According to the Library of Congress card catalogue, all spellings of the names Pendergrass, Pendergraft, Pendergast, Pendergrast, etc., derive from the name PRENDERGRAST.  The earliest reference to a Prendergast is in the history of the Norman Conquest of Ireland, when a knight named Maurice Fitzgerald de Prednergast accompanied Fitzstephen, Earl of Pembroke, called "Strongbow," in the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, landing at Bag-au-bon in County Wexford the second of May 1169.  The Normans took less than a year to subdue the Danish overlords of Ireland, and the conquerors divided up the countryside into feudal estates for themselves as they had done in England a century earlier.

Sir Maurice Fitzgerald de Prendergast and his descendants established houses in Mayo, Galway, Limerick, Tipperary, Wexford, and Kilkenny, built some thirty-nine castles, and founded the earldoms of Desmond and Kildare, the baronies of Nass and Gort, and other noble families.  The use of surnames, as we know them today, was just beginning, and the sons of Maurice took various surnames:  Prendergast (spelled variously), Maurice (Morris), Macmaurice, and Fitzmaurice.  "Mac" and "Fitz" mean "son of."  Thus, the true family name, in terms of modern surname usage, is actually Gerald, which derives from the Italian Gheraldi.  The various branches of the descendants of the sons of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald de Prendergast are referred to in Irish History as the Geraldine families (rhymes with Valentine).  Prendergast is a place name, a parish adjoining Haverford in Pembroke shire, Wales, the home of Maurice.  See Irish Family Names by Captain Patrick Kelly.

Maurice Fitzgerald de Prendergast was a son of Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, called "The Great," King of South Wales, of the family and lineage of the Tudor Kings of England, who ruled England from the accession of Henry VII in 1485 until the death of Elizabeth in 1603.  The Princess Nesta married Gerald, steward of Pembroke, of the parish of Prendergast, where they lived and raised their family.  Gerald was the son of Walter Fitzotho (Gerald) and Gladys, daughter of the King of North Wales.

Walter Fitzotho (Gerald) was the son of Lord Otho Gheraldi of Germany.  He was a member of the families of the grand dukes of Tuscany in northern Italy.  The Gheraldis of Florence trace their ancestry back to Trojan times.  See the Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, quoted in the biography of Judge Ray Pendergraft.

Lord Otho Gheraldi, grandfather of Maurice Fitzgerald de Prendergast, was half brother to William, Duke of Normandy, later known as William the Conqueror, both being sons of Robert, Duke of Normandy, though William was the illegitimate son of Robert's mistress.  In 1066 William led a Norman army, which included his half-brother, Otho, in the Conquest of England.  William gave his half-brother many fine estates in England, one being the manor of Windsor, famous for its castle, where Walter Fitzotho Gerald, father of Maurice Fitzgerald, was born (also from The Dictionary of National Biography).

Giraldus Cambreusis, a Priest and a historian and a nephew of Maurice de Prendergast, says that Maurice married Alice, daughter of Roger de Montgomery, still living in 1171.  Giraldus describes Maurice as "somewhat highly colored for a man, but comely, height moderate, neither tall nor short, body well proportioned.  In bravery none could surpass him.  He was sober, modest, and chaste, trustworthy and faithful, a man not free from every fault but not guilty of any rank offense.  He was little given to talk but when he did speak it was to the point."  Maurice Fitzgerald was half Celt because of his mother the Princess Nesta, from whom the Princess of Wales descend and our Winn Family of Caernarvonshire, Wales.  Maurice Fitzgerald was half Norman because of his father, Lord Walter Fitzotho of Windsor.

In 1173 Maurice Fitzgerald de Prendergast was Secretary and Chief Governor of Leinster and lived in Ardfinane castle on the River Suir just below its junction with the River Aherlow, in County Wesford, near the Tipperary border.  He also built New Castle in Tipperary.  When Maurice died he was buried in the Abbey of Grey Friars at Wexford where "his ruined monument is still to be seen waiting some good and worthy man to restore it to so worthy a knight."  His older son, William, received the Barony of Nass, his son Gerald was given Maynooth and built Maynooth Castle by 1194, and Thomas, a third son of Maurice, was given estates in Kerry and founded the house of Desmond.  The Earls of Ormond, who adopted the surname Butler, may descend from William Fitzgerald de Braose, brother of Maurice Fitzgerald de Prendergast.  After three generations the descendants of Maurice and William possessed two-thirds of Ireland, and only about a dozen native princes still held ancestral property.  For further details se Maurice De Prendergast De Rufensi Wallise Demetis Provincia in the National Library of Wales.

