Surname Saturday: Nippard

This is the rarest surname in my family tree - so rare that it doesn't appear in the surname books and I can't find a surname website which has any information about its derivation.

I have found it spelled in a wide variety of ways - Nepard, Neppard, Neppred, Nepprod, Nipard, Niperd, Niperhed, Nippards, Nipperd, Nippered, Nippierd, Nippred, Nipprid, Nipred, Niprid, Niprod and Nypred - but Nippard seems to be the most common form.

Having searched for the surname derivation for years, I stumbled across the answer whilst doing a Google search on these variants. The name comes from a lost medieval settlement called Nypred in the parish of Tisbury, Wiltshire, the earliest reference to which dates from 1240. It was located somewhere in the area now known as Fonthill Old Park.

 

 

The earliest occurrence of the surname I have found is John de Nipred, who was one of the jurors at an Inquisition Post Mortem held in Tisbury on 16 July 1290. The earliest mention in a parish register is the burial of Katherin, daughter of Thomas Nypred, at Salisbury, Wiltshire on 20 November 1561. Salisbury is some 12 miles from Tisbury. The surname continued to be very localised to this area, being found almost exclusively in Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire right up until the 19th century. 

My own link to the family is my 7x great grandmother, Mary Nipperd, who married John Coles at Damerham, Wiltshire, on 20 April 1703. I have no information about her baptism or parents, so she is one of my end-of-line brick walls. However, Damerham is less than 20 miles from Tisbury, so I think there is no doubt as to where Mary's - and my - Nippard ancestors originated.

SNGF: A Genealogy Scavenger Hunt

The Challenge

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is:

1. For each person listed below, provide the name of the mother of the person and the genea-blogger to whom they are related.

a) Lois Velleda Dreher

b) Mary Philomene Laurent

c) Ernest Francis Sheern

d) Cecelia Jost

e) Mary Jane Sovereen

f) Bethiah Brigham

2. Tell us how you conducted this search, and what you may have learned from your searches.

The Answers

1. The mother / genea-blogger in each case is:

a) Irene Caroline Banet / Cyndi Beane Henry Mountain Genealogists

b) Olivine Marie St. Louis / Brian Zalewski Zalewski Family Genealogy

c) Ann Emily Leseure / Sheri Fenley The Educated Genealogist

d) Cecilia Kurta / Amy Coffin The We Tree Genealogy Blog

e) Eliza Putman / Randy Seaver Genea-Musings

f) Ann Richardson / Elyse Doerflinger Elyse's Genealogy Blog

2.  I used Google. I have to be honest and say that I'm afraid I didn't learn anything. It was all very mechanistic - just search, copy and paste. Not my favourite challenge.

SNGF - "Problems" in your genealogy database

The Challenge

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is to:

1. Open your genealogy software program and use the Help function to determine how to make a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" (or something similar).
2. Create a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" in your software for the persons in your tree (either everyone in the tree, or for a selected number of generations of your ancestors).
3. Tell us what type of problems or errors your report found.  Tell us how many errors were found.  Tell us what problem or error surprised you.

The Results

1. I use Family Tree Maker 2011. I already know how to create a Data Errors Report in that program. Go to the Publish workspace and select Person Reports > Data Errors Report.
2. I ran a Data Errors Report for All Individuals. I opted to include all errors except "Birth date missing" and "Marriage date missing". I don't regard those as data errors but as research challenges.
3. My Data Errors Report included nine individuals:
   • Two men were flagged: "The name may include a title" because their first name is Dean. These are not data errors.
   • Three women were flagged: "The individual has the same last name as her husband". In all three cases the women's maiden surnames were indeed the same as their husbands' surnames. These are not data errors.
   • A husband and wife were both flagged: "This individual's children's sort order may be incorrect". I checked this couple's children in the People workspace, Family view. They were indeed in the wrong sort order, with births in 1892 and 1897 followed by a birth in 1894. I clicked the button to "Sort children by birth order" and the error was corrected.
   • One person was flagged: "The birth date occurs after the death date". This is a known problem in my tree. Family Search shows Steven Martin, son of Alexander Martin and Love Kingston, as having been baptised at Doulting, Somerset on 18 April 1787 but buried there on 29 March 1787. Until I am able to look at the original registers, I am keeping these contradictory dates in my tree, as I do not know which one is incorrect.
   • One person was flagged: "Baptism date occurred before individual's birth date. The birth date occurred after her father was 80. The birth date occurred more than one year after her father died". This was the result of a data entry error on my part. I had entered an 1827 birth as having occurred in 1847. Correcting the birth date resolved the error.

I run this report regularly, so wasn't expecting - and didn't find - any major issues. Nonetheless, I did pick up, and was able to correct, two errors in my data. So thank you for the challenge, Randy.

Surname Saturday: Haliburton

Haliburton is a Scottish surname which comes from two farms near Greenlaw in Berwickshire - Meikle and Little Haliburton. It is thought that the original name for the area was Burton, from the Norse bur, a storehouse, and dun (pronounced toon), a fort. Then a chapel was built and the area became Holy or Haly Burton.

The earliest recorded bearer of the surname was David de Halyburton who, in 1176, gave the chapel at Halyburton to the Abbey of Kelso. The Haliburtons originally held estates at Merton and Muirhouselaw near Dryburgh. In the 14th century they acquired by marriage the lordship of Dirleton, in East Lothian and, in the 15th century, the lordship of Pitcur in  Angus.

From Pitcur there developed a strong Angus branch of the family in and around the parish of Kettins, where Hallyburton House and Forest remain to this day. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Angus branch of the Haliburtons were also active as merchants and writers (solicitors) in Dundee and in Edinburgh.

Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott was descended from the Haliburtons of Dryburgh through his mother. In 1820 he published a book called Memorials of the Haliburtons which is now available to read online at the Internet Archive.

Battle of Killiecrankie, 1689

One of the Haliburton lairds of Pitcur was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, fighting on the Jacobite side under John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee. He is mentioned in the folk song The Braes of Killiecrankie: "The bauld [bold] Pitcur fell in a furr [ditch]:

 

 

My Haliburton ancestry

My own Haliburton ancestors come from the same period of Scottish history. I've traced them back to the early 17th century in the parishes of Kettins and Newtyle. My family were tenants of land belonging to the Haliburtons of Pitcur, so are likely to be related in some way, but at present I do not know how.

 

 

Name	Father	Mother	Spouse	Marriage	Place	Death
John Haliburton						aft 26 Aug 1622
George Haliburton	John Haliburton		Susanna Halden	bef 30 Sep 1664
James Haliburton	George Haliburton	Susanna Halden	Agnes Smith	9 Jul 1677		bet 1698 & 1700
Jean Haliburton	James Haliburton	Agnes Smith	Charles Hay	8 Jul 1720	Coupar Angus, Perthshire	aft 22 May 1753