INTRODUCTION TO THIS WEB SITE

OBJECTIVES, ORIGINS AND SCOPE OF THIS SITE

THE STUDY'S OBJECTIVES

The revolving RIGGS logo on the front page of this web site superimposed over the globe symbolises two of the objectives of the RIGGS Surname Study. One is for the Study to examine the surname from all angles, and another is to research all occurrences of the surname RIGGS world-wide, as opposed to a particular pedigree or descendancy.

Some one-name studies of less frequently occurring surnames extend the study to include daughters after marriage and their descendants, even though they no longer bear the surname concerned. As a general rule, I've had to exclude these details, other than where I have details of the married daughter's subsequent death. I've only been able to make an exception where the son of a female RIGGS is notable for any reason, or where a subsequent descendant is particularly notable, such as Mamie DOUD, the wife of President Dwight D.Eisenhower.

PIECING TOGETHER THE JIGSAW

Researching a single pedigree or descendancy entails piecing together a jigsaw puzzle which is three-dimensional, showing a picture of relationships through time as well as geographical location. Its challenge lies in the fact that you do not start by being handed all the pieces in a package, with a picture on the cover to show what the final picture looks like - that only emerges progressively. Its setbacks are that you may find some of the pieces turn out to be missing or partly damaged, or some existing pieces - put in place by others working on parts of the puzzle - may on closer examination turn out to have been wrongly connected.

A One-Name Study has the added challenge of an extra dimension. You are working on a number of such puzzles, where some of the pieces may appear almost identical. Some of these may be able to be consolidated into a single larger picture, but some may prove to be self-contained puzzles forming separate pictures.

ORIGINS AND SCOPE OF THIS SITE

I started researching the RIGGS surname initially over 40 years ago (though only in depth over the past 14 years). At that time one could view the original enumeration books for the 1841 to 1861 censuses. Turning over the pages to find my great-grandfather and his parents in Dewlish, Dorset, I came across a large number of families with the RIGGS surname, in Dewlish itself and in Cheselbourne and other neighbouring villages. That intrigued me into noting them all to see if they were related to my ancestors. My subsequent researches have shown that I had discovered the largest epicentre of the surname's apparent origins and distribution.

Despite the length of time I've been researching the surname, I do not claim that the information on this site is necessarily superior or more complete than that of other researchers. Nevertheless, I hope that piecing together the information I have gathered and publishing it on this site will act as a catalyst. Through feedback, it can lead to other parts of the three-dimensional jigsaw falling into place. If so, the site will more than repay my investment of time and effort, and produce greater dividends for RIGGS researchers.

With every jigsaw, you have to decide on the strategy to adopt - some start with the edge pieces, others with easily recognised parts of the picture. The information on this web-site concentrates on the UK, and on those emigrants abroad whose immediate ancestors were born in the UK. Extending it to include every descendant world-wide (although that is the long-term aim of my underlying Surname Study) is outside the current scope of this web site, because of the magnitude of that task.

INITIAL CONTENTS AND SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS

I chose to start with the immediate descendants of Edward of Nazeing, Essex, who migrated to America to become EDWARD OF ROXBURY, Massachusetts. This was because some of the assumptions made by previous researchers were based on incorrect IGI entries, and on books [S3][S5] written over a century ago which have since been found to contain some errors. I then added THOMAS OF GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts, because some previous researchers believed him to be related. As most RIGGS researchers using the Internet are currently in the USA, this choice brought immediate benefit to the greatest number.

In researching EDWARD OF ROXBURY, I was very fortunate in being able to trace his English ancestors back to MILES OF ROYDEN, in Essex, England. And very recently, extensive reearch by the eminent Alvy Ray Smith of Washington, Seattle into the DNA of the descendants of EDWARD OF ROXBURY and THOMAS OF GLOUCESTER has established a common ancestor. Alvy's research, in conjunction with Professor Robert Charles Anderson, has shown that Thomas's surname in all probability was originally RIGGE and that he came from Hawkshead in the Lake District which is the epicentre of the surname RIGGE. This is therefore a notable exception to the fact that the surnames RIGGS and RIGG(E) in principle have separate origins.

I was also intrigued to discover there had been a Major EDWARD RIGGS OF RIGGSDALE, in County Cork, Ireland, in the early 1600s who had been a Member of Parliament and the Deputy Governor of co.Cork, and this led me to research his descendants which included Lady Anne RIGGS-MILLER. THOMAS RIGGS OF SOUTHAMPTON, Hampshire was Mayor of Southampton, and his descendants became Mayors of Winchester and High Sheriff of Sussex. William Rigges, the son of THOMAS RIGGES OF LINCOLNSHIRE, was Auditor of the Exchequer (styled "the King's Auditor" in 1549) to Henry the Eighth. These two Thomases were separate people, despite some reseachers having confused their two families in the past, and their details will be added to this site in due course,

My Dorset research branched out into those RIGGS that emigrated to Australia, Canada, South Africa and most notably Newfoundland, which had close connections with Dorset through the fishing industry. I was fascinated by the large number of RIGGS that had attained high rank in their country's armed forces or had been decorated for valour. There is also a higher than normal proportion of sportsmen, academics and men of religion amongst the RIGGS around the world.