J. F. F. Prendergast of Winnipeg made a study of the History of the Barons and other ancient manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, which state that Philip de Prendergast, son of Sir Maurice, married Maude de Quincy, granddaughter of Strongbow (the Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare) and inherited her right to the district of Dffry in Wexford.  Here founded the town by that name.  From his father Philip inherited Fernegenal and the barony of Clan Morris in County Mayo which had been granted to Sir Maurice for services rendered.

The Prendergasts and the other Geraldine families were continuously involved in the political struggles with England.  They usually managed to hold their land but often lost their heads.  Philip de Prendergast became embroiled in King John's shady politics in Ireland, siding with the Fitz Henry and de la Roche families and receiving grants in Desmond and Cork, notably the manor of Beuver (Beauvoir) in Wexford.  In 1227 Philip resigned "for the sake of Peace" his lands in County Wexford into the hands of the Church.  In 1235, Gerald, son of Philip, aided Richard de Burgh in the final conquest of Connaught (northwest Ireland beyond the Shannon River which includes Mayo, Galway, Roscommon and Clare wherein is the cantred of Corran).  Gerald married the daughter of Richard de Burgh and thus established a blood relationship with the de Lacy family.  Edward IV, King of England, was a descendant of the sister-in-law of Gerald de Prendergast of Brees in Connaught and of Beauvoir in Wexford.  Gerald had no male issue and by 1330 his lands in County Mayo known as the Barony of Clan Morris were held by William de Prendergast and John de Prendergast.  The Clan of Maurice of Brees descend from the original conqueror Sir Maurice.  Only the ruins of the Castle at Brees still remain.  This is apparently the homeland of most Prendergast descendants in America as the Wexford branch of the family gradually disappeared and the male line at Gort in Galway died out.  From 1251 on we find many Irish references to the Prendergast family of Connaught.  This is the storied west of Ireland which includes the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, and Connemara, the "Joyce Country" of poets and painters.  Gerald de Prendergast, the great baron of Leinster and Munster, left his holdings beyond the Shannon to his sons William, Phillip, David, Maurice, Elias, and Henry de Prendergast.  The first head of the family in Connaught was David Prendergast, but there is no extant genealogy.  "Less is known of this than any other great family of May," according to Knox, History of Mayo, pg. 321.

In January 1316 Edward Bruce defeated the English and their allies and William de Prendergast was numbered among the slain.  In August of the same year Felim O' Connor, new King of Connaught, endeavored to drive out the Normans and slew another William de Prendergast, possibly son or cousin of the first William.  In Tudor times the Prendergast of Tipperary were among the families specifically mentioned by the Earl of Ormond for suppression on the grounds of maintaining liveried retainers.  All the Geraldine families suffered during the difficulties with the Tudors.  Henry VIII summoned Thomas, ninth Earl of Kildare, to England and flung him into a dungeon in the Tower of London.  Known as "Silken Thomas because of the beauty of his person and the silken splendor of his apparel," he was too young to cope with the intrigue of the courtiers and the treachery of his foster brother Parez, and Thomas was finally beheaded, as were five of his uncles who tried to save him.

In 1598 the Prendergasts were listed among the leading gentry of Wexford and Mayo.  Jasper de Prendergast still lived in the ancestral home, The Gurteen, in Wexford in 1618.  The Prendergasts continued to hold New Castle in Tipperary and are frequently mentioned in Irish history, Edmund in 1639, Colonel Thomas in 1697, and later Jeffrey de Prendergast, Esquire of Crohane, who followed James II into French exile after the Battle of the Boyne in Ulster in 1690.  The Prendergast of France, Germany and adjoining nations on the Continent probably are his descendants.

