Silifan History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

• Origins Available:
• Ireland

Etymology of Silifan

All Irish surnames have a long, ancient Gaelic history behind them. The original Gaelic form of the name Silifan is Ó Suileabhain, which is partially derived from the word "suil," which means "eye." The surname probably means either one-eyed or hawk-eyed.

Early Origins of the Silifan family

Early History of the Silifan family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Silifan research. Another 81 words (6 lines of text) covering the years 1641 and 1921 are included under the topic Early Silifan History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Silifan Spelling Variations

Scribes and church officials, lacking today's standardized spelling rules, recorded names by how they were pronounced. This imprecise guide often led to the misleading result of one person's name being recorded under several different spellings. Numerous spelling variations of the surname Silifan are preserved in documents of the family history. The various spellings of the name that were found include Sylliphant, Silliphant, Syliphant, Siliphant and others.

Early Notables of the Silifan family

More information is included under the topic Early Silifan Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Silifan family

In the 18th and 19th centuries, thousands of Irish families fled an Ireland that was forcibly held through by England through its imperialistic policies. A large portion of these families crossed the Atlantic to the shores of North America. The fate of these families depended on when they immigrated and the political allegiances they showed after they arrived. Settlers that arrived before the American War of Independence may have moved north to Canada at the war's conclusion as United Empire Loyalists. Such Loyalists were granted land along the St. Lawrence River and the Niagara Peninsula. Those that fought for the revolution occasionally gained the land that the fleeing Loyalist vacated. After this period, free land and an agrarian lifestyle were not so easy to come by in the East. So when seemingly innumerable Irish immigrants arrived during the Great Potato Famine of the late 1840s, free land for all was out of the question. These settlers were instead put to work building railroads, coal mines, bridges, and canals. Whenever they came, Irish settlers made an inestimable contribution to the building of the New World. Early North American immigration records have revealed a number of people bearing the Irish name Silifan or a variant listed above, including: D. Siliphant landed in America in 1840.