Anglin Ancestors leave their Tracks

See the Tree for the Anglin family line posted on the Anglin page; and ck the side bar for the new listing for Websites for reputable research backed up by paper.   View the documents.  Great proofs for Adrian Anglin.
Also, Isaac Anglin fights at Valley Forge with George Washington.  See the document that shows which unit he was released from.

Of Names and History Anglins and Rolands

My brother Blaine and I have been discussing the Anlin family lately and the complications of determining if we are of French ancestry or of Irish Ancestry. It appears to be relative to the exact generation of Anglins to which you speak. The migration of families and the history of the name confuses the facts sometimes, but the paper trail ususally sorts it out. IF you can find it. So in my notes I include the speculations and history, which are a guide to my research. Then I include the things I rule out and the things I confirm. I may even include my speculations just so I can remember them later when I am in full blown reasearch mode.

When sorting out, my Roland family line, I had eliminated enough counties that I didn't find our ancestor Charles Henry Roland, until I only had two counties left, in which I couldn't find him. I was looking for him in his late teens to the years as a young married man.He was in transition as a Revolutionary Soldier, and had not yet settled on his land from grants, which would be given him for service as a Soldier. Add to that, the fact that counties and states were dividing and subdividing, changing boundaries faster than you can keep up with, and I had to know exactly what the map looked like during the specific years when I was looking for Charles. To complicate matters, I had been looking under the spelling Roland, and discovered that there were at least 3 other spellings I had to seriously look under. I finally found his militrary record and realized, if I was looking for him during the Revolutionary war years, or just prior to that, I had to use the military spelling. So now I narrowed it down to 2 counties, and one name. I found an index record that showed someone with what seemed to be him in a certain book. So I recorded the name of the book. And tried to keep it front and center in my search list. I went on line and spent hours looking through the records for one of the two counties - Anson. A particuar Roland who was not our family had pages and pages to sort through, but I finally determined that our Charles was not there. So it left one county to research, and it fit with where he should have been. Rowan. I went to Raleigh but with the wrong spelling, so found nothing in the library. I searched online and couldn't find it. But one day we were in Georgia at a small genealogy library in Cumming. There on the first line of shelves, top shelf, first row, was the little book on my search list. I couldn't believe it! Rowan county records for the very years I needed. So I actually looked first for the spelling, Rolen, like the military records, and there he was. Not just once, but 3 times, on the tax lists for that county. Why was it spelled that way? Cause that is how his military records were listed, and he was still in the military. Found him!

How do I know it was him and not some one else named Rolen? The military record is for his land in what became Yancey Co, NC. The very same land we find our ancestor Charles living on and in possession of, for most of his life. It was History that got me thinking, or I never would have found him. What's more, his military record is for Henry Rolen. I said his name was Charles Roland, didn't I? Ok. How do I know it wasn't a brother? Well the land only went to Henry upon Charles death.. But Charles Roland had a son named Henry Roland, sometimes refered to as Henry, Jr. who had a son whom they also called Henry Jr. Now Henry the son of Charles once had a daugher who married, and in the announcement in the paper, he said his name was Charles Henry Roland. Named after his father, you see. The soldier, whose son was Charles Henry was also Charles Henry, but his military records were not for Charles as he was known in Yancey Co. but for Henry.

My sons have the same delima because they don't go by their first names. So official records often don't list them by the names we call them. My husband is Jimmy, but he recieves mail all the time that assumes his legal name is James, but it isn't. Early on in school, Jimmy was called by his middle name of Robert. If I were looking for him in his youth, I would need to look for a Robert. It was literally a teacher who determined she had too many Jimmy's, so she set up his school records as Robert. Not his choice or his parents', nor would he go by that in life. But for records, I need to know him as Robert. I cannot discount the unexplained name change when doing research. I don't know why Charles Henry Roland was a Rolen in the military, or why he went by his middle name. Maybe it was for military purposes to protect him or his family if captured. Nor do I know why he was known as Charles for the rest of his life, but he chose to use the name Henry to call his son by. Which explains why the grandson eventually became known as Henry JR, not the 3rd. Simple when you know the whole story.  Most researchers only know of Charles Roland, his son Henry Roland, and his son Henry Roland Jr.  I have never found a single entry which has noted that the elder Roland was Charles Henry, whose son was Charles Henry, whose Son was James Henry Roland Jr.

