Category: Genealogy

Farson History

Farson History

by Justin Durand ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Here’s a brief article about the history of the Eden Valley.

“The majority of the settlers came into the Valley in 1907 when a large scale irrigation project under the provision of the Carey Act funded by John M. Farson, Sons and Company came to the area. The Carey Act allowed each settler to the area 160 acres at fifty cents an acre of land and thirty dollars per acre for water rights.”

My grandparents Harry Swanstrom and Vivian (Luce) Swanstrom moved there about 1934, I think. They were living in Daniel, Wyoming when my grandmother’s second baby was stillborn in 1934, then living in Farson when my mother was born in 1936.

Harke Luce

Harke Luce

by Justin Durand

Recapping: Harke Luse was named on a list of men able to bear arms at Scituate, Massachusetts in 1643 (Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, in New England (1857), 191). Beyond this nothing is known. Everything else stated in various sources in speculative.

Charles Banks’ Theory

Banks speculated the name “Harke” might have been a copyist’s error for “Darke”; that he might have been an otherwise undocumented son of Abraham Luce and Cicely (Darke) Luce, of Horton, Gloucestershire; and that he might have been the father of immigrant Henry Luce who appeared in Scituate 20 years later.

The Internet has confidently mangled Banks’ theory in various ways. It’s worth looking at what he actually said.

“The name of Luce in this country is confined exclusively to the descendants of Henry Luce of Tisbury and with one exception, no other person of the name Luce settled in New England prior of 1750. That exception exists in the person of one “Harke” Luce who was a resident of Scituate in 1643, twenty years before the appearance of our Henry Luce in the same town. This singular baptismal name of “Harke”, which the author now believes to have been a copyist’s error for a similar name, has proven to be a clue to an English family of the name of Luce living in the west of England in 1600 near the border of Wales. The name of “Harke” Luce appears but once in the records of Scituate in a list of those able to bear arms in 1643, and an examination of thousands of English documents fails to disclose it, or one near enough like it to be mistaken for it except Harker or Hawke. In the county of England the family name of Luce has been found, namely: Gloucestershire, which borders on Wales and whose chief city Bristol, the great seaport from which so many emigrants sailed for the future homes in New England. [*”The author during recent visits to England found Luce families in Cornwall, Devon and Kent, all of them having Henry as a Christian name. Scituate, Mass. was largely settled by emigrants from Kent and in the parish of Lyminge that county is recorded in 1616 the marriage of a Henry Luce. It is here note as a reference for future investigators, but the family in Gloucestershire seems to offer the more probable solution.] A family of Luce lived in the parish of Horton, county of Gloucester, as early as 1550 and they are found there and in a number of surrounding parishes for a century and a half afterwards. Of this Horton family one Abraham Luce married 8 Oct. 1604 Cicely Darke, and this name is believe by the author to be the name originally copied in the Scituate records as “Harke”, and Darke Luce of 1643 is offered as the possible progenitor [emphasis added] of Henry Luce of the same town in 1666. If not, he was a probable near relative who influenced the migration of Henry Luce and all the surrounding circumstances make this the nearest probable origin of the Vineyard family in the matter of their English home. It should be stated, however, that Abraham and Cicely (Darke) Luce had no child named Darke and the name of Darke does not occur on the parish records of Horton. The similarity of the names, Harke and Darke, is too great to be ignored when combined with the rare name of Luce, and while other researches so far made have failed to uncover a Henry Luce in the parish of Horton, the adjoining parishes still unsearched may reveal the lost record of his baptism.” (Charles E. Banks, History of Martha’s Vineyard (1925, reprinted 1966), 3:247-48.)

To summarize: Banks noticed another Luce, a man named Harke Luce, in Scituate, Massachusetts (1643) a generation before Henry Luce appeared there (1666). This is the only mention of Harke and the first mention of Henry. Banks’ speculated Henry might have been a son of Harke, then further speculated that Harke might have been a previously unknown Darke Luce, hypothetical son of Abraham and Cicely (Darke) Luce, of Horton. Banks believed his theory was strengthened, first by a family tradition that immigrant Henry Luce came from Wales, and Gloucestershire is on the Welsh border; and secondly by the rarity of the surname Luce and the coincidence of the names Darke and Harke appearing in connection with the name Luce.

