From" Sargent Genealogy" by Aaron Sargent 1895
Hugh Sargent (Sarient), the earliest known ancestor of the family lived in Courteenhall, County of Northampton. Courteenhall was the inheritance of the Wake family which traces its descendents back to Hereward the Wake, to a time anterior to the Norman Conquest. 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 transcribed many pedigrees. One of them is the family of Sargent. The rector of the church, Rev. Archibald Wake (1895) says "The parchment shows that the family were in Courteenhall in 1554, and were of a gentle blood; and possible the Sargent's were in the parish before a Wake entered it." Margaret, wife of Hugh Sargent, was the 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 Peveral, natural son of William the Conqueror, and to which he (Peveral) gave forty acres of land. It is called St. James end. Hugh Sargent must have been born about the year 1530. He died February 23, 1596 and was buried on the 1st of March.******************************************************
Possibly died 1595.******************************************************
Courteen Hall parish records go no further back than 1538. Probable that info on Hugh's ancestors would be as SARIANT, variation of Sargent. Hugh was haberdasher and drapper. Info may be in Guild records for Northamptonshire that period. Hugh probably born in East Hadden, Northamptonshire, circa 1530. Very extensive data is published in volumes 71, 74, 75, of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, under their "Genealogical Research in England," "Gifford-Sargent," which provide exceptional complete lineages back to the Middle Ages, and Royal Lines.
Birth also listed as 30 January 1556
Birth also listed as 16 January 1567