I accept those idiosyncrasies easily now, and explain them later. And I get a whole lot further in my research.

Here are my notes on the Anglin family discussion: From my Family Tree notes page -

"Researchers all over, whose oldest known ancestor is "Adrion Anglen", disagree on who his father actually is. Most agree that at least some legitamate documents name a William as his father. There was, in the immediate area near where Adrian lived, a William who is believed to be from France who, as headwright, was given land in 1705 in VA, and who traveled through England to America, where he lived in the area of his land grant the rest of his life. Some believe this is Adrian's father. There is however another line of Anglens, living in the same area whose presence and naming patterns confuse things a bit. They also have a William whose birthday and wife's name are almost the same as our Adrian's son William. This William settled in Caswell County, NC, and long was thought by researchers to be the ancestor of Anglins in Yancey County and in Forsyth Co. Ga. as well. But the connections were made only with difficulty. It is entirely possible that the headright William might have been HIS grandfather,(Caswell Co., NC's William,) not ours. *Or possibly he was the grandfather to both. It is said that the documents for this county were burned during the Civil War and it is nearly impossible to make all the connections finite.

One alternate way to make this definition is through DNA research, which for the Anglin family is gaining more tested results every month. A clearer picture is forming through the actual bloodlines than through records in this case. Although I read in some researchers notes that the aforementioned William who is not our Grandfather, is also not related to us; that assumption is not exactly correct. The markers that distinguish our line from his are different, but most of the markers that make us both Anglins are the same. This is a fact that indicated to me that somewhere back there, we had the same ancestors.*

One thing is certain. The name which is said to have been on the ship manifest for the elder William Anglin was Guillaume Englen. That is French. Adrion is French (pronounced Ah DREE ON). The origin of the name reguardless of where Adrian's father came from is French. After researching the Anglin name in other areas of the world, I found the families always originated in France. Even the ones whose name goes back for hundreds of years in Ireland, came from France. All the Englens" I could find in America that still spell the name that way, came from the Scandinavian countries, but their ancestors came from France. All the Anglens, Anglins, and Englens and Angels that came from England originated in France. Many Anglins settled in Canada and their ancestors are from France. So whether we can trace the exact names or not, the name itself came from France and it means "Angel". The direct translation for Englen (pronounced ON GLON) is Angel. A further testament to that is found within our family itself. There are branches within our own line who spell their name Angel, indicating someone back there knew what it meant. There are neighbors in Yancey county who descend from those who spelled it Angel.

There are at least two records I saw transcribed that I couldn't copy, where Adrion's name was spelled Englen. Even in these notes I have used Adrion's original spelling which is French because in the earliest records that is how he is found - Adrion Englen.

There is one line of researchers who mistakenly started with the Anglicised form of the name - Anglen, and went backwards doing research in France seeking ancestors with names like Angloin, Aglon, etc. Their mistake is that they did not correctly translate the language from Old English back to french. Because in Old English, it does not begin with an A. (See the book for a page with the online dictionary definition.)"

 

 

