Tag Archives: Ireland

Sigerson/Segerson family from county Kerry in Ireland

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A recent search for possible surname variants for my one name study of the surname Sarginson, which I might have missed, found a family of Segerson/Sigerson’s in County Kerry, Ireland. Whilst reviewing information from the Irish Civil Records website, I came across the death of an Edmond Segerson in 1873. He was a quarryman and his death record suggested he might have died in an accident. A search for a possible newspaper report if it led me to an article in the Irish Times dated 27 January 1953 entitled ‘Family’s Record Traced’. The first paragraph read:

‘An account of the Sigerson or “Sigurdson” family in Dublin over a period of centuries was given to the Old Dublin Society by Mr Donn Sigerson Piatt. The account was based mainly on unpublished writings of the late Dr George Sigerson.’

Well in that first paragraph, although the origin of the surname wasn’t explicitly defined, its derivation from Sigurdson indicated that Sigerson/Segerson is not a Sarginson surname variant. The rest of the article was an interesting read though. It seems that the family had connections with Dublin and Ireland which predated the Norman invasion. Edmond was a family first name which appeared in a record of 1563, when  an Edmond Segerson was granted a lease by the Dean of Christ Church for 61 years, for two messuages (houses) and a garden in Cook St. Further on the article mentions Thomas Segerson of Ballinskelligs in 1704 and then Dr George Sigerson.

Dr Sigerson was descended from the Kerry branch of the family and became a well-known physician. A report of his death in the Irish Independent, dated 18 February 1925, hailed him as a great physician, poet, patriot and scholar. He was in his 87th year when he died, living at Clare St, Dublin. He was said to have had a ‘European reputation for his scientific and literary attainments’ and that he would be well remembered particularly for his literary work. It was his grandson Donn Sigerson Piatt who later featured in the Irish Times article dated 27 January 1953.

So, not a family for me to include in my one name study of the surname Sarginson, and its variants, but an interesting one all the same.

Source: Newspaper collection. https://www.findmypast.co.uk/ : accessed December 2024.

What next for my study?

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When I started my one name study some years ago, I did not have much information on what I might find and where I would need to go to research Sarginson’s and their many variant and deviant surnames. Along the way I discovered that it not only was it not always spelt consistently but that it could be transcribed erroneously to make records even harder to find. I soon got into using wild cards to help with my searching. Another key consideration for me was that I did not want to just collect records but to relate them to families and try to reconstruct them. I wanted also to start to understand their stories. This led to me creating this more blog focused website than go down a different route of using technology to display family trees.

In more recent times I have had less time to spend on my study as I am now involved in several other research projects as well as researching my husband and my own family’s history. This is the year when I intend to archive my study and make it accessible through the Guild of One Name Studies where it has been registered.

I am still updating my trees so that they can be archived and have managed to start the New Year by creating two new embryonic ones. A search for one of my own ancestors using wild cards in the surname found a record for a Matthew Saggerson in York Castle prison for an offence committed in Leeds. A report in the Leeds Intelligencer of 13 Mar 1847 provided the details of the assault he had committed with another man, Robert Sharp, on John Calvert near the Clarendon Inn, Victoria Rd, Leeds. Matthew and Robert “threw him to the ground” and stole two shillings from him. For this they were both sentenced to hard labour for one year.

Another search found a family of Segerson/Sigerson’s in County Kerry, Ireland. It is not clear how the surname has been derived. The 2016 Oxford Dictionary of Family Names for Britain and Ireland does not contain Sag(g)erson, Seg(g)erson or Sigerson. It does have Sager, Seger and Siger but these surnames were only found in small numbers in the 1881 census. I will continue to investigate these two families, particularly as I have several Irish soldiers with unusual surname variants who appear in the North West of England in the mid-19th century. There are also some 18th century records, mostly wills, for the Segerson’s in Ireland for me to follow up.

Do let me know if you would like to collaborate or indeed takeover my study.