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PIGOTT Richard
Birth: ABT 1415 Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire, England
Death: 1460
Cause of Death: slain
Notes
familysearch.org
familysearch.org
Hi Matt,
To answer your question, I don't know if the pedigrees are valid. If I were doing an
official application to a membership society, I'd dig into it more deeply. I know that
simply because something is widely accepted doesn't make it right, and even some
"official" connections in 11th-15th century pedigrees can turn out, years later, to be
disproven, but I'm willing to go with it, and on a full fledged ahnentafel (and not the
brief outline I have up as a temporary) I would indicate the source and let the reader
take it for what it is worth.
As for the dates, the "about 1401 to about 1428" is too wide a range. I see that a lot.
I look at other dates "surrounding" the person and draw an estimate, which usually is
not inconsistent with the "wide range " records. I find some contributors, e.g.,
Reusch, tend to be more accurate, and show some degree of care and attention in
what they post. I favor them over others who will enter pedigrees with children born
years after a father died, or born before the father is born, or born 130 years later, etc.
Perhaps when I repost and update the ahnentafel I will put "WORKING DRAFT" at the
top. My notes often include the sort of "puzzle explanations" such as the one you've
share with respect to the Pigott line. Eventually when I get to the point where I can
post the entire database in some way, those notes will be included.
Thanks for sharing and alerting me to this matter.
Jim
>>> "Tompkins, M.L." 6/9/2005 4:58:40 AM >>>
Thank you for that, Jim. I had a look at the Familysearch site. It's a bit disappointing,
as it gives just the basic pedigrees (and I mean basic - mostly just names, a date or
two, and perhaps a place-name), with no source or evidence or explanation. For the
source, all you get is the name and postal address of the submitter (in most cases - in
some there is nothing). My interest in the Pigott pedigree isn't so great that I would
write a letter to the submitter asking how he or she worked it out - but in any event it
has been submitted by quite a few genealogists, so that it's impossible to know which
of them was the original creator of the pedigree (if any of them was), and which just
adopted it. I was wondering - given this lack of supporting evidence - how do you
know that the Familysearch pedigree is reliable?
Also, I notice that the various versions of the pedigree which can be found on the
Familysearch site often differ from each other in small respects - for example, R185
(FMD2-NP) Richard Pigott's date of birth varies from 'about 1401' to 'about 1428' -
and I was wondering how you decide which is the right version? Most submitters went
for 'about 1401', but you plumped for 'about 1415', which is a date given by just one
submitter (a Brent Ruesch of Salt Lake City - though confusingly he also gives 'about
1400'). Also, while most submitters believe Robert Pigott was born in Clotheram in
Yorks, you have gone with the one (Brent Ruesch again) who uniquely gives Little
Horwood - what made you choose his version (which I believe is the right version, by
the way)?
I can tell you a bit about the pedigree's likely sources. For the generations back to
Q93 Robert Pigott and R185 Richard Pigott the source must surely be the Heralds'
Visitation of Buckinghamshire in 1566 (Harleian MS 5867 in the British Library,
published by Walter Metcalfe in 1883). This contains two pedigrees, one submitted by
the Pigotts of Little Horwood, the other by the Pigotts of Beachampton, a couple of
miles away. The two pedigrees are substantially the same, except that the Little
Horwood one begins with Robert Pigott who married a Gifford and fathered Thomas,
while the Beachampton one goes back one generation further, claiming that Robert's
father was a Richard Pigott from Ripon in Yorkshire (though it muddies the waters
slightly by making it Richard, not his son Robert, who married the Gifford heiress).
I don't know what the source for the earlier generations, the Yorkshire ones, might be
(though as I'll explain in a moment, I have doubts as to whether the Buckinghamshire
family were descended from the Yorkshire Pigotts at all - I think their origins may well
have lain in Buckinghamshire).
I do not think it is possible that some genealogist used the Winslow/Little Horwood
court rolls to come up with the marriage to Alice Finnell. The nature of the source
itself would make me think that rather improbable, but anyone who had used it would
also know the other things about the family which can be discovered from it (I'll
mention a couple in a minute). The alternative is that some other more accessible and
easily used document mentions her, and I'd rather like to find out what it is.
The reason I doubt the Yorkshire origin for the Buckinghamshire family given in the
Beachampton pedigree (and repeated in the Familysearch pedigree) is set out in a
posting I made a couple of months ago to the Rootsweb Buckinghamshire discussion
lists, which I append at the end of this email. Since I sent it I've extracted a lot of
information about the Little Horwood Pigotts from the Winslow/Little Horwood court
rolls, and also seen a couple more of their wills, all of which confirms that the
ancestors of the Richard Pigott who probably married an Alice Fennell were peasants
who had lived in Little Horwood for several generations previously, since the middle of
the 14th century at least (when their surname often took the form of Picoud).
Both the Great Horwood and Winslow/Little Horwood court rolls contain explicit
statements that this Richard's father was a John Pigott, who died in 1450. The Little
Horwood material tells us additionally that this John left a will and that his wife (who
died in 1458) was called Joan, and that his father was also a John Pigott of Little
Horwood, who died in 1427 (and left a will) and whose wife was an Agnes Candeler.
Anyone who found Alice Finnell's name in these records would also have found this
information.