Men of the Revolutionary War

For all the years I studied history in school, I really didn't have any concept that I had relatives who fought in the Revolutionary war.  But as I started to research family, I found a couple of individuals who were well documented as being soldiers in that war, and was delighted to know there were a couple. But as I continue to research, I have come to realize that possibly every male ancestor our family has in that time, was a soldier for the Revolution. I began to suspect this was true when I first knew that the frontiersmen who were settling the areas along the Alleghaney and Appalachain mountains along the "western frontier" of  the new "nation" of the United States were traveling there in "Companies."  The early Census records of 1790, 1800, 1810, and 1820 sometimes list the companies to which families were assigned. Settlers from the mid-century of the 1700's are often found in jobs like surveying, formation of court systems, road building, and fort building.  Some of these men are still being called Captain for instance. They ususally arrived to the areas with grants, or to draw lotteries, led by one individual, for whom the company is sometimes named. But as I searched, I found that our ancestors may not all have a plaque or sign erected to support the claim they fought in the Revolution, but so far, I believe that virtually everyone did.  It is in fact by virtue of their participation that the land was made availble to them in the first place.  I can't be sure that all of them were delighted to find their allotment to be on the side of a mountain, but it seems that most were given an opportunity to chose and mark off their land for themselves. 
For example, our ancestor, Isaac Anglin came to Burke Co., NC from Virginia/W. Virginia as a member of the 11 &12th Companies which arrived prior to 1790 when the first US Census was taken. His name is mispelled as Isaac Anging on the document. Initially, records indicate that the Anglin families arrived into the Suannanoah River Township region of what was then Burke but became Buncombe Co., NC and is now Madison Co. (east of Asheville.)  I don't know yet if the lands earned were there, or if the family simply stayed there a few years while they made the necessary development to lands in Yancey Co., to make the claims legitamate. It was Burke Co. before it was Buncombe/Burke (1791) before it was Yancey Co. (1833) where our Anglin families eventually settled.  In General, the 11th and 12th Company lands became part of Buncombe Co, in 1791 when the county was established.  How do I know Isaac got his land this way? In the Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants, pg 11, Isaac Anglin of Va. is granted 100 acres on 7 Nov. 1783. His record showed he was a Private.  There are other records that verify this. I found:
"Burke County, NC - Deeds - North Carolina Land Grants...Beginning in 1778 to as late as 1956 when Land Grants were discontinued....Burke County Public Library System, Inc., Morganton, NC. (c) 2001-2004...
SURNAME FIRST NAME DATE LG NO.
ANGLING    Isaac                1790     1437
ANGLING    Isaac                1790      1460."
Appearantly two notations if not two locations.  This sometimes occurred to enter the land grant and then again to list improvements, which needed to have occurred in order to keep the platt.
On the census under the 12th Company as well, is found a Lettie Dyer, who most likely is  Isaac's wife's mother, making her an ancestral grandmother one generation further back.  His wife, therefore also our ancestral grandmother, is Nancy Dyer and she is found in 1800 as the head of household, because Isaac died in 1795 - after the first census and before the second.  Isaac was young - just 35. It took two documents to confirm the family continued to be in the area over that 20 year period. It is because this family can be identified and singled out by its location, and singleness of connections in a certain company, area, to certain individuals or neighbors, that we can make comments about their history with assurance. When I find Nancy Anglin in 1800, on the census record, I cannot initially make the connections to all the other men and women on the page, but as I do....I discover that her neighbors, are also our ancestral grandparents, aunts and uncles.  (See the document on the side page , Roland, Anglin, Edwards ancestors.)
 Assumption - perhaps they were also soldiers...therefore I checked it out and find it to be entirely true. In fact, I find that they were still considered military when they arrived as a member of one of these companies, not as a traditional soldier, but as persons commited to the structure of military command until the settlements could be established, and civil rather than military functions could be developed. It was therefore the duty of these men to defend their settlements against Indians and non-American factions, while at the same time developing a homestead under a set of regulations that made it possible for any soldier and his family to keep the designated lands until they would become civil property, held by landowners, not soldiers.  It was a difficult, primitive task and arduous enough that quite a few of these young men and women died young.  So I am going to begin a dialogue from this generation, reflecting back about 50 years and forward 50 years in an attemp to build a foundation for understanding the whole of our family.
To do this I can take the Roland name back to discover the names of their wives, and also take the Anglin name back to discover the names of their wives, and we will discover the names of our ancestral grandparents on the timeline in this area.  We have already discussed the Silvers, and the Edwards family homes and the men who lived in them. Lets try and put them into perspective. We already know that George Silver was a Revolutionary Soldier, and it is portrayed on the sign for those who visit his church. Mr. Edwards from the article on the Taylor House below, I also know was a soldier. Anglin, Edwards, Silver. That's 3 soldiers. 
Names we will be seeking are as follows:
Roland, Robinson/Robertson, Anglin, Dyer, Austin, Silver, Gardner, Ray, Allen, McIntosh, Edwards, Lucas/Jones, Riddle, Renfroe, McMahan and Griffeth. Roland and Anglin being the male ancestral lines of course, but the others are grandmothers and their ancestors. Almost every one of these names is represented in the area census records just before or after the turn of the 19th century - the years between 1750 to 1850. That will carry us up to the discussions involving the Civil War which will be lengthy. These above are the names of our grandparents in that 100 year period. I might have overlooked one so I will note it later if I discover  it. Before 1750, the number of people habitating these areas was incredibly few. These lands were there for the taking once Treaties could be made and who came to take them?  Our ancestors!

