Norman / Palatine

There seems to have been two separate groups of Frizelles who came to Ireland - one group from Normandy in the north-west of France, and another group from the Palatinate region of Germany.

There are a number of Frizelles on various census forms / headstones that I can't tie in with the Frizelles that I have on my family tree, so possibly they are descendants of the two different groups - maybe there is no link, or else the link goes so far back that it's going to be quite difficult find it. (This might be a great excuse to head over to France for a while - all in the name of research, of course!)

I've been in touch with the Irish Palatine Association, and have received the email below from Bob Fizzell there:

"The association of the Frizelle family with the Palatines is an interesting situation. There were Frizelles living with or near the Palatines on the Ram Estate in Co. Wexford. See Hank Z Jones' "The Palatine Families of ireland." See also, "People Make Places," by Patrick O'Connor for several discussions of the Frizelles. [These are available through the Shop page on the Irish Palatine Association's website]

However, there is no record of this family coming with the 1709 migration from the middle Rhineland. There is nothing that would tie it to the Fissell family that settled on the Southwell Estate in Co. Limerick. Some members of the Fissell family did get recorded with an 'r' in their name at times, but these can be connected to the main Fissell family. One pair of Fissells migrated to Canada around 1850 and began using Frizzell, which their descendants still use, but we know how these people relate to the Fissell family and that they did not add an 'r' in Ireland.

Descendants of the Wexford Frizelles also moved to Canada in the early 1800s, including Sutton and possibly Charles. These families can be found in Canadian records. I once had contact with a member of this family [name and email address provided] who was working on the genealogy and is a descendant of Sutton Richard Frizelle. Her ancestor had moved to New York.

Frizel is believed to be a Norman name. Persons with that family name showed up in southern Ireland prior to the 1709 migration. My guess is that the Wexford Frizelles were of this norman family."

(I have sent an email to the lady that Bob Fizzell previously had contact with, so when I hear from her I will post an update here.)

Palatine Frizelles

According to Wikipedia, the Palatine Frizelles came to Ireland around 1709:

"In late 1709 a number of Protestant families from the Palatinate region of Germany were settled on the lands of Abel Ram of Gorey, a large landowner, at Old Ross and at Gorey. Some of the surnames of these new settlers included names such as Frizelle, Hornick, Jekyll, Poole, and Rhinehardt. They had travelled via Rotterdam to London, and arrived at Dublin, 10 September 1709. Another large group were settled at County Limerick, and others were settled elsewhere in Ireland. They are referred to as 'Palatines'."