And so the site is expanding continously as I document the descendants and attempt to reconstruct the family relationships worldwide.

THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG!

This website is like an iceberg in relation to my RIGGS Surname Study. It's the visible part of the Study that's above the surface in open view. But it reveals far less than 2/9ths of the data I've collected and am continuing to collect. My other commitments in the family history world (see Geoff Riggs - the "Riggsologist") hinder my one-name researches, which means additions and updates aren't being made as quickly as I'd like. But, although my progress is more like the tortoise than the hare, I still work on this surname study whenever I can, so please keep an eye on the site from time to time.

A number of you have emailed me about family groups and individuals that don't yet appear on this site, to see if I can help - and often I can! Whilst my workloads sometimes prevent me from responding immediately, I do try to answer any relevant query within a reasonable time. Just as important is that you let me know of any omissions or wrong conclusions that you spot on the web pages I've published so far.

Despite my slow progress in expanding the web site, there's still a steady flow of visitors. But it'll be very difficult to match the all-time record of over 800 visitors in just four days. That resulted from the site being unexpectedly featured in RootsWeb Review, Vol. 5, No. 14 on 3APR2002 (not having been solicited by me in any way). It was one of three sites commended in section 2d: "Spotlight on some distinctive web pages at RootsWeb". Myra Vanderpool Gormley, the Editor of RootsWeb Review, e-mailed me saying "Keep up the good work."

That was naturally a very rewarding experience. Even more rewarding are the kind words contained in the many comments I receive by e-mail from all over the world (which naturally increased following the recommendation in RootsWeb Review). Some of these are quoted on the "Comments made by Previous Visitors" page.

My thanks to all of you who have visited - and hopefully revisited from time to time to review the new information that is progressively being added.

COAT OF ARMS

The Coat of Arms that I have "adopted" for this site is based on four of the six shields granted to certain RIGGS families in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I must stress that it is NOT an official Coat of Arms for a RIGGS family - please see the page on RIGGS IN HERALDRY.

UK DATA PROTECTION ACT

INFORMATION ON LIVING PERSONS

The UK Data Protection Act of 1998 requires individuals (or organisations) holding personal data on living persons to notify the Office of the Information Commissioner and to pay a registration fee. 'Personal data' is information relating to a living individual who can be identified from that information, either on its own or in conjunction with other information in the possession of the person using the data.

All the information on this web site is "in the public domain", in other words available elsewhere, either in archives repositories, published works, or on the internet (such as in web pages or archived mailing list messages). Nevertheless, the Act states that it applies to data even though it has been collected from a public source.

MY REGISTRATION UNDER THE ACT

I would be exempt from the requirements of the Data Protection Act if I:
   (a) only held historical data about deceased indiviuals; or
   (b) held data on living individuals solely in connection with my own studies and research, and didn't disclose it to any other person, e.g., if I didn't maintain this website.

But one of the main purposes of my "RIGGS Surname Study" is to be able to help living individuals trace their relationships to any ancestors with a RIGGS surname, and to publicise the results of my researches for the benefit of others. So, even though it has been admitted the Act wasn't intended to restrict sharing information about family history, I have had to apply to the Office of the Information Commissioner to be registered under the terms of the Data Protection Act.

YOUR RIGHT TO PRIVACY

The Act, with some exceptions, gives you what is known as the 'right of subject access'. On written request, you are entitled to be supplied with a copy of all the information I hold about you, but it also allows me to charge a fee for providing the information, up to a maximum of £10 in most instances.

Regardless of the Act, I respect any individual's right to privacy, and I wouldn't knowingly publish information which might cause distress or embarrassment to others. If exceptionally you find information on my website which you maintain is sensitive in this respect, please contact me with the details and the reasons for your beliefs, so that I can consider what changes would be appropriate to withhold that information.

VIEWING THIS SITE AND ITS PAGES

MOVING AROUND THE SITE

	RIGGS (AND RIGG)  IN HERALDRY
	RIGGS IN  PLACENAMES  (to follow)

No genealogy web site can truly be said to have been completed. That is particularly true of one devoted to a Surname Study on a world-wide basis, and the data content on this web site is still being evolved and extended. As a result, not all the planned pages have yet been published

Linkage buttons are provided for you to move easily from page to page. For pages already published, these show the date when the page was created or last updated so that, when you revisit this site, you can see easily what has been added or amended - on the pages themselves, recently added or amended text is shown in red (like this). Buttons provided in anticipation of pages which are being developed but not yet published are annotated with the legend "to follow".

