A lot of people have asked me about my family tree, which makes perfectly good sense, considering my character, Torie O’Shea, is a genealogist. I will attempt here, to write a BRIEF outline of my family tree.
My maiden name Allen, is most likely Scots-Irish, originally it could have been MacAllen. However, I haven’t been able to prove that yet, it’s just a theory. The Scots-Irish, for those of you who don’t know, are transplanted Scots from Scotland, who went to live in Ireland. Many times they were promised land by the English, if they would go and farm in Ireland. Well, the Irish are a very congenial lot and after a generation or two, the Scottish had intermarried with the Irish. Even those Scots who had not intermarried, but simply had lived in Ireland for a few generations before moving on to America, are still considered Scots-Irish. An enormous amount of Scots-Irish immigrated to the American colonies and a great number of them settled in Virginia, North and South Carolina. My family tree is at least 50 percent Scots-Irish, if not more. But, enough of all that. My Allen’s settled in Virginia and then moved to Rutherford County, North Carolina. From there they moved to Jefferson County, Illinois and then eventually to Perry County, Missouri. My grandfather was a fiddle player and played his first square dance as the lead fiddle player at the age of fourteen. I can remember as a little girl, my grandfather playing the fiddle and much of the music sounded an awful lot like the highland music. His father was a Civil War Veteran on the Union side. Some surnames on this branch of my family are: Keith, Cockrum/Cochran, which are both Scottish, Akes/Acres and Chamberlain. My father’s mother was a very petite French lady. Well, mostly French. Almost all of her French ancestors came from the Franche-Comte region of France, which is on the eastern border next to Switzerland. The Jura mountain range is the dominant feature of the department (county) of Doubs and Jura. My family lived in quaint little villages called Besancon (birthplace of Victor Hugo) Arc-sous-Montenot, Salins-les-Baines, Quingey, and Levalier. My grandmother’s father was also a fiddle player. Her French-Catholic ancestors settled in Perry County, Missouri, which is just south of Ste. Genevieve, a town founded by the French. On her mother’s side, she was English and also French. (There’s a very interesting story on that branch, about an ancestor who never divorced her first husband and came to America from France with a new husband. Took me forever to figure it out!) The English branch of the family, was what is referred to as Maryland Catholics. In the seventeen hundreds the English Catholics living in Maryland, namely St. Mary’s County, were being persecuted for their faith. A bunch of them decided to head to Kentucky where they could worship as they pleased. Thus, they are known as “the Maryland Catholics on the frontier.” The Maryland Catholic’s on my family tree are: Watkins, Layton, Downs, Yates, Pearce, and Denike (although many believe this to be the Dutch name Ten Eyck.) The surnames of my French families were: Faivre, Barbier, Babey, Nicolas, Perrot, Naire, Biguenet, Colin, Jaillard, Racle, Chappuis, Prost, Rousillion, Robbe, Viennet, Premas, Besand, Maisier, Billet, Grandvuillemin (I love that name!) Ratte, Parrod, and Callier.
My mother was from West Virginia, and so were her ancestors. (Except, prior to the Civil War, it was just known as Virginia.) My mother’s paternal family came from Floyd County, Kentucky, then Buchanon County Virginia and finally, Nicholas County West Virginia. There has been a family “legend” swirling around that they were Jewish, but I have never found any proof of this, and in fact, have found proof that they actually attended the Episcopalean church early on, so it may have come from a female line somewhere. Frankly, I don’t care what my ancestors were. I’m grateful for whatever or whoever they were, because I wouldn’t be me without them. But, I do want to have proof of it, before I repeat or report it. At any rate, if they were Jewish coal miners, I don’t think they were practicing Jews, because, sadly, not a shred of that ethnicity has been passed down to us. (And I might be wrong, but I’m not sure there were any synagogues in central West Virginia at that time? If you know the answer to that question, let me know.) I would love to find proof of this, either way. This is a very colorful branch of the family. I had one ancestor who joined the “Yankee Chasers” of the Confederate army, then deserted and joined the Union side. Some surnames on this branch of the family tree are: Justice, Blankenship, Lester, Sturgill, Salisbury, Riffe, (originally from Germany and settled in Pennsylvania and later Virginia) Milton, Trent, Munsey, and Werblin. My current information on the Sturgill line is in question, so I will not add any surnames beyond the first generation until I get it sorted out.
