Elizabeth’s Journal

A Positive DELUGE of Information

And a couple of days ago I was excited about finding John Jeffrey and his family in the censuses . . . within a few hours of making that post, I was exchanging e-mails with a cousin (I have no idea exactly what relationship yet) who is one of the most helpful people I’ve ever met. She directed me to loads of information about the parentage of John Jeffrey’s wife, Jane Weaver (my great-great-great-grandmother). Both of Jane Weaver’s parents are apparently pretty well researched already, although of course I have no way to independently verify the data at this time (some of it is sourced as being in family papers held by an individual), and there is a mountain of names and info.

Within about 20 minutes of getting a bunch of info on Jane Weaver’s maternal grandfather, John McMillan, I called Grama Karl to see if the surname McMillan was familiar to her; it was not. I then read some of what this cousin had written to me, and one item she jumped all over—she had known that some ancestor had founded a college, but that was all she knew. Turns out it’s this guy.

Basically, all these folks are our Presbyterian line of ancestry. Jane Weaver’s paternal line, the Weavers, are of Welsh descent and have been in America for ages. They were originally Quakers, but a Weaver in our direct line was disowned on 26 July 1770 by the Meeting for taking a test of allegiance to the “new government”, and after that they were Presbyterians. You can read a bit about John Weaver (my 4th great-grandfather, I believe) here; he’s the one who begins the second paragraph, and the man in the first paragraph is his father.

Another line, which I believe ends up going into the Weaver line in the above paragraph, is of Irish Quakers. The cousin who has been corresponding with me says that Irish Quakers were generally not “native” Irish but rather emigrants from England. I know next to nothing about Quakers or Friends so have nothing to add to that.

Now, the McMillans (grandparents of John Jeffrey’s wife) were not only Presbyterians but Presbyterian ministers (both the grandfather and the great-grandfather of Jane Weaver). The McMillans came from Northern Ireland, specifically Carnmoney Parish in County Antrim, sometime around the mid-1700s, and settled in Pennsylvania. The Rev. John McMillan helped found what our cousin describes as a “very prestigious and pricey school” in Washington County, Pennsylvania, called Washington and Jefferson College. She says that there have been McMillan reunions since 1902, and the last three have been held on the college campus at the college’s invitation (she speculated that “they finally noticed us and figured they might get some donations”—she sounds down to earth!), and she commented that there was a fairly large contingent from Texas at the last reunion (they are held every two years). Also, she said that she had not realized any branches had gotten cut off as ours apparently has, and I have the e-mail address of someone to contact with our information and to get added to the reunion mailing list.

The Presbyterians apparently died out in our line when John Jeffrey McCullough, the son of members of a Protestant church, married Sadie Kenefick, an Irish Catholic girl (these two people are of course Kitty Lou’s parents).

So, what a deluge of information! I am a little overwhelmed at keeping it all organized, but on Monday I hope to make a dent in getting the names entered in. It’s pretty neat to have some lines on this side of the family go back so far now (the Sprongs and Ensigns, on Mom’s side, were both already researched back to the 1600s).

Posted by elizabeth at January 11, 2004 11:30 PM