Wondering about my last name, any help is appreciated.

[Pigman]

It could be that your surname Piedmonte is not found it Italy very much because a lot of surnames were assigned based on where our immigrant ancestors were from. I just found this reference also to "pijé" which in Piemontese means "to take" and with monte meaning mountain this could mean to take the mountain. My surname Pigman was originally Pigmon or Pygmon and very early on spelled Pijemans and Pijemon. Could be the "j" sound and/or the "g" sound was dropped in some languages. Similar to how the "g" was dropped in the name of the town of Pignerolo (now called Pinerolo) in Piedmont.

If anyone with northern Italian ancestry is interested in comparing notes, I have done some research into y-DNA and my subclade R1b1a2a2c3 (L-2*) matches very closely to studies done of Northern Italian communities specifically Tyrol,Italy and Tyrol, Austria.

[Essgee]

The name is definately Piedimonte.

Alba Silvaggio was born on 17 Jan 1900 to
Ferdinando Silvaggio, age 24 and to his wife
Maria Nicola di Ioia.
******************
Ferdinando was born 18 Sep 1866 to
Francesco Silvaggio, age 28 and to his wife
Albina Baccari.
He married Maria Nicola di Ioia 16 Feb 1899
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Michelangelo Piedimonte was born 8 July 1891 to
Giovannantonio Piedimonte,age 30,and to his wife
Antonia Maria Cappuccilli
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Giuseppe Antonio Piedimonte was born 3 Mar 1860 to
Angelo Michele Piedimonte age 27 and to his wife
Maria Pasquale Moriello, age 28
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Antonia Maria Cappuccilli was born 29 Aug 1862 to
Michelanelo Cappuccelli, age 23 and son of Giuseppe Cappuccelli, and to his wife
Grazia d'Addario, age 23
******************

Back later if I find more

[Pigman]

I've always been interested in my italian lineage and was always told my last name was Italian (My grandpa was 100%). I've been learning how to speak Italian in college and I've been trying to find info on my last name on the internet. My last name is Piedmonte and most listings I've found drop the d or drop the e on the end. I realize Piemont is a province in Italy and I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out whereabouts my last name originates from/ why it would be spelled differently. Thanks,

Joe.

I wanted to share what I have found out about our family since my last post on here. It turns it seems our surname is actually originally from the Savoy or what was the captial of Piemonte - Chambéry,France formally of the Piedmont area of Italy. So we actually were French but Italian before that! I have found almost definitely that we came from Correze,Limousin, France in the 1600's.

So the surname has been recorded with various spellings which is a progression from Italian to Latin and then to Piedmontese or Patois and to French. The spellings are originally Piemond and Piemons then Pÿmond (Latin version). Around 1700 the records show Pigmon and in France it changed around 1700 to Pimond and then around 1800 to Pimont. These variances in spelling are with the very same people (John, Leonard, Leonarde) through the birth, marriage and death records.

Now if I can just get some of the Pimond/Pimont family to talk to me on the genealogy boards or by e-mail. I have even tried sending messages to them in French with the help of Google translate with not much success. I have had 2 or 3 very nice French people work with me on translating some very hard to read French documents and I am very grateful for their help! I have these original records on my computer and I will gladly send them to you if you would like.

The spelling of our name has for a very long time been debated but if you look at the ORIGINAL documents most of our ancestors used PIGMON.

To me this explains the reason why most Pigmans thought the spelling was either PYGMAN or PIGMON (there are hundreds of us in the U.S.). The Dutch branch of our family uses PIGMANS.

If we had more Pigman(Pimond/Pimont) y-DNA tested we could determine more the relationships but at this point only two of us have tested and the result in shorthand is R1b L2*. I have not found any of the Pimond/Pimont names, generally in France, that have tested thus far.