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"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child"
                                                                                                      Cicero

"History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there."
                                                                                                        George Santayana

"Looking into history is like shining a flashlight into a cave. You can't see the whole cave,
but as you play the flashlight around, a hidden shape is revealed."
           From the book The Cobra Event by Richard Preston

The simple answer is: the Sills came from England. However, English land has had many owners throughout history. The earliest people found in England lived there during the Stone Age. They were hunters who eventually started farming the land as well. Around 2000 B.C. people came to England from the Rhine River area of Europe. They knew how to make and use bronze tools and are the people who constructed Stonehenge and other similar monuments. Around 1000 B.C. the Picts came and settled in the north, in what was known as Caledonia. Between 800 and 600 B.C. the Celts came from what is now France. In 55 B.C. the Romans invaded. The Celtic people, who the Romans called Britani, withdrew into what is now Wales and the Highlands of Scotland. The Romans were not able to defeat the Picts and eventually built Hadrian's Wall in an attempt to keep them out. Portions of the wall still survive. In the 4th century A.D. a portion of Caledonia was settled by a group of people from Ireland who the Romans called the Scoti. By 410 A.D. the Romans were leaving which left most of Britain defenseless and ready for conquering. The Picts invaded from the north while the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other Germanic tribes came from the continent. By the 7th century, Angle-land, or England became a land of Germanic kingdoms under the rule of one king. Later, the country was invaded by Danish Vikings. They were eventually defeated and the country was once again united under one government. In 1066, England was invaded by France in what has come to be known as the Norman Conquest. It was led by William the Conqueror, who was a relative of the deceased King Edward, who left no heirs. I don't know that England has been invaded or conquered by any other forces since that time, and I am sure I have left out some important events as well. But as you can see, being "English" is not as straightforward as it sounds. England was a "melting pot" of many different cultures and customs, much as America is today. As another way of answering the question "Where did we come from?", I have included a map of the British Isles. On it is shown the approximate locations of where many of our ancestors families originated.

Coats of Arms are big business these days. It is very easy to find someone willing to get you your family's coat of arms, for a modest fee of course. The problem is, they are very often poor reproductions or just plain wrong. I have confidence in these simply because they were found in books which were printed in the 1850's. I know, there were dishonest people back then too. But not as many of them. And it wasn't as easy to do as it is now, with the internet and all. Also, Kent School, founded by one of our relatives in 1906, uses the Sill Coat of Arms in it's logo. If it was good enough for Father Sill, it is good enough for me. Click here to visit the Kent School Store and see the logo with the Sill Coat of Arms.

The Sill Coat of Arms is defined in heraldic terms as follows. Crest - A demi griffin rampant proper. Collard argent. Arms - Argent. A fease engraved sable in chief. A lion rampant passing gules. Translation: The crest is silver with a bronze colored griffin (a mythical half lion, half eagle). The shield is silver with a black belt and a red lion. I have included two versions of the Sill Coat of Arms which I have found in other genealogies. Version 1-Found in "Old Silltown", page 18, by Sarah Sill Welles Burt. Colorized as close as possible to the description in the book. Version 2-A slightly different version, found in "Ancestors and Descendants of Thomas Sill and Clarissa Treadway", page 2, by Frederick Schroeder Sill. Colorized slightly different based on information I found on the internet.

Although the name of our family is now spelled Sill, it has had many other spellings throughout history. The name has been recorded as Cill, Schill, Scill, Sell, Sille, Sills, Syll, and probably numerous other ways as well. The genealogy The Name and Family of Sill(s) states that Sill is derived from Cyl, a nickname for Cecil, and that a final "s" gives it the meaning "son of Cecil". I might add that I have also heard Syl used as a nickname for Sylvestor. It is possible that it is a shortened form of the surname Cyllson. There was a Johannes Cyllson living in Yorkshire, England in 1379. At this time I have no idea if we are descendants of the Cyllson family. The Genealogy of John Sill ... states that a Mrs. Richard Sill believed the Sills were of Roman descent. This could also be possible as the Romans invaded England in 55 B.C. and occupied southern Britain for nearly 400 years. In fact Newcastle upon Tyne, one of the possible cities that our ancestor John Sill lived, is built on the site of an ancient roman fort named Pons Aelii. Although none of these theories of the family's name will likely ever be proven, they are certainly interesting to consider.

Early family historians have called Joseph Sill and his brother Zechariah "the Heads of the branches of the family". It is also stated that "From these are descended all the Sills of this country as are now known." Although they probably did not know it at the time, the early historians were wrong. Approximately 1700, another Joseph Sill came to Pennsylvania from Wales. In 1780 an Adam Sill came from England to New York. In 1819 there was yet another Joseph Sill who came from England to Philadelphia . There was also a Carl Sill and his family who came to LaCrosse, Wisconsin from Prussia in the late 1800's. How or if these other branches of the Sill family are connected to ours, I do not know.

America's First Families is a genealogical society that honors families whose ancestors arrived in this country in the 1600's. After discovering how long our family had been in the country, I did lots of internet and Historical Society searching to find some other references to substantiate what I had found. After lots of digging, I submitted our ancestors and a list of references to America's First Families. Although they do not do intense genealogical research themselves to verify your claim, they are aware of many fraudulent genealogies and inspect your claim to ensure that the references are legitimate. After inspecting my information, they determined that everything was in order and that we are in fact descended from John Sill who came from England in 1637. They made me a member of their society and sent me a certificate in the mail. I have included a copy of the certificate in this section. For more information about America's First Families, visit their website. While there you can also read bios of two of our ancestors: John Sill and James Olmsted.

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