Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 201, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1910 — A Corner in Ancestors [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Corner in Ancestors

By ELEANOR LEXINGTON

Gilbert Family (Copyright by McClure Syndicate)

The Gilberts must be content with the limited orthograph. Glllbert is perhaps the only variation at the present day. Gillbart was an ancient form, also Gilburd, Gylbert, Ghilberd and Gildebert. The name, according to some authorities, is an Anglo-Saxon derivation, from gild or gold, and bfert meaning bright—bright as gold. There is a mineral, bright as gold, called gilbertite. Another theory advanced has to do with a Norman derivation, and according to this, the family of Gilbert Was Introduced into Great Britain along with the Norman conquest, as gislebertus;- gisle is another form of gill, or ghil, a word meaning a narrow rivulet in a ravine—a bright rivulet,

or a sparkling stream may therefore be the original meaning, of gilbert. From gislebertus, or gillbertus, or gbilbertus also come the names Gill, Gilks, Gilkison, Gilpin, Galpin, Gibbs! Gybbes, Gibbard, Gibardson, Gibbins and Gilbertson. A certain John Davies Giddy, by royal license, changed his Gilbert. We find the Gilberts In Devon, Cornwall Derby, Sussex, Leicester, Norfolk, Hereford, London and Scotland. In Lullington,. there is an estate, or a -town called “Gilbert’s Place. The family is an old pne in Devon, where they bear the ■ arms shown in the illustration. Among pioneers and founders of towns, in the United States, are John Gilbert, born at Bridgewater, Somerset, and in 1630, living at Dorchester,

Mass., and Capt. Nathaniel Gilbert, born in Cornwall, who was living at Middletown, Conn., In 1776. ' By the middle of the seventeenth century, there were five pioneers of the name of Gilbert, living In, or near Hartford: John and Jonathan at Hartford; Josiah at Wethersfield; Obadtah at Fairfleldf Thomas at Windsor. They were from Devon, and possibly brothers. The bright particular star of the Gilbert family is Sir Humphrey, who, according to Hackuyt, was “the flrßt of our nation that caused the people to erect an habitation and government in these countryes.” Instead of seeking to discover mines and to amask wealth, as others who preceded him had done, “he sought only to prosecute effectually the full possession of these, so ample and pleasant tries for the crown, and people of EngJ land.” Sir Humphrey was the son of Otho Gilbert, and by his mother's side, he was half-brother lo Sir Walter Ra-> leigh. At court Sir Humphrey obtained! the special favor of Queen ElizabetbJ who granted him a patent to colonize) North America. He married a daughter of John Aucher, and through bis wife became possessed of estates in Kent. In Virginia and North and South Carolina, the Gilberts have lived probably since the founding of those states, and among the marriage connections are the Lewises, Taylors and Hickmans, of Virginia, all of whom, have war records. The Balengers of South Carolina are kin, and the Grahams of North Carolina—Gen. George Graham, of revolutionary fame, and William Graham, signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. We find theThmlly an Import aft one in New York state, where a town is named for the founder of the family there—Abijab Gilbert, who was born' in England, and crossed the sea about 1787.. He purchased land, and is down in the records as “gentleman.” Many places bear the name of the family r there is Gilberts peak of the Rocky mountains, and _ Gilbert islands in the Pacific ocean. The illustrated coat-of-arms is blazoned: Argent, on a chevron, gules, three roses of the field, (I. argent or eilver.) Crest: A squirrel cracking a nut, proper. Motto: Mellem Meri quam mutare —I prefer death to change. This Is the coat-armor ascribed to Capt. Nathaniel" of Middletown.