Two Sir Thomas Prendergasts, 1660-1709 and 1698 - 1760, father and son, are noteworthy for their parts in the troubles between The Jacobites and the backers of William and Mary.  A Jacobite is a partisan of James II from the Latin form of the name James, Jacobus.  The first Sir Thomas, son of James who lived to the age of 108, betrayed a Jacobite plot to assassinate King William and was knighted and created first baronet of Gort in Galway, having switched sides, for as a young man Thomas was a Jacobite who fought against William in the Battle of Killiekrankie in Scotland in 1689.  His title succeeded to his son Thomas along with the O'Shaughnessey estates at Gort after the death of the elder Thomas at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709.  Litigation over the estates also passed to the younger Thomas and lasted until 1755. The second Thomas, Lord Gort, had no children, according to the Irish Genealogical Office, and his title and lands passed to his siter Elizabeth's son John Smyth, who assumed the name Prendergast and was elevated to the rank of Viscount.

Brothers of the first Thomas Prendergast, Lord Gort, were James, John and Geoffrey, according to the Chief Herald, Dublin Castle.  American descendants of William de Prendergast (1727-1811) of Pawling, Dutchess County, New York, claim to descend from the second Lord Gort.  They also say the first baronet had a brother Robert.  The Duchess County Prendergasts had some association with North Carolina, Tennessee and the Missouri Prendergasts and will be discussed later.  Many Irish records were destroyed during the Dublin Post Office fire of 1922 so the Prendergasts of Pawling doubtless know more about their family than the Irish Genealogical Office.  Perhaps William of Pauling was son of a first marriage which was annulled; he could have been disowned for any number of reasons.  At any rate he showed up in the Hudson Valley by 1748, founded a distinguished family, and was believed by his contemporaries to be a son of Thomas, Lord Gort.

Nearly all of the known descendants of William Prendergast of Pawling moved to Chautauqua County, New York, where they founded Jamestown, named for James Prednergast, son of William.  William had nearly lost his life in 1766 when he was sentenced to be hanged in a squabble with the British over Indian land grants in the Wyoming Valley of the Susquehannah River in Pennsylvania.  Following an appeal by his wife, William was pardoned at the last moment by King George III, on advice of Sir Henry Moore, royal governor of New York.  The Wyoming Valley was colonized by Connecticut people who considered it part of Connecticut.  See page 55.

Most of the descendants of Job Pendergrass of Orange County, North Carolina, believe he was born in Ireland.  Mrs. Jennie T. Munger of Tulare, California, a descendant of Jesse Reel Pendergrass, son of Job, wrote in her original DAR application that Job was born in Scotland, but changed that to Ireland after further research.  Mrs. Mae Pence Woodside of the same line of descent says in her DAR application that Job was born in Ireland and came to America about 1770.

Another descendant of Job recalls a family tradition that Job was born at sea.  John S. Pendergraft, son of Titus, believed the Pendergrafts were of English descent, which can be explained as a reference to a later maternal line, according to Mr. J. U. Stucki of Salt Lake City, a professional genealogist who was worked on our line of descent.  It may be a reference to the Stephens family, prominent enough to produce the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Hamilton Stephens.  But eh Irish seem to have it.  The descendants of Jesse Reel Pendergrass, first to join the DAR on job's record, says he was Irish.  Dixie Pendergraft Sollock, retired professor of history at Northeastern State University of Oklahoma at Tahlequah, great granddaughter of Henry J. Pendergraft, youngest son of Job (e), says he was Irish, descended from one of two immigrant brothers who married Indian girls.  Frances Lockwood, related to the pioneer Pendergrass family of Comanche County, Texas, believes they descend from two brothers who came from County Mayo, Ireland, sailing from Liverpool to the colonies, marring Indians.  Descendants of Moses Pendergraft, son of Job, who have two family Bibles dating back to the late 1700s, firmly state the family is from County Mayo, with maternal lines form County Clare.

The first Prendergast of record in what is now the United States was Philip, mentioned in the Virginia Land Grants of October 16, 1643, July 8, 1647, and March 9, 1655 (Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers).  He may be the same as Philip Prendergast, Gentleman, of the 1659 Irish census whose home was Killogenedy Parish, County Clare.  Neighbors of Philip in 1659 are Edmond, Garrett and Geoffry de Prendergast.

Descendants of Moses, son of Job Pendergrass, recall a family tradition our ancestors come from County Mayo and County Clare.  Traditions among other descendants that the Pendergrafts are from England, Scotland, and Germany are doubtless references to maternal lines and the fact that an Irish immigrant had to go to England in the 1600s to get on a ship for America.  There were no trans-Atlantic passages directly from Ireland to America until shortly before the Revolution when several Belfast pastors and their congregations chartered ships to bring them to the New World.

