Pinel

Pinel family page

This fine gentleman is sea captain John Pinel. A descendant, Bob Pinel, saw a picture which was already in Jerripedia's gallery of sea captains and is also included below, and recognised it as having been taken at the same sitting as this photograph of Capt Pinel on his own. He sent us the new picture from Australia noting that Capt Pinel was his great-great-grandfather, born Jersey 1844, died Liverpool 1909. The quality of the group photograph, believed to have been taken on the vessel Plaia is not good, but there seems little doubt that it is the same man on the same occasion

Record Search

Direct links to lists of baptisms, marriages and burials for the Pinel family can be found under Family Records opposite. If you want to search for records for a spelling variant of Pinel, or for any other family name, just click below on the first letter of the
family name you are interested in. This will open a new tab in your browser giving you a list of family names beginning with that letter,
for which there are baptism records in our database of half a million church and public registry records.

You can also select marriages or burials. Select the name you want
and when the list of records is displayed you can easily refine the search, choosing a single parish, given name(s) and/or start and end dates.

The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.

New records

From August 2020 we have started adding records from non-Anglican churches, and this process will continue as more records, held by Jersey Archive, are digitised and indexed. Our database now includes buttons enabling a search within registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These records will automatically appear within the results of any search made from this page.

A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z

If you can help with information about the Pinel family, please contact editorial@jerripedia.org, using Jerripedia as the subject of your email. We are particularly interested in information which will help create further family trees, family histories and photographs

A blue link anywhere in the text will lead you to another page with more information on this family

Pre-1500 Pinel arms, as researched by Julian Wilson

Origin of Surname

Although (see below) it is not clear where the family originated, it is widely recognised in France that the name is probably derived from pin, the French for pine tree, and that the first holder of the name lived in an area of such trees. Where surnames are derived in this manner it is, of course, quite possible that people living in far distant parts of France could have been given the name at the same time.

Were the Pinels Basque mercenaries? Traditionally the family Pinel in Jersey are thought to have originated in the village of the same name south of Cherbourg in Normandy. However, extensive research by Winston Pinel has thrown some doubt on this theory. He has concluded that the Pinels may have had ancestors in the Basque country which straddles the Spanish-French border. The origins of many family and place names are lost in the mists of time and in many examples in Normandy of families and villages or towns sharing the same name it often cannot be determined which came first. Winston Pinel believes that the Pinels may have emerged from a village named Pinel de Bray near Tarragona in Spain and moved north to fight as mercenaries with William the Conqueror. ^[1]

Payne's Armorial of Jersey

In Normandy, in early times, the family of Pinel ranked very high among the nobility of that province. In the Record, erected by M. Leopold Delisle, and placed in the church of Dives, in Normandy, in August, 1062, of the names of the companions of William I, that of Raoul Pinel finds an honourable place.

In the Extente of 1331, several members of the family are mentioned as jurymen or landholders in different parishes. By the same record it appears that Thomas Pinel was Seigneur of Melesches, in the reign of John, but that the estate lapsed to the Crown, by the adherence of its owner to the Norman side, at the period of the disjunction of the Duchy from the English monarchy.

Among the French emigrant nobles who retired to Jersey at the time of the French Revolution of 1789, was Charles Pinel, Chevalier, Seigneur-Comte du Chesnay, and Grand Cross of St Louis.

Arms

As borne by Charles Pinel, of Trinity: Per pale, argent and or, an eagle displayed, standing on a billet, raguly, azure.

Quartering : Per fesse, argent and or ; in chief, a dexter-hand clenched, issuant, ppr., cuffed, of the second ; in base, a mullet of the first.

Early records

In a charter of between 1160 and 1170, a William Pinel of Jersey, who was married to the sister of Ranulfo de Bocleio (A Latinised version of a French name), gave land at Turgisville in Normandy, to the Abbey of St Saviour in the same Duchy. His sons William and Hamelin are shown living in Jersey around 1160-1170 in Carticulaire No 206.

Earlier records, which have not been directly linked to the Jersey family show Raoul Pinel in the Dives record of Companions of William the Conqueror in 1066; Ralph Pinel in the Domesday Book of Essex in 1086; and Rollo Pinel, Baron of Normandy, in the First Crusade in 1096.

The Pinel family must have been substantial landowners in the island at the end of the 12th Century because Thomas Pinel is shown in an Extente as being Seigneur of Melesches in St Lawrence in about 1199 and William Pinel was a Knight and Seigneur of Fief Pinel in St John, with Tesson Mill, until 1204 when it was confiscated by King John because he maintained allegiance to Normandy at the time of the split with Jersey.

Pinels appear regularly in Extentes and Assize Rolls in the 14th century. Philip, Colin and Laurence are recorded in 1309; Geoffray (St Saviour), Robert (Fief d’Orville, St Peter), and William (juryman for St Lawrence) in 1331.