The down side of his theory, as Banks readily admits, is that there is no proof of any person named Darke Luce. Nevertheless, a Darke Luce could have been born at Horton in the period 1624-1653, for which there are no records. Harke Luce had to be at least 16 in 1643 to be able to bear arms, That would place his birth in or before 1627. Therefore, if there was a Darke Luce and if he was born in Horton, we would put his birth between 1624 and 1627. No other dating will work.

Banks’ theories have been treated in different ways by Internet genealogists. Immigrant Henry Luce is usually presented as a son of Israel Luce, as if that were proven fact.

In support of this identification, Henry named his second son Israel, and had two grandsons named Israel. However, these children might derive their names from Israel Peakes, half-brother of Henry’s wife. The case for Henry’s birth at Horton is supported by Banks’ theory that Arthur Bevan, who settled at West Tisbury in 1677, and was Henry’s neighbor there, came from Yate, four miles from Horton. However, this identification rests reciprocally on Henry being from Horton.

Leslie Pine, a noted English genealogist, has said in a letter to the author he believes Henry Luce probably came from the same family as the Luces of Pucklechurch.

Harke Luce is pushed to the side, when he is presented at all. WikiTree, for example, assigns Harke a birthdate about 1628 in Horton and a death date of 1718, despite the absence of supporting evidence. The birthdate seems calculated to modify Banks’ theory by making Harke a grandson rather than son of Abraham and Cicely (Darke) Luce (married 1604), and an older brother rather than father of Henry Luce the immigrant. This strategy allows Henry to be son of an Israel Luce, as in a family tradition cited by Banks (Banks, 3:246).

Geni.com also puts Harke’s birth about 1628 in Horton but more accurately places his death as “after 1643”. His profile there has a curator note that Harke’s parents are unknown, while simultaneously linking him as a son of Israel Luce and Israel’s speculative wife Remember Munson. Caveat emptor.

Caroline Lewis Kardell’s Theory

Caroline Lewis Kardell, sometime Historian General of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, had a different idea. She thought Harke Luce was probably an otherwise unknown Archelaus Lewis (Caroline Lewis Kardell, letter to Mrs. James E. McCourt, reproduced in Martha E. McCourt and Thomas Luce, The American Descendants of Henry Luce (1991), 10A).

Quoting: “As for the name Harke Luce at Scituate, Harke is almost certainly a nickname for Archelaus. Because of the aspirated “H” as pronounced in some parts of England, Earle became Hearle, Archelaus became Harkelas, Hercules, etc. I believe that “Hare Luce” was Archelaus Luis. John Lewis (Luis) of Dartmouth and Rochester named his eldest son Archelaus. John was a descendant of George Lewis of Scituate and Barnstable. This particular line from George were all sea-farers. I think George of Scituate has a brother Harke (Archelaus) who was a mariner and came over to Scituate as Captain or crewman on one of the early ships. Scituate records gave George Lewis two full shares. All of the other settlers received one full share. Perhaps George received a second share to hold for his brother “Harke” or “Arck”. Because he was a mariner, he may never have returned from a voyage and so, [sic] disappears from the records. . . .

“My suspicions regarding the name Luce are two-fold. First, it is so uncommon a name that it is almost certainly not the original surname, but a variant. For instance, the name Bigelow is only traced to one immigrant to Watertown, MA. The name does not exist in England or anywhere else in that form, except for the descendants of the Watertown man. It was Baguley, etc, [sic] in England, but ended up as Bigelow here. Secondly, the name Lewis was written (and pronounced) in several ways in the early records. Two men named Lewis, George and his brother John, certainly were at Scituate and probably a third brother Harke or Archelaus was there for a very short period. I believe your Henry was perhaps a nephew or cousin of the early Lewis, Luis, Lews family of Scituate and Barnstable. It is worth investigating, anyway.”