There is no indication that Philip Prendergast of the three Land Grants remained in Virginia.  Our records are continuous only back to James who sailed from Bristol, England, 1668/9 aboard "The Triall."  See Bristol and America, pg. 142, a record of immigration from that port to plantations in Virginia and Maryland. 

Early immigrants to Maryland, founded 1642, were Robert Pendergast and Nich. Pondergra, transported 1648, Thomas Pendergrasse transported 1671, d. 1678, and Robert Pendereist 1679, but these have not been considered in this study, as family tradition says our family comes from Virginia.  Their absence from Maryland probate records 1635-1776 and from records of births, marriages and burials suggests these early Maryland settlers soon left.  A family tradition says some of our family came to the colonies early to escape political oppression but returned when conditions improved.  Perhaps the Maryland settlers are the ones as no trace of them can be found in Maryland until the Revolution.  The Anglo-Norman families of Ireland usually supported the Crown and many became Anglicans in the time of Elizabeth and came to Virginia during the time of Cromwell.  Those who settled in Maryland may have been Roman Catholics who found it inhospitable after 1692 when the faith of Maryland's founders was proscribed and the colony became officially Anglican.  Luke Prendergast of Orange County and Darby of Charlestown, who seem somewhat apart from the North Carolina colonists, may descend from the early Maryland settlers.  See Pages 54 and 56.

Our lineage is proved back to Job by a family Bible.  That he was a son of William of Orange County, N. C., is based on the testimony of Grace Pence, granddaughter of Jesse Reel Pendergrass, son of Job, that "the heirs of William were Job, David, and John."  Robert Pendergrass appears in Orange County a generation older than William, of the 1752-55 Tax List, the only head of family in Orange County.  Robert is probably son of John of St. Stephens Parish in Northumberland County, Virginia, whose estate was administered in 1715 by Henry Hutson (Hudson), because no other older Pendergrass is there.  So we may consider our lineage proved back to Robert and probably back to John of Northumberland.  Dixie Pendergraft Sollock, retired professor of history, has collected family history all her life, and her opinion is not to be taken lightly.  She believes that we descend from a Virginia immigrant named Michael and has found support in public records, she says, but has lost the records in moving.  Since there seems to be a generation missing between James, the first Virginia settler of record, and John, and since family tradition everywhere refers to two immigrants who were brothers, we postulate that Michael is the father of John, and that Michael and his brother James, Jr., came over with their father James, Sr., 1668/9.

According to Dr. Edward MacLysaght, author of the authoritative Irish Families, the thirty most numerous names in Ireland today include Prendergast, Fitzgerald, and Butler.  Our family has continued to take an active part in Irish public life down to modern times.  John Patrick Prendergast, 1805-1924, Boston impressionist painter; and Thomas J. Pendergast, Kansas City political figure born 1872 in St. Joseph, Missouri, son of Michael and Mary Pendergast, both born in Ireland.  Tom Pendergast, badly hurt by his political enemies, died in December 1944 only a week before his protégé Harry Truman was sworn in as Vice President of the United States, loyal to his old friend and mentor throughout Pendergast's stormy but successful career.  See page 60.

Maurice Brazil Prendergast was born in Newfoundland, son of Maurice Prendergast, owner of a trading post, and Mary Malvina Germaine, Grench Huguenot.  Maurice Sr. is probably son of James L. Prendergast, Irish immigrant and politician, and only Prendergast of record there before Maurice Sr.  The family immigrated to Boston in 1861 and young Maurice later claimed he was born that year in Boston, but the bible of his brother Charles, also an artist, says that Maurice and his twin sister were born October 10, 1859, in St. John's, Newfoundland.  he died unmarried in New York City, Feb 1, 1924.

A history of the Prendergast family of Ireland is in the main a tale of honor an pride, although there are dark and tragic passages, especially in the records of the Butler house of Ormond.  Henry VIII considered the Geraldine families a major obstacle in his plan to subdue Ireland.  It mattered little that his second wife, Anne Boleyn, was a granddaughter of the Earl of Ormond and that Henry himself was a Tudor descendant of the Prince of Wales.  King Henry said, "I killed silken Thomas and his uncles so those people should never conquer Ireland as long as any of them breathe in the whole world."