William and Radulp Pinel are shown as archers in a 1338 record for Mont Orgueil Castle.

Variants

• Pinel, c1172
• Pinell 1607
• Pyne1, 1274
• Pennell (USA immigrants)

Family records

Family trees

Note that there is some overlap between the trees below, but all have been

included because some include extra information; follow different descents

further down the tree, or have been provided by different sources

• Descendants of Clement Pinel (1490) of St John
• Descendants of Thomas Pinel (1515)
• Descendants of Clement Pinel (1540)
• Descendants of Jean Pinel (1680)
• Descendants of Collas Pinel
• Descendants of Clement Pinel of St Lawrence
• Descendants of Thomas Pinel of St John
• Descendants of Clement Pinel of St John
• Descendants of Thomas Pinel and Elizabeth Messervy Added 2016

This second set of trees was researched by Winston Pinel and each tree links

to one or more of the others. There is a considerable overlap with the set

above and we are progressively adding links between the two sets of trees to

provide a complete family tree for the Pinels of Jersey and the emigrant families

• Descendants of Thomas Pinel
• Descendants of Josue Pinel and Jane Le Boutillier
• Descendants of Thomas Pinel and Marie Hocquard
• Descendants of Clement Pinel and Jeanne Mauger
• Descendants of Clement Pinel and Catherine Blampied
• Descendants of Clement Pinel, Fouageur
• Descendants of Jean Pinel and Ester Le Quesne
• Descendants of Philippe Pinel and Henriette Vautier
• Descendants of Clement Pinel of St Lawrence - 2
• Descendants of Jean Pinel
• Descendants of Philippe Pinel and Mary Anne de la Haye
• Descendants of Thomas Pinel (1684)
• Philip John Pinel's Family tree

Church records

Tips for using these links

• Pinel baptisms in Jersey
• Pinel marriages in Jersey (groom)
• Pinel marriages in Jersey (bride)
• Pinel burials in Jersey

Family histories

• Pinels of St Lawrence
• Pinels of St John
• Family of Capt Jean Pinel
• John Edwin Pinel, Constable of St Helier, and the Clameur de Haro
• Philippe Pinel, 'King' of the Ecrehous
• The journal of Philip John Pinel, Jersey-born adventurer
• Pinels in Newfoundland
• Martin John Pinel, the first Jersey patient to have a heart transplant. ^[2]

Newspaper records

• Francis Pinel lost after being swept overboard in 1848
  

Great War service

• Pinel family members who served in World War 1
• Presentation to Corporal Raymond St John Pinel, MM, at the Town Hall

Family wills

• Pinel family wills from 1663 to 1980 held by Jersey Archive

• Pinel burial records 1820-1978

Family homes

• Bel au Vent, St Lawrence
• La Vallette, St John
• Belle Plage, Victoria Avenue, First Tower

Family businesses

Family album

Birthday

Two photographs of a birthday party at the Pinel home at Beaumont in 1950 or '51. Win Pinel, who owns the photographs, recalled in a Facebook post that children from the neighbourhood were invited by his mother to join in family celebrations

Bert (1882- ) and Alice Pinel, nee Hamon (1880- ), outside their home Olga Villa, Beaumont, in 1953. They were married at St Peter in 1911. Bert was a carpenter, son of Philip, also a carpenter, and Elizabeth, nee Collings. Alice was the daughter of James Peter Hamon, another carpenter

The house copy of Albert Harold Pinel's declaration of who was living with him at Ival, Beaumont, in the German Occupation. These declarations had to be kept in view on the inside of the front door so that they could be seen if German soldiers decided to pay a visit to search for illicit wirelesses or other reasons. Winston Pinel's name must have been added to the 1942 declaration after his birth in 1945

Family gravestones

Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs

Tips

The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.

We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling

The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.

New records

Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form

Notes and references

1. ↑ A careful examination of Winston Pinel's arguments suggest that this somewhat romantic theory is extremely speculative. There is undoubtedly a long history of the Pinel family name in Spain, but there are no records of any French Pinels having their origins in Spain. Payne (see next section) has identified Pinels who were among the Normandy nobility before William's army was assembled. The derivation of the family name from pin has not been challenged by any recognised autority. If it is correct that the first to bear the name was living in an area of pine trees, it seems almost inconceivable that the name only originated from one group of these trees in one place in Continental Europe. Students of the origins of family names are far too quick to assume that if a family can be identified with a particular locality, all subsequent users of the name must be related.
2. ↑ At the age of five in October 1987, Martin John Pinel, the son of Reg and Rita Pinel, became the first person from Jersey to have a heart transplant. The operation was carried out at the pioneering Harefield Hospital in England. He died five and a half years later at the age of ten at the same hospital. His short but eventful life is recorded on a gravestone in St John's Church Cemetery