Roger Williams Arrives

On February 5, 1631, Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and an important early American religious leader, arrives in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He came from England. Some of my Walker kin, including Philip Walker and his mother, often known simply as the Widow Walker, possibly Elizabeth Browne, may have been followers.  (The family house still stands. I wrote [...]

Family Name History

I came across a Family Name History feature at a site called nameLab, so I decided to lookup a few surnames. VAN NOTE Americanized spelling of Dutch Van (der) Not, a habitational name for someone from a place called Ter Noot, for example one in French Flanders. VAN OORT 1. Dutch: habitational name from any [...]

Walker Family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

There’s a great story full of genealogy and history at the Lancaster Eagle Gazette website. It’s about a family named Walker who have run a shoe store for six generations. Most of the research is compiled in the book The Family History of William Walker, the Blacksmith 1750-1821 by Thomas J. Walker. The Walker ancestors [...]

The Great Conflict

Tecumseh is a man who’d I like to know more about. It’s not that I have any great appreciation of him or of his culture. He is certainly a captivating figure. However, my interest is personal. You see my ancestors, the Hills and the Tidds, were wrapped up into this narrative when Tecumseh was alive [...]

From the Ashes

Years back, while working to find the parents of my ancestor Morgan Reynolds, I came across the name John Walker. He was listed simply as a relative, nothing more. I found this reference at FamilySearch.org. Then I discovered his parents were Daniel Reynolds and Olive Walker. Eventually this led me to a long-established family in [...]