Silver Ancestors ~ Getting to know them by name

My last post here was of George Silver, Jr., the Revolutionary War soldier who claimed to have roots in Russia, and has roots tracable to the Eastern most areas of Germany.  He built a log house in the very early 1800's and he and his sons, built a church above the house as well.  There is a great deal of history available for this man, and his family members, but for now I only want to list his relationship to us as an ancestor.

It goes as follows:
  George Silver  married Nancy Ann Griffith  begat...
               Son - Reverend Thomas Silver   married  Ellender (Nellie) McMahan begat...
                     Son - Jacob William Silver   married  Lucinda Jane Rolland (Rowland) begat...
                           Daughter - Nancy Ellender Silver   married  *William Bailous Roland begat...
                               Son - Hobart McKinley Roland   married   Nora E. Belle Anglin begat...
                                    etc.
note: *[William Bailous's mother was Sarah Caroline Gardner who married - 1.James Roland who died, 2. Jasper Roland who died, and was our ancestor,  and lastly 3. married Rev. Leander Ray. (Rae)]

In the cemetery section of this blog, I placed pictures today of  J.W. and Jane's  tombstones, and that of William Bailous Roland's mother - Sarah C. Rae, who is buried along side them. 
See: Cemeteries - this is the place on the right side panel of  this page. > Mountain Memorials/Silver page.

         

Visiting the Homes of My Ancestors ~ the Silver Home

While I am discussing the homes of our ancestors, I will share the legacy of the Silver Log Home, in Kona, NC. East of Burnsville, NC this old home is one of the oldest in the western N.Carolina mountains.  Like the Taylor house, this home was built by an early pioneer to the area, and his family ~ George Silver, Jr. and his wife Nancy Ann Griffeth, formerly of Frederick Co. Maryland.

George was a twin, whose heritage to the land of Russia was important enough to him, to record on the census records that they were from Russia. He and his sons all noted such on several occasions.  I can carry the lineage back for several more generations, thanks to the work of dedicated Silver researchers, and records that are available now on line.  I spent a lot of time sorting out George's children and their families early in my research, then happened upon the "Silver Threads" online magazine, which was full of stories and wonderful documentation of their facts. By these I was able to confirm many of my own discoveries and sort out some of my delimnas and questions.  But I longed to go see the log house they had pictured on the site.  So, Jimmy and I took a trip to see the house for ourselves.

Here you see it above, and to the left.  Built in the early 1800's, it housed a nice large family.  Preserved by Silver families through these last 200+ years, it is undergoing renovation last I knew.  The boards are so incredibly wide, attesting to the fact that the trees from which it was made were quite large.  The back side of the house has been added, at some point, and possibly the long porch which runs the length of the house as well.  There is a flat stone path that leads to the porch now, and the house faces caddy-corner on the lot, with the back of it facing the road on the hill above and behind it, where the church that was also built by this family still stands.  The chimney's, Jimmy tells me, are significant to this era of architechture. It is a stately two story with windows that appear to have been there for the life of th structure. The fireplaces on either end are stacked stone covered with a kind of mortar at some point. The foundation is also closed in with stacked stone.  It has been habitable for most of its life.

The green tin roof can been seen from the road above where the Kona Baptist Church still stands. George was a baptist preacher, as were at least 2 of his sons, Jacob and Thomas. Thomas is our direct line ancestory. The church was built between 1810 and 1820, and Jacob became the pastor there; while Thomas had his own congregation in Windom, where he and his wife, Ellandor (Nellie) McMahan lived.

  

George and his wife, and Jacob and his family are buried in the church graveyard.  Also, there is a sign at the entrance to the little graveyard that acknowleges George Silver was a Revolutionary War Soldier.  He recieved his land as did many of the early inhabitants of this area as a grant for fighting in the Revolution, but also for being a defender of what was then, the edges of the rapidly growing frontier of the newly formed United States.  Western NC had only recently become first the state of Franklin, and then the state of Tennessee. Borders of states and counties were changing rapidly. Although it sometimes seemed people moved, this old home is a stable proof that in fact, the land was being redivided and redistributed to various county names while the persons were anchored securely in their homes, loving their mountain lands.

The green roof from the church yard.

The tiny church above. I can imagine them walking there on Sunday mornings.
Below is the church itself.

