RootsChat.Com

Hi Pierce Somerville was my great great grandfather after whom I am named.I have a useful set of family notes taken from my father's interview with Pierces's grand daughter Annie in the 1930"s. They trace the descendants of the three brothers but shed little light on the origins other than confirming they came from Warwickshire to buy horses for the British army and stayed and were of Huguenot descent and the surname was then pronounced somerelle. Like you would be interested in Warwickshire origins but Coventry was a significant site of silk weaving Huguenot immigrants. The note is too large to attach but happy to email it

I am afraid my great aunt annie's notes about the ancestry of her father, Henry, are limited to the paragraph I have quoted. However she had a detailed knowledge of her own generation and I will get the remainder of her notes up asap.

Perhaps there were already relatives in Ireland that prompted the three brothers to go there. The Warwickshire and Irish locations would broadly fit with the patterns of Huguenot immigration in the 18th century.

Anecdotally their horse selling business was driven by demand during the Napoleonic wars so this could frame a time when they moved to Ireland.

My grandfather was Edmund, one of the 18 children, of Henry and I could provide more information on his six children (one of whom, Helen, is still alive at 92), and their descendants, who live largely in NZ and Australia.

My father Edmund Reay died in 2000 at 90 and visited his aunt Annie (daughter of Henry) in Ireland in August 1937 and she provided him with four pages of notes on the family history as she recalled it. These are quite dense and I will need to figure out how to attach them as an image this being my first time on this site.

However her first paragraph may be helpful:
 
"Great grandfather, one of three brothers, Pierce, Jacques and George came from Warwickshire to buy horses from Ireland for the English army, and remained to settle in Ireland. The surname at that time was pronounced Somerelle although the spelling not known. The same pronunciation was retained off and on for some time afterwards and is still occasionally heard. They were french Hugenot stock, as were many of the progenitors of the Northern Irish where they were largely responsible for the development of the linen industry. Pierce (great grandfather) had issue: Henry (grandfather) George, Pierce, John, (never married) Joseph (died young) Anne, Jane, Betty, Mollie, Charlotte"