Hello Sisson cousins and friends, My "marvelous" filing system has yielded up a curiosity. (Think "piling" system! <g>) What I transcribed below is almost entirely speculation. I hesitate to send it because it quotes so much material that has been doubted or outright disproved over recent years. Please use it with caution and pay close attention to the mistakes that I've pointed out and that you see yourself. Treat it as speculation, not fact. About a year ago, more or less, Edward Saunders of Gardena, CA, sent me a set of photocopies. In his cover letter he wrote - "David, Here is what you requested. I may have errors as I got this data about 10 years ago. Butt's book [see below] is on a microfilm I ordered from Salt Lake Family History Library." I have transcribed most of the pages Mr Saunders sent me. [My additions appear in brackets, as this sentence does.] Read on. ........................................................................................................... [Page one] Rhode Island Historical Society Filmed by the Genealogical Society Salt Lake City, Utah At Providence, R.I. 25 July 1950 [Page two] Sisson Family Records [Page three] [Here there is an apparently hand-drawn depiction of the so-called Sisson arms, similar to the one reproduced in Dave and Joan Sisson's "Descendants of Richard and Mary Sisson." Arms are granted to individuals, not to families.] [All that follows is a typed manuscript.] The above Coat-of-Arms has been fashioned from the description by Burke. It belongs exclusively to the Penrith, Wales branch of the Sisson kindred. The description is as follows: Escutcheon: Per fess, embattled or and azure, three griffins' heads erased, or [In heraldry, the word or means gold]. Crest: a griffin's head erased, or, above a wreath of the colors. Motto: [under the shield] Si Monent tuboe paratus which translated means, "Prepared when the trumpets warn." Burke also notes that a secondary motto also sometimes is used over the Crest - "Hope for the best." All of this means - Across the middle of the shield is the battlement line. The dots [which appear in the black-and-white drawing] signify gold and the lines blue. A Griffin is a lion with an eagle's head. [I would "translate" the armorial description like this: A line like battlements on top of a castle wall divides the gold upper half of the shield from the blue lower half. In the upper half are two griffins' heads, and one in the lower half. Above the shield appears a fourth griffin's head, with a "rope" beneath it. A design like a rope, i.e., the "wreath," is made of the two colors, gold and blue, thickly twisted together.] Compiled by: William Taylor Butts 1981 [So this page cannot have been microfilmed in 1950!] [Page four] Credits Information for this book has been furnished by several members of the Sisson family, and compiled by William Taylor Butts, son-in-law of Hazel Earl Sisson. Contributors were: - John Sisson, Pasadena, Texas - Mabelle Jones, Wounds, Oklahoma - Lorene Sisson Kerr, Houston, Texas - James Sisson, Bakersfield, California - Hazel Earl Sisson Green, San Antonio, Texas - ca 1930 article from the Unadilla, New York newspaper - Military data from the National Archives in Washington D.C. Then, our thanks go to Oscar U. Sisson, who in 1941, had De Lysle Ferres Cass of Chicago, Illinois, do a Historical and Genealogical Annals of the Sisson Kindred. Cass included the following credits: - General Armory of England, Scotland & Wales, by Sir Bernard Burke, pub. London, 1884 - Fairbairn's Crests of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. by Joseph Maclaren, pub. Edinburgh & London by Thomas C. Jack, 1860, Vols I and II - 160 Allied Families of Rhode Island, by John Osborne Austin, pub. Providence, Rhode Island, 1893 - Dictionary of English & Welsh Surnames, by Canon Bardsley, London, 1901 - Poll Tax Return of Howdershire, Yorkshire, England for the year 1379 - Compendium of American Genealogy, ed. by Frederick A. Virkus, Vol. VI, pub. by the Institute of American Genealogy, Chicago, 1937 - Surname Book & Racial History, ed. by Dana Young Gates, pub. by Church of Latter Day Saints [sic], Salt Lake City, Utah, 1918 - Genealogical & Family History of Northern New York, by William R. Cutter, Vol. III, pub. by Lewis Hist. Pub. Co., New York City, 1910 - Names and Their Story, by S. Baring-Gould, pub. by Seeley & Co., London, 1910 - English Surnames & Their Significations, by Charles Wareing Bardsley, pub. Chatto & Windus, London, 1898 - Fabric Rolls of York Minster, 1350 - 1400 - Register Book of [partially illegible - perhaps Marey or Harey or Warey], Northants County, England, 1576 - 1579 - Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, Vol IV, 2nd Series, ed by Joseph Jackson Howard, pub. by Mitchell & Hughes, London, 1892 - Allegations for Marriage Licenses issue [sic] by Dean & Chapter of Westminster, 1558- 1699, & also by Vicar-General of Archbishop of Canterbury, 1660 - 1679, ed. by Col. Joseph L. Chester & George J. Armytage, pub. my Harleian Society, London, 1886, Vol. XXIII. William Taylor Butts, 1981 [Page five] [All that follows is one long paragraph. I am paragraphing it for the sake of modern eyes!] SISSON THE NAME: The SISSON lineage in Europe goes back to the beginning of the Middle Ages. Etymologically, various quite diverse explanations are given for the derivation of the name. As a surname, Susa Young Cates [or Gates] avers that it was derived from the ancient village of Siston or Syston, in Leicestershire, Gloucester County [which is nonsense - Shire *means* county. Leicestershire and Gloucestershire are both English counties], but another authority, William R. Cutter, more logically states that the village, itself, probably derived its name from resident Sissons, one of whose original strongholds it was (Ref. Surname Book and Racial History, ed. by Susa Young Cates [or Gates], pub. by Church of Latter Day Saints [sic], Salt Lake City, Utah, 1918; Genealogical and Family History of Northern New York, by William R. Cutter, Vol. III, pub. Lewis Historical Pub. Co., N.Y.C., 1910). Although the erudite Dr. S. Baring-Gould doubts it, (Ref. Names and Their Story, by him, pub. Seeley and Co., London, 1910), the scholarly Canon Charles Wareing Hardsley, in his monumental Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (pub., Henry Frowd, Oxford University Press, London, 1901) and again in his English Surnames and Their Significations (pub., Chatto and Windus, London, 1898) proffers the most likely explanation. He asserts that the Sisson surname is one of a lengthy list of medieval metronymics being derived from the name or popular nickname of the parent and meaning "Child Of." The Sisson surname, he claims, demonstrating with numerous examples - - signifies "son of Cecely, or Cecilia," the prevalent English nickname for which up to the 16th Century was "Ciss" or "Sess" corresponding to our modern nickname "Cissy" for the same feminine baptismal name. In further support of this, Canon Wareing Bardsley calls attention to the fact that early Norman-English MSS [manuscripts] name the son of William the Conqueror's daughter Cicillon (Cecilia) - 1027- 1067 Johannes Sisson, i.e., John, the son of Cecilla. Sisson, Sison, Sissons, Sessions (modern surnames) all represent the identical family, he claims. Other genealogists, among them Burke, the English heraldic authority, suggest the more immediately obvious (through [sic] more conjectural) theory that the Sisson surname is identified with the original residence in or adherance to the city and medieval feudal county of Soissans or Soissons in France, which was celebrated as early as the time of the first Frankish kings. In his General Armory of England, Scotland [Page six] THE NAME - (Continued) and Wales, Sir Bernard Burke asserts that the family - - "variously spelled Sisson, Sissons, Sysum, Sison, Session and Sessions .... came originally from Normandy in Northern France; settled at an early period in Ireland, and afterwards at Penrith, in Wales." Burke's statement of the Norman-French origin of the Sisson kinship is probably correct. One of the Norman knights who followed William the Conqueror on his invasion of Saxon England in 1066 had the surname Seisin. If Burke's theory of the surname's origin in valid, this adventurer possibly was the progenitor of the Welsh and English bearers of the names Sisson, Sissons, Session and Sessions. [Please take this endorsement of the Norman-French origin of our name with a cup of salt.] We find the Sisson kindred populous in England and Wales as early as the 13th Century, particularly throughout south-central England. In the Poll Tax Returns for Howdenshire [I've never heard of such a county] and Yorkshire for the year 1379, we find the names Robertus Cisson (p. 19), Johannes Sisson (p. 21), Henricus Sisson (p. 226), Thomas Cyson (p. 269), William Cisson (p. 269). Among the MSS, Willis and Inventories of York Minster (14th Century) the name Henry Sysson occurs in one place, and Henry Season [this is a much-photocopied blur, and Season is my best spelling guess] in another. (Ref. Fabric Rolls of York Minister [sic], in English Surnames and Their Significations). York, in northern England, from early medieval times, was the residence of a populous branch of the Sisson kindred. Still preserved in the municipal archives is The Register of the Freemen of the City of York, 1270-1558, showing the occupations under which individual freemen were licensed. Until the mid-15th Century all baptismal names appear entered in Latin by the monkish scriveners, who were the only persons knowing how to write in those days. Upon being admitted as a freeman, a citizen