English Ancestry – from the Sargent Genealogy, p15, 16
Hugh Sargent (Sariant) the earliest known ancestor of the family, lived in Courteenhall, County of Northampton. Courteenhall was the inheritance of the Wake family, which traces its descent back to Hereward the Wake, to a time anterior to the Norman Conquest. It is five and a quarter miles southerly from the town of Northampton, and in 1831 contained one hundred and forty-four inhabitants. The church is dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Prefixed to the first volume of the parish register, which begins in the year 1538, and folded to its size, is a large piece of parchment, on which is very neatly transcribed many pedigrees. One of them is of the family of Sargent. There can be no doubt that this piece of work, which is both most useful and rare, was written by a former rector, who had at first hand the facts which he recorded.
The rector of the church, Rev. Archibald Wake (1895), says, “The parchment shows that the family were in Courteenhall in 1554, and were of gentle blood; and possibly the Sargents were in the parish before a Wake entered it.”
Margaret, wife of Hugh Sargent, was daughter of Nicholas and Agnes (Masters) Gifford, of the Abbey of St James, which was a western suburb of the town of Northampton. This abbey was a religious estate of considerable note, founded before the year 1112, by William Peverel, natural son of William the Conqueror, and to which he (Peverel) gave forty acres of land. It is called St James End.
…That he [Hugh] heeded the Scripture injunction, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” is evidenced by the fact that he was the father of fifteen children….