G.Andrews Moriarty: regarding Pierce and ffiske. "The ancient Suffolk family of Fiske and its connection with New England have long been known, and two books, one compiled by an American and the other by an Englishman, have been published about the family [Fiske and Fisk Family by F. Clifton Pierce, and Fiske Family Papers by Henry ffiske respectively]. In spite of this the pedigree of the family has remained in great confusion and presents many difficulties that have not hitherto been cleared up. The American book is, in so far as the pages dealing with the family in England are concerned, of little value, as the very brief summaries of the wills there given contain numerous errors and omit many important details relating to the estates of their testators, their standing in their respective communities, their bequests, and their beneficiaries, while the conclusions of the compiler are often incorrect. The English book contains much valuable material, but it is not as carefully compiled as it should be, with the result that the pedigrees therein are often erroneous and misleading. From early times the family was very prolific, and the records of its various members about the beginning of the sixteenth century are, as is unusual in the case of a yeoman family of this sort, very voluminous and therefore confusing. In the American book the progenitor of the family in the fifteenth century, one branch of whose descendants became Lords of the Manor of Studhaugh in Laxfield, Co. Suffolk, is styled "Lord Symon Fiske," the compiler evidently being under the impression that the lord of a manor and his remote ancestors were peers of the realm and entitled to be called "Lords." In the sixteenth century the ancestors of the American family exercised the useful but hardly noble calling of wheelwrights, and they probably served the community in this capacity as well as they would have served it in the mythical capacity of barons of England which their American descendant has foisted upon them. There is a great difference between a peer and a wheelwright, and, although the latter may be and probably is the better man - well, he is not a peer. The ancestors of the New England Fiskes were notable for their adherence to the Reformed Religion and for their sufferings on its behalf in the dark days of Queen Mary; and this heritage is one on which their descendants may justly pride themselves far more than on any mythical peerage. At the time of the settlement of New England the Fiskes were a family of exceedingly prosperous artisans and yeomen, who sent several of their sons to the universities, whence they went forth to become Puritan ministers." G. Andrews Moriarty, A.M.,
LL.B., F.S.A., of Bristol, R.I. Sir Anthony Wagner had this to say about G. Andrews Moriarty in his seminal English Genealogy (Oxford University Press 1960, revised 1983). "The New England Historic Genealogical Society has continued [..] to sponsor research in England. For a good many years more, while circumstances allowed, it had its own American researchers living in England. Among these were James Henry Lea and George Andrews Moriarty (1882-1968), who later conducted the work by correspondence from America with English researchers. Years spent in England and much time given to work in the Public Record Office led Moriarty to concentrate on the early origins of American settlers of gentle descent. In so doing he helped to clear away much fiction and error published by some of his fellow countrymen who, whether good or bad American genealogists, lacked knowledge of the English background and records." |