Pickerin History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
England

The name Pickerin is of Anglo-Saxon origin and came from when a family lived in the parish of Pickering found in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Pickerin is a habitation name that was originally derived from the pre-existing name for a parish. It was originally derived from the Old English word Picora which referred to those individuals who lived at the edge of a hill.

Early Origins of the Pickerin family

The surname Pickerin was first found in the North Riding of Yorkshire at Pickering, a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in Pickering lythe. "The origin of this place is said to be very remote, being dated by tradition 270 years before the commencement of the Christian era, and ascribed to Peridurus, a British king, who was interred here, on the brow of a hill called Rawcliff. According to local tradition, also, its name is derived from the circumstance of a ring having been lost by the founder whilst washing in the river Costa, and subsequently found in the belly of a pike." 1

Some of the earliest records of the family were Sir James Pickering (fl. 1383), Speaker of the House of Commons, was son of Sir John Pickering of Killington, Westmorland. The family had been established at Killington since 1260. Thomas Pickering (died 1475) was an early English genealogist and was presumably a native of Pickering, Yorkshire. 2

Early History of the Pickerin family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Pickerin research. Another 131 words (9 lines of text) covering the years 1544, 1592, 1596, 1611, 1613, 1618, 1637, 1654, 1668 and 1701 are included under the topic Early Pickerin History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Pickerin Spelling Variations

Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Pickerin family name include Puckering, Pickering, Pykering, Pikering and others.

Early Notables of the Pickerin family

Notables of this surname at this time include:

Sir Gilbert Pickering, 1st Baronet (1611-1668), a regicide, a member of the English Council of State during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, and a member of Cromwell's Upper House
Sir Henry Pickering, 1st Baronet (1613-1668), an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1654, fought in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War

Pickerin migration to the United States +

For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, the Canadas, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Pickerin surname or a spelling variation of the name include :

Pickerin Settlers in United States in the 18th Century

William Pickerin, who landed in Virginia in 1769-1770 3

Citations +

Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England. Institute of Historical Research, 1848, Print.
Smith, George (ed), Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885-1900. Print
Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)