Visiting the Homes of My Ancestors

The Taylor House
The first glimpse I had as I walked up Main Str toward the house. It stands beside a large old church.

Yesterday, Jimmy and I drove up to Jonesborough, TN.  I had wanted to go back up since we had taken the long way around into Asheville once and saw the sign on the road that directed visitors into the historical district of the old town, where a cabin that once belonged to the sister of one of my great-grandfathers stands.  Well, make that several greats. I call them my ancestral grandfathers so I don't have to go check exactly how many greats to write in each time I mention them.  It also depends on who we are relating them to.  I will try most of the time to say they are my mother's gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather, etc.  But for my grandsons....at least 3 more greats must be added. LOL
Anyway....George Rowland, son of Henry (Halley) Roland, (Mom's Gr, Gr-grandfather) married a Sarah (Sally) Edwards.  Her father, James was the son of John Jackson Edwards, Sr.  John Jackson Edward's sister married Captain Christopher Taylor, who moved his family to the Watauga territory of North Carolina in the late 1700s. It was the house the Taylors built and lived out their lives in, that I wanted to go see. It is a log cabin that was listed in 1972 on the register of historical houses, during a time when restoration or preservation of historical was a new idea. The house was dissasembled and moved from it's historical site, about 1 mile from where it is now.  Well, some sources read that it was 1 mile from town, and some put it within a two mile radius of where it now stands.  So I am not exactly sure, from how the sources read, if it still is only a mile away, but there are condos there now.

 Once on the new location, on Main Street in downtown - designated to become a tiny park, the log cabin was reassembled and rechinked. New shingles and landscaping finished the outside, while period funiture dressed the inside. The lean-to that had been on the back of the house was removed, possibly taking it back to its original size. Also the out buildings that were on the property were not moved to the new downtown spot.  Details and more pitures with history are given at This is the Place/Edwards.  After John Jackson Edwards divorced his wife of 22 years, Mary Ruth Crabtree Edwards, he moved to live with his sister in Jonesboro, TN for a while.  She and her husband Christopher Taylor ran their house as an Inn. The pictures here, are ones Jimmy and  I took at the site in downtown. While I sat there on the steps, I felt the same connection I often feel when I realize, my ancestor once lived in this house and I am humbled and proud. I am so thankful for their lives, for their courage to live through hardship and be the trailblazers of a new nation. This little community forged documents that are considered the first declaration of Independence from the heirarchy of England. It was written even before the national one written in the colonies proper, which led to the formation of a new nation.  Who knows if some of those ideas didn't come from discussions held in this very house?  What I do know is that this, one of the oldest remaining log houses in Tennesse, is very special to me. I am so glad we finally took the trip up to see it first hand.

  The house is featured at the Jonesborough Museum of History.  We also drove around there, and were allowed to take pictures inside.  I thought the story boards in the history room were very good. The books and references were also better than most, including some on the internet. Also, here, is a picture of just a few of the many resources which back the story of the Taylor House.  I occasionally find minor discrepancies between references, but most seem to reflect the same timelines and titles etc.

A brick walk runs up to the front door
and around to the back.

Driving by we can see this little house in perspective to its neighbors.  By law the distance between floors had to be at least 8' ceilings. Even though two stories, it appears rather small for a family with 13 children who also roomed boarders!

A replica of the house at the History Museum

The one thing we couldn't find was the buriel site of Mr. Taylor and John's sister.  I was hoping to use them to verify names, and dates.  Many of the oldest of the 1700s buriel sites in the city cemetery were heavily grown over by vines.  It was impossible to get into there to examine them.  Someone was cutting back at the vines a little at a time, but a fallen tree stopped even that effort.  I am going to do more research to discover the exact location and return at some point to try once more to get picts.  Maybe I will also take a weed eater, or portable hedge trimmer. 

This is the original location of the house with fences and the stone <edging.

There was great info in this
Washington Co. Historical Assoc book.

This story board at the museum shared details of how
the house was moved and rebuilt.

Varied books and phamplets feature the log house.
I still can't believe that my ancestral grandfather was able
to live here for a while in the days of Daniel Boone and Andrew Jackson!
Sooooo coool.

For more info:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tncjones/taylorpc.htm

http://www.historicjonesborough.com/history/history-jonesborough-tn.php

http://www.tngenweb.org/washington/cemetery/cemT_U.htm