A better memory of the Irish episode is the quiet view quoted from the biography of Judge Ray Pendergraft:  "Carton, near the old castle, is now the seat of this family.  Its head is the Duke of Leinster.  I, this author, went to see if I could be admitted to the castle to see the old portraits.  I came to a house as big as a wing of Versailles, an old servant took me in, the present Lady Nesta Fitzgerald showed me through the gallery, and I saw among others, portraits of the Gerald of old days, and another by Hobein.  This Gerald was a very learned man; he had a library among the best of the times, books in Latin, English, French, and Gaelic.  The Geraldines produced men who were Irish and who were European.  This Gerald's wife was a lovely creature, delicate face, long brown eyes; she was Pamela, daughter of William de Geulis, Duke de Orleans."

How does your family spell the name?

When our ancestors began to arrive along the Atlantic coast their predominately English neighbors immediately anglicized the name Prendergast and the problem of spelling has been with us ever since.  Robert Ferguson in Surnames as A Science uses our name as the classic example of this process, pgs. 110-111.  "The most common phonetic intrusion is that of "r"i n a position where it is easy to pronounce, at the same time making an effort to give a shade of meaning to the word."  Thus we get endings which carry a meaning:  - grass, graft, graph, etc.  This treatment is given to all foreign names (Prendergast is Welsh) as they are absorbed into English.  As a result some old names of foreign origin are spelled as many as 200 different ways, according to The Genealogical Helper.  Army clerks are adept at this process, and if the spelling is involved in a pension claim or a land grant, the unfortunate victim is stuck with the inventions of illiterate sergeants.

In our family the spelling became standardized in most lines by the time of the Civil War.  Before that many variants evolved, more of a handicap than a help in trying to trace the family.  There is general agreement among scholars that the original spelling and the proper spelling is and ought to be Prendergast.  The younger generation probably should make some organized effort to adopt it.  According to Blanche Pendergraft Bennett, descendant of Job Pendergrass, our people lost an inheritance in the old country because the spelling of their name was changed after they came to America.  The descendants of Darby Pendergrass of Charleston became so weary of the spelling problem they finally petitioned the South Carolina Legislature to make their spelling official in that state so it is Pendergrass there, by law.  Those in Georgia, convinced that Pendergrass just was not the original spelling, came closer when they reverted to Pendergrast during the Civil War.  The Scottish branch of the family has endured the most bizarre variations:  Penderghost, Prendyguest, and Plainderghaist are some of the Scotch creations.

Present emphasis on standardized spelling in English speaking countries is relatively new.  Common words were spelled in more than one way in the same document prior to 1850.  Noah Webster published the first dictionary in America in 1828, and the first spelling book in three editions 1783-1829.

These Geraldines, rain wears away the rock, And time may wear away the triblet* that stood the battle shock; But ever sure while one is left, of all that honored race In front of Ireland's chivalry is that Fitzgerald's place; And though the last were dead and gone, how many a field and town From Thomas-Court to Abbeyfeale, would cherish their renown, And men would say of valor's rise, or ancient power's decline, "' will never soar, it never shone, as did the Geraldine.

O" Hart, Irish Pedigrees, Vol. II, Pg. 164

* Triblet - part of a bastion.

Garret fitz Edmund Prendergast Hearth Money Rolls 1664 Moortown Ireland rootsweb.com/~irish/Tipperary 1662, the Irish Parliament declared that "From and after the twenty-ninth day of September, in the year of our Lord God one thousand six hundred and sixty two, every dwelling and other house and edifice that are or hereafter shall be erected within this Kingdom of Ireland,... shall be chargeable ... and are charged ... for every firehearth, and other place used for firing and stove within every such house and edifice as aforesaid, the sum of two shillings, sterl., by the year, to be paid yearly and every year at the feast of the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin St. Mary, and the feast St. Michael the Archangel, be even and equal portions." The tax was to be paid by the tenants, not the landlords. Lists, of those required to pay, were made by county, barony, parish and townland. The lists are known as "Hearth Money Rolls." The original documents were destroyed in 1922. The following list is taken from an appendix in Canon Burke's "History of the Town of Clonmel." The term "fitz" for "son of" was used to indi...