Quite a bit of research was done on my mother’s maternal side of the family before I ever started researching. I have greatly benefited from those who came before me. In fact, I probably have more information and more generations on my maternal grandmother’s side than my other three grandparents put together. This branch of the family were quite the movers and shakers and really helped to carve out the Appalachian frontier. There is another rumor floating around this family of a Cherokee ancestor, but again, other than a lot of people saying that the specific ancestor was a Cherokee, I haven’t found any proof, nor have I been able to find a Cherokee first or last name. I know that the Native American’s Anglicized their names as they were assimilated, so I may never be able to find a name or proof. Unlike the Jewish rumor though, this rumor at least has been passed down on ALL the branches of the family tree, instead of just ours, which to me, lends a great deal more credence to it. Again, I wish I could find proof, either way. It would be wonderful to finally know for sure. I have a Confederate Ancestor on my maternal grandmother’s side, who died at Rock Island Prison. I have a half dozen Revolutionary War veterans (one of them was at Valley Forge) and two veterans of the War of 1812 and two from the French and Indian War, on this branch, as well. I also have a woman who lived in the “poor house” and had two children. The father was unknown even to her and the children. Makes you wonder what her life was like. Was she raped? Was she prostituting and accidentally got pregnant? I don’t think I’ll ever know the answer to that question, either. There’s a fair amount of farmers, loggers, and coal miners amongst my ancestors as well. And one ancestor, Matthias VanBibber, was a good friend of Daniel Boone’s and his son Nathan Boone. Nathan Boone was actually VanBibber’s brother-in-law since he married Matthias’ sister, Olive VanBibber. Some names on my maternal grandmother’s branch of my tree are: Butcher, Weaver, Miller, Manson, Brown, Peebles. The German families of Dilly/Dille, Havelar, Himpin, Grose, Schumacher, Opdengraff, Kummerlin, and Persinger. The English families of Hill, Fitzwater, Estep, Finch, Hughes, Payne, Prosser, Horton, Martin, Redmond, Dicks, Elkins, Grigsby, Dobbins, Powers, Taylor, Foster, Terry, Bounds and Lane. The Dutch family of VanBibber (one of the first families to settle Germantown, Pennsylvania with William Penn.) The Irish families of Murphy, Mann, O’Neil, Branham, and McClintic. The Scottish or Scots-Irish families of Robinson, Rutherford (whose line goes back to the 1100’s in Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Scotland) Eliott (twice) Lyle, Douglas, Heton, Halswele, McClure, James, Hamilton (twice) Graham, Lockridge, Kincaid, McKee, Lyon, Stewart, Risk, and Wallace. I’ve left out several. Where I’ve put the word “twice” does not necessarily mean I’m descended from the same branch of the Hamilton family, for example, but rather the name Hamilton appears on my family tree, twice, on different branches and independent of each other. On that note, I have about three ancestors with the last name Smith. With names like Weaver or Butcher, they could just as easily be German as English, but since I don’t know where they immigrated from, I don’t know the nationality. One must also be aware that just because a family was born in England, doesn’t necessarily mean they were “English.” It means they may have lived in England for a generation or two, but they could have originated elsewhere, like France, Scotland or Germany or any number of places. Genealogy is about begetting, yes, but it’s also about the movement of a people.
Some of the places that these families lived were the counties of Augusta, Buchanan, Tazewell, Botetourt, Bath, Northumberland, Shenandoah, Greenbrier, Clay, Nicholas Rockingham, and Essex counties in Virginia/West Virginia. I also have ancestors from Cecil and Dorchester Counties in Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My VanBibber’s were originally from Krefeld, Holland, which is now in Germany. I have ancestors from Kriegsheim and Wurtemburg, Germany. I do not have an Ellis Island immigrant. In fact, the latest ancestor of mine to come over was the Barbier family in 1853, from France. Most of my family have been in America for three hundred years and some, almost four hundred years. I believe my earliest ancestor to arrive in Virginia, was in 1630. I do not have a Mayflower ancestor. Unless there’s something I don’t know about, yet!
My husband’s biological family tree is pretty cool and interesting, too. His paternal side is mostly English and German. He is descended from the Sparks family of Indiana. His great-great grandfather fought in the Civil War. That family married into the families of Mitchell, MacDougal/Dugle, Parker, and the German families of Doerr, Schneider, Gensbettel, and Schmidt--and the Altenbergers who were from Hagneau, Alsace Loraine, France. His paternal grandmother’s family were New Englander’s through and through. He is descended from the Jewetts of Massachusetts and Vermont, who fought in the American Revolution and originally came from Yorkshire, England. Through this family, my husband is descended from the Perkins family from McHenry County, Illinois. The Fry, Tripp, Davis, Rogers, Hart, Bardwell, Hoar, Steward, Crofut, and Sherman families. The Smith family (who are descended from the Stowe, Baldwin and Oviatt families of Connecticut) the Moody family, originally from Suffolk, England along with the Kellogg, Deming, and Pomeroy family. The Shumways of Massachusetts, who were originally Huegenots from Poitou, France. Other names on that tree are Perry, Green, Slafter (from Wales) and Griggs. On his maternal grandfather’s side his ancestors came from the island of Rab in the Adriatic, in what is known as Dalmatia in present day Croatia. The family names of that branch are Pecarina, Gabric, Perin and Husjak. The Perin’s are actually from a little village called Rozdanic (Rozdanik) on mainland Croatia. This “Yugolsavian” branch came through Ellis Island. Joe’s maternal grandfather fought in World War II. His maternal grandmother’s family is from North Carolina. The Clayton family lived in Person County, North Carolina and they married into the families of Briggs, Combs, Long, Coleman and Cozart. The Cozart family were from Normandy, France and Belgium. He has a Revolutionary War ancestor on this branch, and way back there in the 1600’s one of his Cozart/Cossart ancestors was the treasurer of New Amsterdam, which is now New York City. Other surnames of this family are: Oakley, Parrish, Henrickson, Briggs and Carrington. The Carrington family came either from England or Ireland and settled in St. Philip, Barbados. They owned a sugar plantation and married into the Codrington family. Then one of them decided to move to North Carolina from Barbados, where they established the Carrington clan there. They married into the Howell, Pamplin and Duke family. There are more surnames and stories, but that’s the basic run down of his family tree.
I feel
as though I should point out that not all of this is my research. Much of it was already researched when I
started climbing my family tree (and my husband’s) and I am grateful to all of
those who have shared all of their hard work with us. Generosity seems to go hand in hand with genealogy.
Rett