Upham family genealogy

Arms: (We have been so far unable to trace the Armorial Bearings of this family).

This sirname is an anglicised form of the ancient Irish Uppain; a family descended from Ir, one of the sons of Milesius of Spain, a quo the Milesian Irish Nation.

There is a place called Upham in the parish of Killenaule, barony of Slieveardagh, and county of Tipperary; but we have not ascertained that any family bearing that name lives there now. One family of the name, however, at present (1888) lives in Dublin.

Upham is mentioned in the year 1422, as situate in the Hundred of Kynwolmershee, in Wiltshire, England, (see Kalendars and Inventories of his Majesties Exchequer, Vol. II., p. 113); and the name is also mentioned in Doomsday Book, Vol. II., p. 36. There is also a parish named Upham in Hampshire, England.

As a sirname, however, the name is first met with in the Charter Rolls in London, Vol. I., Part 1, folio 170, An. 9, John, 1208, in which Hugo de Upham conveyed by gift seven acres of land to the church of St. Maria de Bradinstock, in 1208. This church was a small Monastery in Wilts; and it appears that Bradinstock was in the “Hundred of Kinwarston, Lat. 51° 23', and Long. 1° 39' West.” The name is again found in the Hundred Rolls, temp. Henry III. and Edward I., Vol. II., p. 240; and in the Fine Rolls, Henry III., Vol. II., p. 375 (A.D. 1246-1272). In all of these Records various individuals of apparent local prominence are mentioned—all in Wiltshire and in Hundreds adjoining; and, no doubt, all related to each other. About 1445 the name again appears in Charter Rolls, A. 19-23, Henry VI., No. 93, p. 385.

The sirname “Upham” seems to have been represented in the above localities in England for many generations, from the beginning of the thirteenth down to the seventeenth century.

The first of the family that settled in America was John Upham. Camden Hotten says in his book, that the said John sailed from Weymouth, England, with his wife and three children, on the 20th of March, 1635, with a party of colonists which appear to have been organized in Somersetshire, headed by a clergyman named Hull, who had been of the Establishment.

After reaching America, John Upham was prominent in the settlement of Weymouth and Malden, Massachusetts; and was a member of the General Court of that Colony. He died at Malden on the 25th of February, 1681, aged eighty-four. All bearing this name in the United States and in the British Provinces of America are his descendants; among whom are and have been many who have attained social distinction.