was required to pay the municipality a substantial fee, in return for which the city fathers guaranteed to protect him against competition in his profession by newcomers or itinerant outsiders. A son of a freeman engaging in his father's occupation was, however, exempted from payment of this fee and was listed in a separate scroll from the general registry labeled "Pro Patres", i.e., from the fathers, or inherited perrogative. One such special Sisson entry appears in the ensuing list: [Page seven] THE NAME - (Continued) "1450 - THOMAS SISSON , Baker "1451 - JOHANNES SISSON, Baker "1490 - JOHANNES SYSSON, cartwright "1515 - THOMAS SCYSSON, lynwever [difficult to read. Linenweaver?] "1537 - GEORGE SYSSON, corn merchaunt "1543 - Per Patres - THOMAE SYSSON, wever "1544 - ROGERUS SYSSON, blaksmyth, fil. THOMAE SYSSON, wever According to Harrison's "Surnames of the United Kingdom", the names of Sisson and Cisson are of Anglo-French-Latin origin, signifying Ciss'sor, Ciss'son; Ciss being a diminutive of Cicely or Cencilia [sic]. Variants of the name are Cisson, Cysson and Sissons. Later, in his "Patronymica Brittanica", Harrisons tells us that Sisson is a corruption of Sissonis, a parish in Gloucestershire, England. Sissonis is also believed to be a place name, probably derived from a provance [sic] of France. Doubtless, the progenitors of the English descendants of the name came to Britain with William of Normandy. Still another etymology of the Sisson name is given by the well-known genealogist, John Osborne Austin, in his "160 Allied Families of Rhode Island" .... "The significance of the name Sisson may be traced through the fact that it is a corruption of Siston (name of the English Village Seton, or Sea-Town." The variations in the spelling of the Sisson surname are quite typical of most other medieval patronymics. Linguistic difficulties in the pronunciation of personal proper names was natural when - as in the case of Sisson - the name was translated from its original French into Welsh and English. Moreover, medievally, sharply differentiated dialects were common throughout portions of even the same countries, as indeed, they still are in England. Hence in the 14th Century, when the English language first was becoming nationally standardized as to orthography, wide varieties of spelling identical names resulted from differences in the vernacular speech of different parts of the country. Authors of the period determined their spelling more or less phonetically, and even Chaucer spelled simple words in as many as three or four different ways, using i and y inter- [Page eight[ THE NAME - (Continued) changeably. Therefore, it is to be expected that the surname Sisson should appear in garbled forms, each determined by the dialect popularly prevalent in the particular locality where a branch of the Sisson kindred had settled. A total of 84 separate Sisson households are listed in the first National Census of 1790 in America. Aside from these 84 heads of families, 337 other bearers of the Sisson name are specified, amounting to a total of 421 Sissons flourishing in the United States by the fifth generation in descent from Richard Sisson of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. ........................................................................................................... There are 8 more pages in the pack of photocopies sent me by Edward Saunders. They give data for the families of Richard and Mary Sisson and for George and Sarah (Lawton) Sisson which can be found at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~dasisson/richard/ And there are also family group records for "Richard Sisson/Mary Freeman" [sic; Mary's surname has never been documented] printed out from the Ancestral File, now available on FamilySearch.com, the genealogy site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mr Saunders also includes a pedigree chart for Hannah Davol, born 1711/12, whose mother was Sarah Sisson, born 1685 in Westport, RI, to James and Lydia (Hathaway) Sisson (whose descendants have Mayflower passengers in their ancestry). And there is a second pedigree chart for Ann (Sisson) 4 Sherman, born 1714, wife of Thomas Sherman, born 1699, both in Portsmouth, RI. Ann was a daughter of Richard 3 and Ann (Card) Sisson, and Richard was a son of George 2 and Sarah "or Mary" (Lawton) Sisson. Please remember that I send this message summarizing the speculations of our parents' generations because it may contain clues for further research, not because it contains truth. Only a few of the sources that Mr Butts cites are primary sources, but most are compilations which may or may not have been based on primary sources. Always check for the primary sources of information before believing their data. I suspect that most of what we have here is wrong. David Arne Sisson