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The Hissem-Montague Family  |
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The Hissem-Montague Family |
Welcome to the home page of my web site. Below is my literal home, beautiful San Diego, California.
Welcome also to those of you visiting from the Heysham village website!
While it may eventually become many things, this site is currently dedicated to the genealogy of the Hissem family, but includes references to all the families of Heysham, Hysham, Heesham, Heesam, Heesom, Hesam, Hesom, Hessam, Hessom, Hissam, Hissem, Hissim and Hissom of England, India, the West Indies, Canada, Australia and America, as well as those of Montague, Wells, Six, Sixt, Offerman, and Dengler.
I will briefly say that my research led to a number of surprising results, the chief of which was that the Hissem family was English. This had not occurred to me before and, in fact, my father always assumed we were German, the name Hissem seeming to be so like the German names Hesse or Heisman. Another surprising result was how much information I was able to find and how far into the past I was able to go. This has much to do with being an American of English descent. These two nationalities have the oldest, continuous records, published the most genealogy in the last century, and have the greatest presence on today's internet.
With some certainty I can trace the history of the Hissem family in America back to its first emigre, John Heesom of Yorkshire, who had arrived in the Quaker colony of Burlington, in the Delaware river valley of West Jersey, as early as 1686. See The John Heesom Line for his story. With the help of Nicolette Heesom of Hull, England, my cousin many times removed, I have confirmed the family's origins in northern England. Members of the family still live in Yorkshire. See Heyshams of Yorkshire for that story.
I am fairly confident, however, that I have found deeper roots in the northwest of England, in Lancashire county. Members of the Heesom/Heesham/Heysham family have lived in and around the city of Lancaster, and the eponymous village of Heysham a few miles to the west, since the 14th century. This family has traditionally held - perhaps erroneously - that they descended from a junior branch of the Franco-Norman Gernet/Grenet family. The Gernet's held estates in Normandy and in England, including in Lancashire as the King's Forester, in the first centuries after the Conquest. Amongst those estates was the the manor of Heysham. See The Gernet Family and the pages that follow for that story. If this relationship is true - and that is a pretty big "if" - then I've been able to trace a 1000 year history for the family.
The Heesom/Hissem family Y-DNA has been tested as haplogroup G2a-Z36217. This allows me to push our date and place of origin further back. It now looks like the family first came into England some time in the late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, between 2,600 and 2,000 BC. This was during the period when the 'Bell Beaker' people of the lower Rhine migrated to Britain, displacing some 90% of the previous population. Before then the family had lived in Central Europe. They had migrated there, slowly over the millenia, up across the Balkans, and before that through Turkey, from the Fertile Crescent of the ancient Middle East. This was where the G-type Y-DNA originated during the Paleolithic, in about 40,000 BC. See the Y-DNA Origin page for more about this.
Much of this is, of course, conjecture, though I think I can provide a good rationale for the tale that follows. If nothing else, it is entertaining and, as the comedian Judy Tenuta used to say, "It Could Happen!"
I've enjoyed writing this history and I hope you enjoy reading it.
To navigate this site you may go through all the pages sequentially by using the arrow keys at the bottom of each page. This is the story of the family, in order, from the earliest point and is how this story is meant to be read. Alternatively, individual pages may be selected using the menu at the top of the page or the Table of Contents below. Most of the pages are identified by the earliest member of that branch of the family. You may also use the site search engine at the top of the page.
Table of Contents:
Foreward
Origin & Evolution of a Name: Language and Naming
The Evolution of Names
Index of Names
Origin & Evolution of a Family: The Y-DNA Story
Origin & Evolution of a Family: The mtDNA Story
Origin & Evolution of a Family: The Autosomal DNA Story
Bronze Age & Celtic Origins
Roman Origins
Anglo-Saxon & Viking Origins
Norman Origins
Norman-French Genealogy: The Gernet Family
The Grenet Family of France
The Gernet Family of England
The Gernets of Halton
The Gernets of Heysham
The Gernet of Caton
The Gernets of Kirkby Lonsdale
The Gernets of Europe
The Garnets of America
The Heyshams of Lancaster
Merchants of Lancaster
The John Heysham Line
The Heyshams of Highfield
The Heyshams of Yealand Conyers
The Heesoms of Yorkshire
The Heesoms of the English Midlands
The Heyshams of Southwestern England
The Heyshams of Southeastern England
The Thornton-Heyshams
The Mounsey-Heyshams
Heesoms in America: John Heesom, the Emigrant
- The John Hissom Branch
-- The William Hissam of John Family
-- The David Hessom of John Family
- The Thomas Hissom Branch
-- The Abner Hissem of Thomas Family
--- The Family and Life of Ensign Joseph Metcalf Hissem
-- The Thomas Hissam of Thomas Family
-- The John Hissem & Levi Hissem of Thomas Families
- The David Heysham/Hissam Branch
-- The Thomas Hissam of David Family
-- The James R. Heysham/Hissom of David Family
-- The Jesse Hissam of David Family
--- My Family
-- The Levi Heysham & David Hissom of David Family
The William Heysham Line of New York City & Philadelphia
- The Robert Heysham Branch
- The Heysham-Gibbon Branch
- The Heysham-Sayre Branch
Heesoms in Canada
Heesoms in Australia
Heesoms & Hesoms in South Africa
The Montague Lords of the Manor
The Boveney-Dorney Montagues
The Montagues in Virginia
The Montagues in New England
The Montagues in California
The Bush Family
The Dengler Family
The Haney Family
The Hess Family
The Kleyn Family
The Mulhern Family
The Offerman Family
The Orr Family
The Six Family
The Walker Family
The Welker Family
The Wells Family
Mexican Land Grants
- Rancho Santa Maria de los Penasquitos
- Rancho San Bernardo
The Battle of San Pasqual
The History of the Zenas Sikes Family
