| The names
PIPE and PIPES
I would like to encourage anyone who has doubts about the connections between Benjamin Pipe and Susan Last and our John Pipes Sr. to please read this entire document. The entries are in reverse order with oldest at the bottom |
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| In July of 2010 I received the following message
from Michael Pipe of Australia. Michael has documented the Pipe family
across the world and I believe he agrees that the conflating of John
Pipe (son of Benjamin Pipe and Susan Last) and John Pipes Sr. (who lived
in the USA) is a serious mistake.
Hello Bob,
We find their son John Pipe (above) married in nearby Kettleburgh, Suffolk on 10th Jan 1735/36 to Mary French, (ref Kettleburgh PR's), a line that has been heavily researched by several reliable descendants. As you state, there is little point in emailing the offenders, as there is a good chance that they will not respond, but it would be interesting to know who was the first to "steal" G6 Grandfather Ben!! I shall keep a lookout for John Pipes possibilities. Regards Michael C M Pipe |
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| More Proof of the Pipe family in England.
March 14, 2010. Please take a look at these screen captures taken from the LDS church site www.familysearch.com They show the data on Benjamin Pipe, Susan Last and their son John Pipe, born in England, married in England to Mary French and having a son also named John, All in England. You can go there and see them for yourself. You can also see a family tree on Ancestry.com here that shows all of the children of John Pipe and Mary French
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| March 14, 2010 I received the following email from
a Hiram Pipes descendant:
From: Kathy Stewart Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 9:38 AM Subject: Is there any merit to this family tree? I'm from the Hiram Pipes branch and I stumbled upon this site while researching the Susannah Pipes/Samuel Carter line. They actually give an ancestor for John Pipes Sr as a Benjamin Pipe with ancestors into the 1500's in Suffolk, England. I can't find the sources for that yet, but I'm looking. Here is the site, thought you would be interested!!! http://www.bilbreyfamilytree.com/people/p000057b.htm#I5164 This is my response: Hi Kathy, Well its not true as far as the research I have made shows. Someone put this on the internet a couple of years ago and now other people see it and just assume its true because it there. When I email people and ask them ( in a polite way) to show me their proof, they never respond. I found the person who I think first made this connection and she also will not respond. First let me say that in Genealogy anything is possible and new things are always being found but this is almost shameful. There was a Benjamin PIPE who married a Susan Last and had children. One of those children was named John PIPE and he was born about the same time as our John PIPES. But here is the amazing part. There is complete documentation that his son John PIPE married a woman whose last name was French. They had children and are well documented. But someone decided it would be nice to have this line as the answer to our PIPES heritage and just added it anyway. There is an expert on the PIPE family, and his name is Michael Pipe, he lives in Australia and is a descendant of the PIPE family in England. There is a great deal of PIPE information available for the PIPE family in England and elsewhere. He has promised to get some documentation together to prove that this John PIPE family is not our John PIPES family. but if you search it out it is not difficult to find John Pipe and the woman named French. just look on www.familysearch.com That is the LDS church web site. I will be the first one to admit that there is a distinct possibility that the PIPE and PIPES families may be connected in England back in the 1500s or 1600s. As I like to point out, all of our early Pipes ancestors were illiterate and signed their name with an X mark, then someone else wrote it down for them. How would they be able to look at the signature made by someone else and say that either PIPE or PIPES was the correct spelling? it was all a matter of how they pronounced the name. But we also have to note that all of the early records indicate the people we know as PIPES are well documented as PIPES. If you look in the early records in England the name is spelled La Pipe, Pypes, Pype, Pipes, Pipe and even some other phonetic spellings like peipes etc. I have a couple of articles on my web page showing the early spellings. It is very frustrating for me because I don't want to accept something that is not true just for convenience. Regards, Bob
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| Alan ( Fred) Pipes, of England added this note on the
subject on 09/29/08
NOTE: Visit his web site at www.fredpipes.com |
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| Hi Bob
I've just been reading your correspondence with David. My understanding of the origin of the name is that an 's' on the end of a name can mean 'son of', like a shorthand for, say, Robinson, son of Robin. Pipes could well have derived from Pipe in the distant past! BTW thanks to Jane Greenaway, I've added another generation to my tree: 1796 14 May Samuel Pipes (waterman/coal dealer) marries Sarah Cook, Gainsborough, Lincs. Witnesses Samuel Cook and Wm Sutter(?) [JG] ...taking me to Lincolnshire! I haven't found a birth date for him yet! I spent some days in Derby last year looking up the haunts of Samuel Pipes (b 1822) and generally getting the feel of the place! Seems most Pipes still live around Derbyshire and points east! I also found a Hull connection... Fred Alan (Fred) Pipes FRSA fred@fredpipes.com if I'm away, try: alan.pipes@gmail.com www.fredpipes.com blog: www.fredblog.co.uk NUJ member since 1975
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| Is John Pipes Senior related in any way to the Pipe Family in America? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| It was my pleasure to hear from a Pipes cousin in England this year. I thought everyone should know of the discussion we had related to dubious research being placed on the internet by people who may or may not have good intentions. All of you should know about this. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| My first Email from David: 07/15/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Bob,
I am currently researching my family
history here in England and recently came across your most interesting
website.