Within a page, use the "pointing down" icon to move down to the next section, and the "pointing up" icon to return to the start of that page.

DOCUMENTING DESCENDANTS

Within this website, the term 'Family Unit' is used to refer to a husband and wife and their immediate children, whilst the term 'Family Group' is used to refer to the collection of Family Units that are descended from a common ancestor. Where appropriate for ease of handling the information, later generations of a large Family Group may be split into sub-groups, each stemming from a subsequent common ancestor.

Descendants are documented as part of Family Groups in one of two ways. Pages of text are used for a Group where a lot of detail is published about their lives, particularly when recording the early ancestors within a family line. Alternatively, for the majority of cases tabular spreadsheets are used to chart more compactly the descendants within that Family Group or sub-group.

The tabular spreadsheets are standard .PDF (Portable Document Format) files. To view them, you will need to have a copy of Adobe Reader - if you want to download a free copy, click on the Adobe Reader logo on the left.

.PDF documents that are very lengthy may take slightly longer to download, and you also need to allow time for the program to initially load itself the first time you use Adobe Reader in your Internet session. Once the document is displayed, you can use the Reader's "zoom" tool to magnify it to suit your requirements and then the "hand"cursor to move around.

FORMAT OF BUTTONS USED ON   REMAINING PAGES OF OLD SITE

Within each of the text pages of Family Groups, buttons are provided for you to navigate between the generations. Each set of pages is accompanied by two separate pages, one containing specific NOTES to amplify or qualify the information. The other details its SOURCES, each of which is referred to by an 'S' number, such as [S99]. In both cases the relevant text on the original page is highlighted in blue to denote a link. When you have finished referring to a specific Note or Source from the relevant page, you can either use your browser's "Back" button to return to your correct place in the original page, or the appropriate "Generation"" button at the top of the page to go to the start of that generation within the Group.

The normal convention has been followed on the text pages of listing a person's birth details as a child of his (or her) parents' Family Group. In the case of daughters, and of sons known to have died without issue, details of their marriage(s) and/or deaths are also normally shown within their parents' Family Unit, to make the pages more compact. But, for each son who may have perpetuated the RIGGS surname, his full details are always shown under his own Generation as a new Family Unit (or potential Family Unit, if details are not currently known): two-way links are provided between each such pair of entries, again highlighted in blue.

PLACES MENTIONED

For placenames in the United States, modern-day county names and States are quoted to identify and help locate the places referred to. But of course these did not exist when those areas were first settled, and some of the original counties were subsequently re-named, split, or had their boundaries redrawn. For example, the whole of Maine was originally the single county of Yorkshire (later called York Co) and was part of Massachusetts - Maine was only recognised as a state as late as 1820. In 1760, York Co was split into Cumberland Co, Lincoln Co and York Co, and the remaining counties were formed by further sub-divisions between 1789 and 1860.

I've included maps to indicate where some of the places referred to are located relative to the "main" places, such as Roxbury and Gloucester, and the distances between them. However, where possible, I've included a number of these places on a single map of the area in question, in order to reduce the number of images you need to download, and therefore speed up your ability to view the pages.

TROUBLESHOOTING

If exceptionally you experience any difficulty in viewing this site, let me know the details of the page(s) and what you were using (PC or Mac, name of browser and its version number, screen resolution and number of colours). I can then attempt to work with you to overcome your difficulty.

METHODS OF RECORDING DATES/YEARS

REGNAL YEARS

In the Middle Ages, the year was usually expressed in terms of the regnal year - the xth year of the reign of the King and/or Queen reigning at that time - and this practice persisted until much later on legal documents. Where necessary, a regnal year has been converted in these pages into the equivalent calendar year.

DATES AND YEARS BEFORE 1752

The days of the year were originally measured by the number of days before or after the nearest church festival, feast or fast. When the Book of Common Prayer was introduced with the Reformation, it decreed that the "Year of our Lord" began on March 25th - Lady Day, which is the celebration by the Church of Christ's conception, and also the day on which the original Book of Common Prayer said the world was created.

Usually, entries in Parish Registers and other records between January 1st and March 24th were entered under the previous year so that, for example, December 1700 was followed by January 1700. The changeover to the present calendar system in England and Wales, and the English colonies, took place in 1752 (though Scotland had changed as early as 1600). However, for a period before and after this changeover, some Parish Registers quoted both years for the dates before March 25th.