The one uncertainty in my mind is whether your P47 Thomas Pigott and his father Q93
Robert Pigott are in fact descended from the Pigott family who had lived in Little
Horwood from the mid-14th century, and who culminated in the Richard Pigott who
probably married Alice Finnell - neither the Great Horwood court rolls nor those of
Winslow/Little Horwood contain any direct evidence for a connection between that
Richard and Q93 Robert, so it may be that Q93 Robert's forebears did indeed come
from Yorkshire (but if they did then the Richard whose wife may have been Alice
Finnell cannot be part of their pedigree).
Sorry, perhaps you'd rather not hear any of this, and to be honest these families'
pedigrees aren't central to my research either (which concerns the distribution of land,
wealth and power among the inhabitants of Great Horwood in the 15th and 16th
century - working out the families' pedigrees is just incidental to that), but I thought I'd
just set it all out in case it is of interest.
Regards,
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: James Maule [mailto:maule@law.villanova.edu]
Sent: 7 Jun 2005 23:22
To: mllt1@leicester.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Your ahnentafel - Thos Pigott P47
Matt,
According to my notes, the information came from data posted to
www.familysearch.org. Try searching for the names, and the screen
will show things such as microfilm numbers, etc, which I don't record
when I take information off familysearch because if I need it I can go
back for it.
I've noticed over the past four or five years lots more information
coming on line. It is very possible that someone else tracked through
the records you've been searching, put something together and posted it.
As much as I like original research and being the first discoverer
(rare) I'm also the grateful beneficiary of the work of those who have
preceded me. Sometimes, though, I've had the same experience, to track
down something only to find out later that I could have found it much
more quickly from another source.
Anyhow, sorry I don't have more. Hope this helps.
Jim
-----------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Tompkins, M.L. [mailto:mllt1@leicester.ac.uk]
Sent: 29 Mar 2005 13:45
To: ENG-BUCKINGHAMSHIRE-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: [ENG-BUCK] PIGOTT, Little Horwood, 15th, 16th centuries
Hello everyone,
this is another posting hoping to find information about people who owned land in
Great Horwood between 1400 and 1600 but didn't live there. This time I am asking
about the PIGOTT family, gentry who lived at Whaddon and Little Horwood from at
least the mid-15th century onwards. Later they spread out to Doddershill and Aston
Rowant in Oxon, and no doubt other places as well, and there was an allied family at
Beachampton.
I already have quite a few detailed references to the Little Horwood/Whaddon family
(including their Visitation pedigrees and some of their wills), so what I'm hoping to find
is:
1. some kind of summary or overview of the family's history in the 15th and 16th
centuries, especially in terms of their social and economic status and activities (if
anything like that has ever been published), and
2. a discussion of the family's origins.
On the second point, the pedigree given to the heralds by the head of the family in
1566 begins with his grandfather, Robert Pigott of Little Horwood esq, said to have
married an heiress of the Giffards of Whaddon. However another pedigree was
supplied at the same visitation by the Beachampton Pigotts, and that begins one
generation further back - it says that Robert's father was one Richard Pigott, a
younger son from a Pigott family which had been long established near Ripon in
Yorkshire (though it muddies the waters a little by suggesting that it was this Richard
from Yorkshire who married the Giffard heiress and began the Whaddon/Little
Horwood line, not his son Robert). The Beachampton family claimed to be descended
from a second marriage of the migrant Richard.
I can suggest an alternative origin for the family, however - I have a suspicion that
they weren't a cadet branch of the Yorkshire Pigots at all, but were local
Buckinghamshire peasants made good. The Great Horwood records have many
references to the Pigotts of Little Horwood and Whaddon, including the Robert Pigott
who was the first generation on their visitation pedigree (he appears in the Great
Horwood court rolls from 1465 until 1503, and was clearly of gentry status) and
several of his descendants. However he is not the first Pigott in the Great Horwood
records - two earlier Piggots, both stated to be of Little Horwood, owned land in Great
Horwood in the first half of the 15th century; they were John Pigott (first appeared
1434, died 1450) and his son Richard Pigott (appeared 1440, last mentioned 1459).
The nature of the references suggest that the father at least was no more than a
wealthy peasant, and the son Richard could also have been of the same status.
Could this son Richard be the father of Robert Pigott esq? The dates and location
certainly fit, and so does the forename (though it has to be admitted that the Great
Horwood records do not make any specific reference to a relationship - but then they
don't always). If this peasant Richard was indeed the father of the gentleman then
the Beachampton family's pedigree cannot be true, and in fact becomes just a clumsy
attempt to cover up lowly origins by claiming a connecton to a genuinely armigerous
family in far away Yorkshire - not an uncommon device in those days, when non-gentry
ancestry had to be concealed at all costs.
Interestingly, Hertfordshire Archives have a will of a John Pygot of Little Horwood
proved in 1450 (ref 1AR60v) - this is presumably the John Pigott who was the first
Pigott mentioned in the Great Horwood records. I haven't gone to look at it, but its
contents might cast some light on the above.
So if anyone knows of an printed discussion of the family or their origins, I would be
very grateful to hear of it. The contents of the 1450 will would also be gratefully
received. And of course if these Pigotts are anyone's ancestors then I'll be happy to
supply what information I have about them from the Great Horwood records in return.
Thanks very much,
Matt Tompkins
Centre for English Local History
University of Leicester
5 Salisbury Road
Leicester LE1 7QR
Parents
PIGOTT Geoffrey (ABT 1373 - 1420)
DE LEEDS Johanna (ABT 1372 - )
Siblings
PIGOTT Richard (ABT 1415 - 1460)
Marriage To FENNEL Alicia (ABT 1420 - )
m.
Notes
Children by FENNEL Alicia ABT 1420 -
PIGOTT Robert (ABT 1452 - )
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