Whilst I appreciate the main purpose of
your site I would be grateful if you would find time to answer a query
unrelated to your main goals. I note that the earliest known Pipes in
America was John Pipes Snr born about 1710 and that there are
connections back to England. I would be interested to know whether you
or any of your contributors have been able to establish with
reasonable accuracy the parentage of John Pipes Snr in England.
On the Family Search website (IGI)
Catherine Preston has submitted a Pedigree Chart which shows John's
parents as Benjamin Pipe of Suffolk, England and Susan Last. The two
forms of surname are separate and are noted as such in the early
Church Parish Registers in England so it seems doubtful that John
would add an "s" to his surname. The family line back as
Pipe seems doubtful.
Congratulations on your extensive and
informative website.
Best wishes,
David Pipes
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| My Response to David: 07/15/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear
David,
It
is very nice to hear from you and a great surprise. I always get
excited when hearing from anyone named Pipes in Britain. To answer
your question, No, I have never been able to connect John Pipes Sr. to
England or to any set of parents here in the US. either. He just
magically appears here in Massachusetts in 1735 to marry Susannah
Hathaway and that marriage is the current defining point in the Pipes
narrative in the US. He must have been born about 1710 but 'where' is
the key question.
I
have made several attempts to convince someone in England to do some
research on the subject but no luck so far. Family and daily life
prevent that from happening, but I keep hoping. I have had several
people ask me about hiring a professional researcher in
England to do the work, but outside of the cost, I am not sure I trust
someone to do the work. Research in England is difficult unless you
know what you are doing and there seems to be a lot of
"researchers" out there who want the money and then produce
results that may not be accurate.
The
Pipes name seems to be centered in two or three areas of England
going back into the 17th and 18th centuries. And that seems to be a
sticking point with me, I am not sure where to start any research
without knowing what parishes to look in.
I
have heard over the years from Alan Pipes, two Christopher Pipes, Fred
Pipes, and Sheila Extance, all from England and all interested to
some extent in the Pipes family history. You can see some of their
entries in the Pipes Genforum on the web. Also, a lady named
Regina Grider Pipes who lives here but is a descendant of a Pipes who
immigrated here in the late 1800s. Sheila and Regina are still
active, but I have very old email addresses for the others.
The
name Catherine Preston sounds familiar to me but I do not have record
of her in my files. I will check out her entry on the IGI site. I
agree with you that while there are several variations of the Pipes
name spelling in England over the years, a descent from Pipe to Pipes
is unlikely. I have a large file on my site which you must have
seen that details the name Pipe in England. I will look and see if Ben
and Susan Pipe are in there.
I
have no idea how she could make that connection but I will check it
out. Sometimes people make connections and put them on the web and
have little or no proof to back it up, only a desire to have it
so.
I
do look forward to hearing from you again and thanks for the
information.
Regards,
Bob
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| David's Response: 07/15/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Bob,
Thank you for responding so quickly to my
enquiry and for the further information.
Without knowing when John Snr or his
ancestors first arrived in America (from passenger lists) then it is a
formidable task to try and trace his ancestors in England. As you say
there are several established Pipes families in England centred around
Derby in Derbyshire, Burton on Trent in Staffordshire and also in
the Suffolk area. I think that you would be wasting your money if you
employed a professional genealogist in England to do some research -
they charge by the hour and would have to trawl through numerous
parish records at least in those three counties. For my own research I
am looking into the early records for Derby and Staffordshire and if I
found anything of interest I will of course let you know.
I have recently been in contact with Alan
(Fred) Pipes who is in fact a distant cousin of mine. We share the
same Gt Gt Grandfather, Samuel Pipes 1822-1879.
I am very skeptical of some of the
pedigrees listed in IGI - I came across one for my wife's ancestors
which did not look right - the contributor had managed to miss out one
generation which put the whole line in doubt.
Keep up your excellent work on your
website.
Regards,
David
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| My Incredulous Response: 07/16/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear
David,
I
did some checking on the family search web site (LDS Church) on the
Benjamin Pipe - Susan Last connection. It appears to me that Benjamin
and Susan had a son named John about 1713 but his name was PIPE and he
married a woman named French. It is in several family histories there.