PURITAN CHURCH RECORDS

This potential confusion is aggravated by the practice in the Puritan Church of writing the months of the year as numbers, but counting from March as month 1. So month 7 in Puritan records would have been September, not July. An example of this is the record of burial of Edward of Roxbury, which was apparently entered under the date of "5:1m:1671-2".

DATES QUOTED ON THESE PAGES

Dates before March 25th for the years prior to 1752 are sometimes quoted literally using the previous year under the "old style calendar", sometimes converted to use the new year under the "new style calendar", and sometimes quoting both years, e.g.1671/72. In these pages, all such dates are standardised wherever possible, using the new style with the year followed by an "N" to remove any doubt, so that Edward of Roxbury is shown as being buried on 5MCH1672N.

NATIONAL GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY STANDARDS

I am not a member of the National Genealogical Society in the USA, because I live in the UK. Nevertheless, I aim always to observe their following sets of Standards. I have also succeeded in getting the "Standards for Sound Genealogical Research" formally endorsed and adopted by the Guild of One-Name Studies, and I strongly recommend them to you as standards you yourselves should aim always to observe:

THE FOLLOWING EXTERNAL SITES OPEN IN A SEPARATE WINDOW: AFTER VIEWING,  PLEASE CLOSE THAT WINDOW TO RETURN HERE
SOUND GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH	USING RECORDS REPOSITORIES AND LIBRARIES	USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH
SHARING INFORMATION WITH OTHERS	PUBLISHING WEB PAGES ON THE INTERNET	GENEALOGICAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT AND GROWTH

GENEALOGICAL PROOF STANDARD

In addition to the National Genealogical Society Standards, I also adhere to the Genealogical Proof Standard, which dictates a series of five steps that I must follow in carrying out my analytical researches:
1. making as exhaustive a search as is reasonably possible for sources relating to identity, event, relationship, etc;
2. recording completely and accurately the citation for each source;
3. analysing and evaluating the quality of data in each source to correlate the collected information;
4. resolving any contradictions or conflicting evidence with reasoned deduction;
5. presenting a clearly written and convincing conclusion that is soundly reasoned.

More information on the Genealogical Proof Standard can be found on the web-site of the The Board for Certification of Genealogists.

FEEDBACK, AND VERIFYING SOURCES

FEEDBACK

Despite my observing the above standards, very little research in genealogy can ever be considered to be complete or error-free, no matter how much care has been taken. I welcome any comments, in particular on the source or proof of information where this is uncertain or unknown. I also welcome additional information relating to any of the UK families of RIGGS - provided that, where possible, the source is quoted so that it can be verified.

CHECKING

It is physically impossible for me to check every single source, especially outside the UK of course. So, where I say a source is "said to be ... ", or that an event "allegedly" took place, this does not necessarily mean that I am questioning it, merely that it has not been personally checked. More frequently, in the former case, the source of the fact(s) concerned will be annotated "Information supplied by ... "

EARLIER RESEARCH

Dick Eastman gives the following warning when describing the LDS's Pedigree Resource File. (The excerpt is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Vol. 4 No. 49, dated 4DEC1999, copyright 1999 by Richard W. Eastman, and is re-published here with the permission of the author). His comments apply equally well to all earlier research, both into the various RIGGS families and into other surnames:

"Like all other collections of data submitted by thousands of different individuals, there is no guaranty of accuracy or of the quality of the research. The information is presented "as is" and the viewer must verify each "fact" by other means. Many of the people who submitted this information are highly qualified and highly-motivated genealogy researchers. However, others are not. Some of the submitters may simply have recorded hearsay data or may have guessed at some of the information contained. Others simply copied erroneous data they found in books, thereby perpetuating older mistakes.

"The records that I found ... often included extensive notes and sources that I can double-check. However, other records were presented with no accompanying documentation as to the source of the information. Would I use this data? You bet I would! But I would use each reference as a possible clue, not as a proven fact. In short, the information found ... should be considered as clues of possible ancestors. Every "fact" that I obtain ... will be verified by me before I enter any of the information into my ... database."

Any references in Family Bibles dating far back may have been based to some degree on family legend or hearsay, rather than verifiable fact. And, unfortunately, some of the documents that may previously have been available to verify facts may no longer survive. However, those documents that have survived are now far more accessible in County Record Offices and other archives.

That is why it is now possible to correct some of the suppositions made by some earlier authors such as Wallace [S3] and by some earlier researchers. For example, Thomas and Jane Rigges of Southampton in Hampshire were not the same couple as Thomas and Jane Rigges (nee Richardson) of Stragglethorpe and Fulbeck in Lincolnshire. Similarly, we can now recognise that grafting on to their falsely hybrid tree the tree of Edward Riggs of Nazeing in Essex ("Edward of Roxbury") was almost certainly wishful thinking.