDeCar – this surname originated in the Hudson River Valley in the mid-1600s (see http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-story-vandecar-family.html). At the time this was part of New Netherlands and was occupied by the Dutch. The Dutch prior to this time used a patronymic naming system where surnames had a suffix of “sz” (short for son of) or “je” (short for daughter of) leading to such names as “Feytje Claesz Van Schaack” (my wife’s great*7 grandmother). The oldest ancestor in the male VanDeCar line that anyone has been able to trace was Dirk Van Der Karre/Karr/Kerr (1637-1727) (there were several alternate spellings), Since Van Der Karre (and its many more recent derivatives such as VanDecar, VanDeCar, Vandecar, etc.) is only found in the US, it was presumed that the adaptation of this name which means “from/of the Kerre” was from that time period. But no one had been able to find anything back in the Netherlands named “Kerre” (or Karre or Karr) from which it might have been derived as a toponymic surname.

 

Some new information

I recently became aware of a posting that someone had made on a message board which stated “An early American ancestor of mine, Dirk van der Kerr, was always presumed Dutch. But recent DNA tests show matches with the Scottish Carr (Kerr) family. Looks like some of the Carrs left Scotland for Holland.”

In contacting this individual (whose mother’s maiden name was spelled VanDecar), I learned that the family had done some y-DNA testing (which traces the male line only as the DNA is from the Y chromosome). This y-DNA testing can go back farther than the typical DNA testing which is looking for common segments of DNA on multiple chromosomes. And this testing revealed that there were a number of individuals in Scotland in the Kerr family who were in the same haplo-group, i.e., who shared that portion of the Y chromosome. This is an exciting discovery!

If correct, this means that when Dirk gave his surname as “Van Der Kerre” he meant Dirk “from the Kerre (clan)”. So, the derivation history of the name was “de Ker” (Norman meaning “from Ker”) to “Kerr” (Scottish surname of the Kerr clan), to “van der Kerre” (Dutch meaning “of the Kerr clan”) to today’s “VanDeCar” (or VanDecar or Vandecar) with the sound equivalence of “Car” and “Kerre”.

There is an excellent Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Kerr) which has the whole history of this clan/surname and which includes the following information:

·        Name has several variant spellings including Kerr, Kear, Carr, Carre, and Cares

·        “Name stems from the Old Norse jkarr which means marsh dweller, and came to Scotland from Normandy”

·        “During the reign of David I (1082-1153), Hugh de Morville, Lord High Constable of Scotland [note that Morville was another town quite close to Rozel and the Pierrepont castle in Normandy], granted lands to the Norman family of William de Ker (William from Ker).” Believed to be the Normandy town of Criel, renamed Criel-sur-Mer in 1902.

This means that the name is not a patronymic surname, but rather is a toponymic surname after the town of Ker in Normandy (just like the Russell surname) – albeit with a rather complicated path from Normandy to Scotland to The Netherlands, and finally to the Americas.

Isn’t history fun?!

[maps of Rozel, etc. in Normandy]

Rozel

Saint Saveur-de-Pierrepont

Criel-sur-Mer

Christmas 2021

My Christmas letter is a little later than usual this year. The past several weeks have had a number of unusual things going on, so I’m more behind than I’d like to be. Last month the well went dry (that we’d only put in 4 years ago), so we had to get a new one drilled. We had this one “witched” by a friend and got the best flow we’ve ever had (10 gal/min) at 310’ instead of the 700’ for the last one. Then we tried to get the oil stove in the basement going and it wouldn’t so we needed to have it serviced. Turned out that our daughter had let it burn out at the end of last winter and some of the sludge from the bottom of the tank got into the supply line and it needed to be blown out. Ah, the life of being a homeowner!

Now on to my usual topics…

Family

Family is obviously the most important aspect of our lives. The arrangement this year was that we would take Ethan down to FL for three weeks at the beginning of the summer, then Chris and family would bring him up when they joined us for our family vacation at Pinebrook. At the end of that week, they would take Isaiah back with them and we’d pick him up several weeks later. So, I got to take two short trips to FL as neither of the boys are old enough for the airline to let them fly on their own.

We only had a few inklings that our time at Pinebrook would be a little different this year. As always, that week in mid-July is the time for several family milestones – our anniversary on the 17^th, Asher’s birthday on the 18^th, Donna’s birthday on the 19^th, then Asher’s spiritual birthday on the 23^rd. With our week there starting on Sunday, the 18^th, we missed our anniversary by a day, but that meant that our children could surprise us when we arrived that afternoon since it was 50 years since we “tied the knot!”

Kim had stolen our address book as well as managed to find the box with all our pictures from our wedding. Three of my siblings – from CT, NY, and CA – were there and we had a zoom call from Thailand from the youngest sibling. In addition, Donna’s brother and his new significant other from MI (whom we had not met in person before) were there. But perhaps most unexpected were Doug and Kay Robinson from MI – the best man and maid of honor from our wedding – who had met at our wedding and gotten married just 5 months later. We also had many from our church who had made the trip to Pinebrook (about an hour from our home) to join us for the celebration. It was a great afternoon! There is a picture from our wedding as well as one of me with my siblings below. I’ve also included a picture of all of us at Pinebrook so you can see how the grandchildren are growing! (They are now 17, 15, 11, 11, 9, 8, 7.)