Then
someone decided that John Pipe is really John Pipes and just added him
to their ancestry! My jaw just dropped. I cannot believe that someone
would do that. The records are sitting there right beside each other
and its so obvious!
And
now several others have decided to pick it up and use it as well and
now its published all over. Not sure who did it first, but it doesn't
really matter now.
Very
Discouraging.
Regards,
Bob
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| David's Response: 07/17/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Bob,
Thanks for checking out this discrepancy
which confirms my suspicions on the accuracy of the various family
pedigrees submitted by contributors.
I also looked at the Ancestry website -
there are numerous family trees which include John Snr and his wife
Susanna Hathaway and show John's parents variously as Benjamin Pipe
(and Benjamin Pipes) and mother Susan Last. The error seems to have
been adopted by various family researchers. It is discouraging and
annoying.
I looked at the Pipes GenForum and noticed
that David Pipes in response to a query about John Pipes Snr stated
that William Pipes emigrated to America in 1674 and could be a
relation to John Snr. I have asked David to let me have the source of
his information but I have not yet received a response.
I have found out that the Public Record
Office here in Kew, England does have some documents relating to
passenger lists for emigrants from England to America round about the
1670's and earlier. As I am now semi-retired I propose to do some
research at Kew in the near future to see whether there are any
records of Pipes families emigrating to America. I will let you know
the outcome. It will be interesting to see whether the ancestors of
John Snr in England can be identified.
Regards,
David
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| My Response to David: 07/17/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hi
David,
I
am semi retired as well and find that I still don't have time to do
all the things I want to get done!
Your
comment about William Pipes reminded me that there was a man named
William Pipes who immigrated to Nova Scotia, Canada in 1774 (1674 may
have been a typo). William had with him sons William and Jonathan
Pipes. On my web site is a genealogy file of William and his
descendants in Canada. It was put together by a Scott Miller who gave
me permission to add it to my site. Here is a quote from that file:
"In
1774 William Pipes, age 49, immigrated from England to Fort
Cumberland, Nova Scotia, Canada with his sons William, age 22 and
Jonathan, age 20. They crossed in the Ship Albion, leaving England
form the port of Hull on March 7th, 1774. The stated reason for their
leaving was the advancement of their Rents"
I
had often wondered if this William Pipes was related to the US Pipes'
but have never found any connection here. Some of his Canadian
descendants eventually migrated south into northeastern US states. I
get emails from them from time to time and about 4 months ago told a
lady from the west coast she was from the Canadian family and she was
amazed.
On
my web site is also a chronological file that I put together. http://www.pipesfamily.com/chrono.htm
It notes the earliest mention of a Pipes in America is a David Pipes
who came here in 1665. He made a record in early Maryland records when
he signed over the rights to land to the captain of the ship who
transported him. (I understand that immigrants would be offered land
to come here and then would sign it away, or parts of it, to pay
for their transport here.) This David then disappears and there is no
further record of him in the USA.
There
are a couple of other records of fleeting mentions of Pipes here and
then nothing until 1735 when John Senior marries Susannah Hathaway. From
reading the Hathaway family history books, there is the
implication that her father, Abraham, may have been involved in
seafaring in some way (he was known as Captain). But then he moves
inland to Morristown, New Jersey for the rest of his life in
1736. I have
tried to connect John Pipes to the Hathaways thru the seafaring
connection, thinking John Sr. may have been on a ship owned by Abraham
or at least worked for him and then married his daughter. The
Hathaways were well off here and well established in Massachusetts.
Its hard to imagine they would let some unknown guy marry their
daughter. All that implies that John Pipes Sr may have come here from
somewhere else, as opposed to having been born and raised here. The
above fanciful thoughts are fueled by this article found in 1746 in
Philadelphia:
"William
Plumstead offers reward for jailing of four men who ran away from the
ship "Westmoreland". One of the men was John Pipe. I assume
this occurred in Philadelphia, Pa. John Jr. would have been 7yrs. old,
so this was probably John Sr. [The name is given as "John
Pipe"]
From a book entitled "Abstracts of items from Ben
Franklin's 'Pennsylvania Gazette' year 1746" pg. 546
But
as we know, the name "Pipe" was not unknown at the time, so
this may or may not be our John Pipes Sr.
Anyway,
Keep
all this in mind as you dig thru England and let me know if you
happen across anything exciting!
Regards,
Bob
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| David's Response: 07/17/2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Bob,
Thank you for your further comments and
the detailed information you have provided.
This is certainly an intriguing and
interesting conundrum (to be hopefully solved ?)
I will let you know how I progress with my
researches at Kew.
Regards,
David
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