genealogy 4

This post is going to start out with a general report. I am now ready to send the genealogy out to relatives and ask for updates. I've done nothing with it except format it and read it.

One of the major observations that came from reading it was that I determined that the last half of it was descended not from Robert's ten children, but instead from his uncle James' clan, who were no doubt occupying the same valley and thus familiar to them. I am just beginning my research into the area in general. It seems it is not really all that isolated, with Youngstown, East Liverpool, Beaver Falls, New Castle, and a number of other cities all nearby. It is Appalachian, but so is everything out there. It became heavily populated soon enough.

But at the time, even the river, Wallace Run, was being named after the Wallaces, and the road along it, Wallace Run Road, was where Robert chose to settle. My research isn't complete. Where was his house? Where were the others?

My working theory is that John and Robert were the pig-stealers, left Scotland, stopped over in Northern Ireland, and arrived in Pennsylvania around 1811. Robert would join the service and fight in the War of 1812. John would move on to Ohio. After the war, Robert found his bride in New Castle and brought her back to Wallace Run, and had ten kids, the first seven of whom were boys. Lots of Wallaces. There would ultimately be lots of doctors, too.

Euphalia and Orpha ended up being in the other half, uncle James' clan. Their parents were first cousins, and their dad's parents were also first cousins. There was no sibling marriages as I'd originally suspected. I'm often wrong about these things after careful study. And they weren't even in Robert's family; they were in the other half. Relatives though, as were they all. Perhaps first-cousin marriage was just no big deal in the 1800's. Some of my questions revolve around that - how did that happen? What was the result? Were there any genetic issues?

As for Wallace Run, I'd still like to know, what or who was this river named for? What other Wallaces, besides Robert and Uncle James' clan, were in the valley?

1812 was actually a very busy era in western Pennsylvania. The area was bound up in British-English fighting, and soon to be French and Indian War, etc. They'd also had the whiskey rebellion if I'm not mistaken. But the joining of the service was the turn for Robert; he went off a pig thief, but came back an honorable soldier.

By my theory though he would have stolen the pig, with his brother, at the age of only about 14 or less. The brother was 8 years older than him, so in my mind, responsible. But responsible also for bringing a 14-yr-old to a foreign country. Two of them. This theory might need some work; perhaps the pig-stealers were in an earlier generation. Or were a fiction.

The wildest thing is that all this stuff is on the web, if you only know where to look for it.

Wallace genealogy

genealogy 3

I've found through deep reading a few more details about the genealogy. I had two burning questions: What was up with Euphelia & Orpha appearing on there three times? And who exactly were the brothers who allegedly stole the pig, got run out of Scotland, and came to Pennsylvania by way of Ireland?

To start with Euphelia, I originally thought that parts of the genealogy were repeated; they were. But it was because her parents were cousins. And, her dad's parents were also cousins, first cousins. At first I thought they were brother and sister and they were our Robert's, but no, they are in another branch of the family, not our ancestors, and no brother-sister incest involved that I can see. Just two first-cousin marriages.

Late tonight I found a bizarre #2 in the middle of the genealogy which implied that Robert and his brother (3s) had cousins in Pennsylvania when they arrived, if indeed they were the two who stole the pig. That answered my other question. Euphelia and Orpha were on the side of the family with Robert's uncle, who apparently were already there in Pennsylvania. On that side it was quite extensive, but people were clearly marrying their cousins. Not all residents of Wallace Run were Robert's descendants. And his older brother went on to Ohio. Robert joined the army at the age of 15/16, fought in the War of 1812, and came back, marrying a New Castle girl and having ten kids in the valley with all his cousins and their descendants. That's what I'm figuring at the moment.

Wallace genealogy

genealogy part 2

After some time reading the genealogy, I finally began applying myself to a few mysteries that I'd carried around for years, the most pressing of which was the pig mystery. I'll get to it but first a few general comments about the genealogy.

It is labelled Descendants of Robert Wallace because that's what it mostly is. But it actually starts, at number one, with William Wallace of whom little is known. Robert is in the third generation along with his brother John, and those two I believe are the pig boys. First and second generation were back in Scotland and lost. In the colonies John went off to Ohio; they knew where he was, and knew when he died, but didn't have access to or write down his descendants. He was about eight years older than Robert. I can now see that he had a son and daughter and their descendants are findable and start right there in Ohio.

