Thursday, July 7, 2011

Dr. William Reppe/Rippy/Rippey

Genealogy boards have reported that the Rippey family originated when a Dr. William R.. emigrated to the UK. Marjorie passes on information from an UlsterScots newspaper article, which also stimulated bit more research.


Dr. William Reppe had a flourishing medical practice in Paris.  He fled Paris probably after August 24, 1572, the date of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestants. While most Huguenot refugees who came to Britain settled in England, the good doctor went to Scotland.

There he apparently became friends with the Hamiltons, because in 1610 he moves to Ulster (County Tyrone) as part of the Hamilton/Montgomery settlement.  (That's the settlement in which a Harshaw also took part.)


There's a commune (town) called "Reppe" on the eastern border of France, about 30 miles north of Basel Switzerland, which might possibly be an ancestral home.



View Reppe/Rippy in a larger map