Early Hamptons in co Armagh, Ireland

Date: 1613 to 1746
Location: Kilmore, County Armagh, Ireland
Surname/tag: Hampton

Introduction

In 1613, Christopher Hampton was appointed the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, and set about furthering the Protestant Plantation of Ulster. He never married, but over the following decade or so he settled many members of his extended family as lessees on lands belonging to the see of Armagh. (See companion page [title & link TBC] for a fuller analysis of Christopher's extended family of immigrants to Ireland.)

The closest relative who accompanied the Archbishop to Ireland was his younger brother Francis Hampton, who settled in Kilmore parish in county Armagh. One historian of the area in the early 19th century wrote that Francis's descendants had held those leases in an unbroken succession down to the present day. By the late 19th century, the Hampton family of Kilmore parish had grown very large, and many of its members emigrated to New Zealand.

This new reconstruction is based on a fresh analysis of the evidence, mostly published rent rolls for lands belonging to the see of Armagh (which only go up to 1746) and indexes of legal cases from the courts that dealt with lands and inheritances. Unfortunately, very few of these records explicitly state family relationships. The earlier part of this tree contains more certainty, but relationships become harder to identify once the large Kilmore leasehold was broken up in the late 1600s/early 1700s and the chief tenancy of lands was lost through financial hardship. The later generations are therefore more speculative in their placings, and are based largely on location (where that is known).

This reconstruction differs in some regards from a family tree compiled for a reunion of the New Zealand Hamptons, which appears to be one or two generations too long in the generations immediately following Francis. That reconstruction has three successive generations named Christopher when there was probably only two, perhaps because of a transcription error related to an early will. This has thrown off the dating of later generations in a way that is inconsistent with the source data. I have not attempted to revisit the more recent genealogy proposed by in that family tree as it draws on the parish records from Kilmore, which date back to 1789.

Proposed descent

NOTE: The Wikitree profiles are in the process of being updated to match this reconstruction, but that is still a work in progress. Wikilinks will be added to revised individuals when profiles are updated.

Detailed sources are given in individual biographies, with some high-level notes below the descendant list. This Google Docs spreadsheet also has the relevant datapoints for both the people and the landholdings.

References

• The exodus of the Hamptons from Ireland to New Zealand. 1997. [Ashburton, N.Z.]: [N. Hampton].
• Abstracts from the Rentals of the Archibishops of Armagh 1615-1746, Armagh County Museum ref ARMCM.SCA2.2014.1050
• Stuart, James (1819). Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh for a Period of 1373 Years. London: Alexander Wilkinson. pp. 308–310