Robert married Margaret Hendrickson and had ten children in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. By the time he died everyone had all kinds of good things to say about him; he was a pillar of the community. And whoever collected the genealogy was clearly after his descendants as he had many and most of course ended up right there in Beaver County. Robert was born in 1796 and married in 1818 (?) so I would guess the pig incident happened, back in Scotland and then Ireland, in about 1808 or soon after. He would have to have been old enough to be dragged by his brother John over to Ireland, and from there to Pennsylvania, though we can guess he married soon after he arrived, and he may not have stayed in Ireland very long.

There's more. He may have actually served in the war (1812?) but I'll do my research and get back to you. To me he is one of the most important characters in the line because he was the ancestor of almost everyone on the document. A patriarch of Beaver County. The one who picked up, even if dragged by his brother, and came from Scotland to Pennsylvania, albeit indirectly.

I am still quizzical about the twins. Euphalia and Orpha. They seem to appear three times on the genealogy. Two different ones appear to be because both their parents were Wallaces, so they appear beneath each of their parents separately. A third time seems to be a repeat of one of the others and should be investigated so that I can make the genealogy free of redundancy. But it raises questions. Were their parents cousins? What came of them? My problem here is that I can't print, and because of that, I'm considering taking some time to fix the printer so I can at least have a working copy of the genealogy to do research off of. A possible project is updating the genealogy; after all, it goes only up to births in my generation, and several of us twelve cousins have died already, or become grandparents, or both, thus creating two or three more generations at least.

My parents' voice rings through the stuff I have on the Wallaces, my mom's in particular. They have some good anecdotes that sound like they are right out of their mouths. It all deserves to be written down somewhere even if it has to wait for a good story about Uncle Bones to tie it all together.

Wallace genealogy

An old genealogy

There is an old family origin story in my branch of the Wallaces that goes like this: Two brothers stole a pig in Scotland, and were being chased by the authorities, so they escaped to Northern Ireland. There, they were able to survive and live with friends or relatives, but they weren't happy. So they decided to go to Pennsylvania, where some other Wallaces had settled, and they did. And that's how our ancestors got to Pennsylvania.

Naturally I had questions about who they were: when did they live? Where did they start out and what was their transit point in Northern Ireland? It seems they were from Ayreshire in Scotland. There were thousands of Wallaces in Ayreshire (sp.?) at the time so the trail seems to have gone cold.

But I turned up a genealogy the other day, and got it off an ancient computer where it was actually in html form; I reformatted it and now have a word document that I can send around. I am not sure if it is the only one I have for the Wallaces, or how it compares to others that might be around. It had huge formatting issues and lots of typos which I only fixed if they were obvious.

I might now be able to answer a couple of questions from above. It seems my best guess would be John and Robert Wallace, born at the end of the 1700's, John about eight years older than Robert. They knew their siblings' names, as well as their parents and their grandfather William Wallace who is the only #1 character in this genealogy. Of course all of us Wallaces would like to think we are descended from a William, if not THE William.

So John and Robert are in the third generation, and many of the lower generation are listed. Nobody knew much about John's descendants but they knew when he died. Robert then had most of the ones we know, twelve pages of them, many of them Wallaces, including our own Wallace family with its twelve cousins me among them. Some dates and names are wrong. It doesn't go past my birth, and therefore was probably updated by my parents as early as the sixties when the Leverett one was made (the Leverett one now has my children, if not theirs, but that probably reflects the fact that my dad was still updating it for years. I'm not sure if there is anything updated on my mom's side, the Wallaces; this one is not updated though).

I may put it on this blog. I may even update it on this blog. If you're interested, contact me. I'll make sure you get one.

Update: found it on this very blog.

Wallace genealogy

Wallace family

Below are pictures of a remarkable family. In the first one my Grandpa Jim and Grandma Margo were still alive, in front - and we have Marnie, Emmy and Betty across above them, and Uncle Bones (Jim Wallace) above.

When they got older they'd have reunions in the dry country out by Las Vegas or Arizona. I'm not sure where the bottom picture is, but we have the same four: Emmy, Marnie, Jim, Betty.

Uncle Bones

Here's my uncle, Jim Wallace, who lived most of his life in the deserts around Las Vegas, Utah and arizona. In this picture he was in the air force - (sorry, my capital-a's aren't working) - it could be said that this was the height of his success...

Wallace Monument

I ran across this somewhere, and now have lost track of where. My goal is to do the research. In the past I have stopped at the ocean, and not looked into any family as they were back in England or Scotland. For the Wallaces, this is a tragedy, although I strongly doubt I am directly descended from William Wallace, as I would like to think. I set out that goal, to find out more. This monument will be my inspiration.