On this web site you will come first to an essay called
Papineau/Poppino/Popenoe/Popnoe
From 1600 to the mid 19th Century
At the end of the Seventeenth Century, Jean Papineau, a French Huguenot refugee from a merchant family in Niort, came to North America. He married Charlotte Bouniot, another Huguenot. Jean died when his two sons were infants; his widow married Samuel Seely who brought the boys up, first in Stamford, CT, then in Orange County, NY. These two sons, John and Peter, are the patriarchs of the two branches of the family today, the first generally spelled Poppino and the other, Popenoe or Popnoe.
Following these lines down to the present we come to: the Descendants of John Poppino, ca 1704-1785, then the Descendants of James Popenoe, 1777-1848, and finally The Popnoe family, descendants of Peter III Popenoe, mostly in Texas. There is a separate genealogy of Sylvester Newton Poppino broken out to help recent descendants update their line.
A biographical sketch of my father, Paul Popenoe, the man associated with the phrase "Can this marriage be saved?", was written by my brother. My mother's ancestry, Stankowitch, includes some teen-age letters from Germany in the 1860s where her father, later a concert pianist and composer, was sent for his musical education. I have also posted a letter from my Popenoe grandfather on his experience in the San Francisco Earthquake.
Going beyond the Popenoes of various spellings, I have extracted and annotated the diary of Charlotte's grandson, Sylvanus Seely which he kept from 1768 to 1821 giving an account of life in adjoining areas of NJ, PA and NY before, during and after the Revolutionary War with lots of details on his relatives. This is followed by a very unusual account of my 4th great grandfather Benjamin Taylor's experience in the French and Indian War, part of a genealogy of the Taylor family, including a detailed letter about him written in 1886 by Benjamin's grandson who knew him before he died. A genealogy of the Williams/Holcomb family contains excerpts from many of their letters written between 1815 and the 1860s.
| Salem County, NJ is about Peter Popino (son of Jean Papineau) and his land which went through many law suits over nearly a century and includes genealogical details on the neighbors who were involved. There are two papers on the settlement of western Virginia and Kentucky in the 18th Century. Some Early Shenandoah Valley Settlers discusses a number of families in old Frederick County, and is particularly concerned with trying to determine if Thomas Morgan, who bought land there in 1741, might have been my ancestor. Settling Along the Monongahela in the 18th Century tells the history of the settlement that became Morgantown, West Virginia, with genealogies of the leading families there. |
A section on NY families contains genealogies of families that were associated with the Poppinos and each other in Warwick and Goshen, Orange County, in the 18th and early to mid 19th centuries. It begins with an Introduction and Maps, then covers the following families: Armstrong, Carr, Dubois, Edsall, Finn, Jackson, Thomas Johnson, Richard Johnson, Minthorn/Minturn, Parkhurst, Roe, Totten, and Wood. I've also done a paper on the Jayne Family which I can send you if interested.
If you are interested in Me, Cris, or Us, click on one of these. And here are some pictures from our trip to Laos and Vietnam in 2006.
This web site is offers me a chance to share what I have collected about the Poppino/Popenoe/Popnoe family and other families with which we had some connection in past centuries, with other genealogists and family members and to learn from them. I have tried to go beyond a boring recital of who begat whom to give the context in which people lived and whatever details I could find about them. I have also tried to list sources where possible. Since I started this Web site I have heard from many people who have some connection to people in the various documents above. Often I have been able to help them and they have helped me. Thank you.
Oliver Popenoe, December 2009
PS: Don't take the coat of arms seriously. I am sure it was created by one of the firms that do that sort of thing for the gullible. Still it does add a little class to the page! Thanks to Trisha Ann Smith, a Popenoe descendant, for the coloring.
For Cris Popenoe see also www.dawn-productions.com
Contact Information
You can reach me at: e-mail: oliver@popenoe.com