We continue to have a video call with Chris and family almost every week so we can talk to him and see the rest of the family on a regular basis. We really appreciate having this sort of involvement. And, of course, we see Kim and family every day.

Homeschooling and more Family Stuff

When I wrote last year, we were just a few months into homeschooling our four PA grandsons. We are now into our second year and the boys are in grades 6, 4, 4, and 2. So our days are pretty busy keeping them all on track, reviewing their submissions to ensure that they understand the material, and helping with the technology when an assignment requires a picture/video of their work. They finished last year with all A’s and are doing even better this year. Yes, it’s a burden on our time and means that it’s hard to take time off for the two of us, but this is an investment of our time that will have huge benefits.

At the recommendation of both our children, we have made the decision to start the process of downsizing and then selling the house that we’ve lived in since 1977 and move across the street to live with Kim and family. The primary motivation is that this house is two stories and requires much up/down stairs which is getting more difficult as time goes by (more on that below). We spend several hours each day across the street already, including having supper together every evening.

In preparation, we converted the finished basement there into a boy’s room by moving the bunkbeds down. So, Donna and I will have what used to be the two bedrooms on the main level (one for a bedroom and one for a small sitting room with a futon, easy chair [a lift chair] for me, and our TV). But downsizing after so many years is not easy, especially for Donna who tends to be a collector. Once we’ve emptied this house, then we’ll sell it and use the proceeds to put an addition on the other house to add a much-needed extra bathroom and a “multi-purpose” room so that Donna and I can have a get-away space where we can entertain, etc. Meanwhile, we’re trying to get the two former boys’ bedrooms ready (repainting, etc.) as Chris and family are coming up next month to help us move our bedroom set, etc. over. Changes, changes, and more changes!

Health Updates

I’ll summarize my health in just four words – head, heart, pancreas, foot. My Alzheimer’s is still stable with periodic testing. I did have a brain MRI this year to check on things. My heart is also still ticking quite nicely and is of no concern. I’ve finally reached the point where my diabetes needed more attention, so I’m now taking a daily injection of insulin. Amazing how one learns to stick a needle in oneself like that. I also had the wound on my foot re-open (I have an arthritic growth at the base of my big toe which puts a lot of pressure on that area). I now have special shoes and am working through the very slow process of getting things to heal up.

But probably the biggest concern is that Donna’s hip is giving her a lot of pain – especially going up/down stairs. She’s been to see a surgeon and is looking at a hip replacement in the spring (after we’ve gone through the holidays, the first round of downsizing, and the move to across the street). She has severe osteoporosis and the potential for a fall is part of what’s prompting the move to a single-level home.

Miscellaneous

I’ve been keeping busy otherwise with genealogy and blogging. One of my Facebook friends from high school challenged me this year to see how many of my high school classmates were related to me. So that took many hours of research – answer, about 1/3 of them! But these two activities keep my mind active.

I’d like to close with something a little different. The Wednesday night ladies Bible study at church was doing something a little unusual the past few weeks and having different ladies present the Christmas story from the perspective of the first Christmas participants. Donna was asked to take one of the weeks and present from the perspective of an angel. As part of that she wrote a poem for the occasion. She’s not as prolific a writer as I am, but her creativity and insight are much better than mine. So, here is a copy of what she wrote:

When I think of Christmas (a poem)

 

When I think of Christmas

         Just what will it be

Of tinsel, of wrapping, of bright Christmas tree?

 

When I think of Christmas

         Down deep in my heart

Of friends and of family- I long for a part

 

When I think of Christmas

         Eternity’s view

My wish is for Jesus, for each one of you

 

How great is the gift of a Savior

         The angels proclaimed Christmas day

How great is the gift of a Savior

         For our sins He has taken away

 

When I think of angels

and what they proclaimed

A Savior for us and the glory of His name

 

When I think of Christmas

         This is how it should be

His joy in our hearts for all glorious is He.

 

 

May you also think of Christmas with HIS joy in your hearts!

We love you all!

Alan & Donna

[Wedding and 50^th Anniversary]

 

 

 [Our Family]

 

Front row in age order: Aryon, Tiernan, Ilyanna, Ethan, Isaiah, Caleb, Asher

Back row: Pam, Chris, Alan, Donna, Kim

Book or Blog – which to write?

Someone recently asked me for assistance in writing a book. Like many people in my age category, books are what comes to mind when we think about writing something. But because some of his writings are about current events (Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, etc.) I suggested that a blog may be a better medium for those topics. So, he asked how to make the decision about which medium to use. Below is my answer.

This long answer is probably much more than you thought you would get when you asked what belongs in the book and what belongs in a blog. I’d like to go into a fair amount of depth in my response. In order to answer this question, one needs to examine several aspects of writing, in particular addressing the following topics: (1) who are the ones who would buy a book or read a blog; (2) who am I trying to reach with my writing; (3) how timely is what I am writing about; and (4) how will the choice of medium influence what I am writing. Let me examine each of these in turn.

