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Subject: [BLACK-L] Re: ISO Black Family Bible
Date: 6 Mar 2004 10:54:53 -0700
This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Black, Wright, Greene, Cornell, Schwartz
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/JNE.2ACIB/99.149.286.1.1.1.1.2.1
Message Board Post:
I am sure that some of your questions are answered in my earlier messages on this thread. No, my Blacks have not been traced to eastern PA. Jacob and his sons are listed primarily in Fayette Co 1785-1815 +/-. One or more of them may have popped up in Washington Co at some point around this time.
I don't have any clues as to where Jacob was born. There has been speculation that his name was originally Schwartz (Black in German) and that it was anglicized to Black. I haven't seen any evidence that this is so.
I would respectfully disagree with your belief that any Black born or living in PA or even in the eastern part were related. Black is simply too common a name. I face the same problem with my Wright surname. Everywhere I turn there are two or more unrelated William Wrights living contemporaneusly in the same community. Descendants of both argue back and forth about which is which and are they related, ad nauseum.
In the late 1700s, in Hunterdon Co, NJ, there are two families headed by a William Cornell. One is of English origin, descended from Thomas Cornell who settled in RI. The other is from a family who settled in New Amsterdam in the early 1600s -- probably of French Huguenot extraction. The challenge for those of us who descend from one of these William Cornells is to identify which records refer to which William. This is not always easy.
I have another Black family that settled in Adams/Highland Co, OH, at the same time as my Wrights did 1799-1815. Also in Adams Co at the same time are completely unrelated lines of Wrights and Blacks that came from Fayette Co, PA. The Blacks from Fayette that moved to Adams Co, OH, have not been connected with my Blacks that lived in Fayette. Could they be related? Possibly. But they are not related to my Blacks and Wrights who also settled in Adams Co from Virginia and Kentucky.
You can check out the website I have on identifying the three John Greenes that settled in RI in the mid-1600s. http://www.hal-pc.org/~wmewrght/greenjr.html
So be careful of sweeping statements such as everyone with a common surname are related. Even when they live in the same area during the same time period, they are not necessarily related. I suggest starting a Black family DNA project that can help prove or disprove relationships among families surnamed Black. Look at: http://www.familytreedna.com/surname.asp
With respect to the name George Washington Black. You don't give information on dates or location. But can you document from original sources the name? Or was the name simply passed down in the family? The reason I ask is that when I began tracing my family tree 30+ years ago, my grandmother told me that my gg-gf was George Washington Wright. I spent considerable time and effort trying to find George. I finally found him, but he wasn't George at all. His name was always written Washington. He was born in 1812 and died in 1887. For obvious reasons, oral tradition in the family had added the George to his name.
Middle names are seldom spelled out in the records, particularly in the 1800s and earlier. The best we normally find in the records is a middle initial and that we have to guess at because of the handwriting. Sometimes the records flip the names so Alexander M. Wright is known as Malcolm Wright or even Michael Wright or A M. Wright or Malcolm A. Wright or Michael A. Wright. If you found his name written out in full as Alexander Malcolm or Alexander Michael Wright, it would be cause for a celebration. My example, here is an actual person born in 1809 who died after 1880. His name is presented in various ways and spellings in the records and has resulted in confusion among his descendants.
Another issue: the predominance of male children. Jacob Black had 8 children: 4 boys and 4 girls.
But look what happens in other early families in my ancestry. William Wright, b 1707; d 1776. His will names 5 sons and mentions but does not name 4 daughters. Baptismal records are available for only one son and two of the daughters. We have been able to track descendants of the five sons. Current thought is that he actually may have had 11 children, two sons died early. We know nothing with respect to three of the daughters, except that two of them were baptized.
My immigrant John Greene family in RI has a list of 7 sons and 1 daughter. The list is probably incomplete with respect to the daughters.
My point is, that sons are more likely to be listed and identified in the records than daughters. So just because you find an abundance of sons, does not necessarily mean that there were few or no daughters. How do you know the list of children is complete? Since I don't know the source of your information, I can't answer that question for you.
Twins, of course, seem to run in families. None show up among my Black families.
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