 

Who would buy a book or read a blog?

Books are somewhat permanent things. They are relatively long, i.e., they are not designed to be read in one sitting. They sit on a shelf for a relatively long period, i.e., several years. And they are relatively costly, even if they only cost $5.00.

Unless one is already somewhat famous, the number of copies that one can sell of a book is pretty small. If the author is someone like Hillary Clinton, Senator X, LeBron James, or a popular movie star, then they can sell thousands of copies. But you and I are not in that category. The people who would want a book about us is limited to our family and friends. That doesn’t mean that what we have to say is not valuable. I wish that some of my ancestors had written a book about themselves so that I could better understand the times they lived in and why they made the choices they did. In fact, that’s why I wrote my own auto-biography – because there were so many questions that I wish I had asked my father about his life and I didn’t want my descendants to have the same unanswered questions about me. Our grandchildren and even our unborn great-grandchildren will enjoy being about to read about one of their ancestors. Only one of the books that I’ve published has sold more than a few dozen copies and that is because the author spent the last several years of his life speaking to groups about his WWII experiences and then sold a copy of his book to those who had come to hear him.

In summary, the people who can be expected to buy your book are probably people who already know you. And unless you are famous, that group of people is relatively small.

On the other hand, blogs are shorter – they are usually read on one’s smartphone or perhaps a PC and for maximum impact need to be fairly compact so they can be read and grasped quickly. Most people expect them to be either free or at least free to anyone who has a subscription to something. And they are often transient.

Because they are shorter and cheaper (probably free for most of us), the thoughts expressed in a blog entry can be widely disbursed. Who knows, perhaps one of them may “go viral” and be read by thousands. They are not “historical”, but nearly always on a topic of current interest.

Again, in summary, the people who can be expected to read your blog may know you, but one would hope that you can reach people who don’t know you well – so you need to make the barrier to gaining a reader much smaller than the investment of $5 or of the time to read a book.

 

Who am I trying to reach?

This question grows quite naturally out of the last one. A book like an autobiography has a target audience of those who want to know you – you personally. The purpose in writing such a book is so that your experiences and perspectives are not lost. The self-publishing market is full of these types of books, and they serve a good purpose – so that we do not forget about the past. I love it when my grandchildren ask, “tell us a grandpa story!” That shows that they have an interest in the past that can help guide them in the future.

But while we can also use the medium of a blog to tell stories, we can also use them to educate or to advocate. And this is a great use of this medium. A blog can be very timely – commenting on current events, pointing out the truth or fallacy of a current newsworthy story, helping to give perspective. And thus, the audience that we are trying to reach is much broader than simply those who already know us.

 

How timely is what I am writing about?

Because books are made to sit on a shelf for some indefinite period of time, they need to cover material that is somewhat timeless as well. Autobiographies are great in that we want our grandchildren or great-grandchildren or even generations beyond them to be able to still read what we have written. We want them to understand the environment in which we grew up, the challenges we faced, and why we made the choices that we did.

Blogs, on the other hand, are often about very current topics. While we can still give perspective on why we view these topics the way that we do, one should not expect that people are going to read these types of postings in the future – or at least that they will not read them for the same purpose. But to get people’s attention, a blog post needs to not only be timely, but short enough that people can read it quickly – people have many things competing for their time, so they can’t spend much time reading what we’ve written. The more timely the subject, the shorter our posting needs to be. However, there is also a place for longer “opinion pieces” that we can then refer people to if they have more time.

To judge currency, ask the questions: would I have written about this 2-3 years ago; would I still write about this 2 years from now? If it’s older than that or is apt to change in the near future, then a blog is a better place than a book. For example, writing about a current bill making its way through Congress doesn’t belong in a book – a few months from now it may have been defeated and be a moot point. But advocacy for passing/defeating it is appropriate for a blog.

 

How does the choice of medium influence me?

The quick answer is – quite a lot, and in several ways.

First, a chapter in a book can easily be 5-10 pages or more. There needs to be sufficient depth and development of the topic of that chapter so that the book is not too “choppy”. On the other hand, a blog entry should be short enough to be read on a smartphone, perhaps the equivalent of only 1-3 pages at most.

Second, the context of a chapter in a book is the rest of the book – the chapters that came before it, and the continued development of a topic in later chapters. But one cannot expect that someone is going to read a blog post in the context of other posts that you have written. But since these posts are written for reading in that interactive environment, one can include context by the appropriate use of hyperlinks where one can click on a link to see that context, to delve further into a particular issue, or to see where the facts being quoted come from.

Finally, since one expects that the reader of a blog post is likely to be someone who does not know you, it needs to be kept more impersonal. The reader is not reading it to get to know you, but rather to just quickly get your perspective on a current topic. There are times that a hyperlink to some of your personal background/experiences is ok, but keep it out of the mainline of the posting itself.