Summarizing: Kardell’s idea was that Harke Luce was a brother of George and John Lewis, and Henry Luce the immigrant a nephew or cousin.

Kardell doesn’t make it explicit, but George Lewis’ double share would not have been for himself and brother John. John Lewis received his own share, a single share.

In support of Kardell’s theory, Banks himself notes Scituate “was largely settled by emigrants from Kent” (see above; Banks, 3:347n.). Further, the same list that contains the name Harke Luse also contains the name John Lewes. George Lewes’ name also appears on a 1643 list of men able to bear arms, but at Barnstable rather than Scituate.

Thomas Luce, of Charleston

It might be worth mentioning, if only in passing, another theory regarding the parents of immigrant Henry Luce commonly found–he was a merchant and farmer born 1630 in Gloucester to Thomas Luce (1600-1670?) and Sally Monson. This information comes in part from Wilford Litchfield but no proof is offered. Litchfield says Remember Litchfield married about 1670 “Henry Luce (sometimes Lucy), who may have been a son of Thomas Luce of Charleston” (Wilford J. Litchfield, The Litchfield Family in America 1630-1900 (1901), 34).

Savage, citing Farmer, names a Thomas Luce at Charleston, whose son Samuel was born in 1644 (James Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (1861), 3:127). Banks says, “It is probable that this was Lewis” (Banks (1911), 2:55n.2). Banks seems to dismiss this clue only because he building a case for Henry’s relationship with Harke Luse. The possibility of a connection with Thomas Luce should be examined more closely.

Conclusion

The Internet has widely adopted the theories of Charles Banks, modified a bit, and ignored those of Caroline Kardell, probably because Banks’ theories were published and have been therefore more accessible. However, there is no obvious reason to choose one theory over the other.

It should be noted the Luce yDNA Project at Family Tree DNA takes the official position that the ancestry of immigrant Henry Luce is unknown. One day DNA might help us choose. The male-line descendants will ultimately match a Luce or Lewis family in England, and we’ll have our bearings.

More Gunns

More Gunns

by Justin Durand ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve written about the Gunns before: Recovering the Gunn Lineage (Jan. 31, 2019), so we already know I’m an admirer of Alastair Gunn and his work putting the Gunn lineage on a firmer footing. I still haven’t done the work of cleaning up my own notes. Some day. Soon. I promise.

I saw recently on the Facebook page for Clan Gunn that Alastair Gunn has published The real history of (Clan) Gunn. It’s an abridged version — 59 pages, a very quick read — of his earlier The Gunns: History, Myths and Genealogy. I didn’t know about that one either, until now.

Summary: “Gunns are the original, non-related inhabitants of northern mainland Scotland.  They have no Orkney islands origin. Gunns are not a Clan as they had no founding father and nor did they have historic Chiefs. The first Gunn known was Coroner Gunn of Caithness (often wrongly called Crowner Gunn) who died around 1450. His eldest son started the MacHamish Gunns of Killernan line which still exists today and whose line is explored in detail in this book.“

I love this stuff. Any time someone does the work to firm up the facts, they have my heart.

So, I grabbed the chance to ask Mr. Gunn how his theory makes the Gunns any different from other Celtic tribes that coalesced around a chiefly family. In other words, why aren’t the MacHamish Gunns just as chiefly as any other Highland family? If the Gunns are, as he argues, the unrelated “people of the country”, doesn’t that mean they the old tribe gathered around and adopting the surname of a leading family?

I’m broadly interested in the various ideas of this subject. I’m often asked to give my opinion about why this family or that doesn’t match the yDNA signature of the clan whose name they bear. It’s a difficult question to answer, not because the answer is unclear, but because the answer contradicts beloved myths. The question is frequently a prelude to a complicated and highly speculative DNA scenario.

The answer I would give, nearly always, is that clans were “artificial” groups. More like our modern notion of tribes than like families. But God help anyone who uses the word artificial in a context where it can be misinterpreted to mean fake. So, mostly I waffle.

Alastair Gunn responded to my question by writing a new piece on his blog, “DNA testing and Scottish families / Clans.” ‘Clan Gunn’ history or, more accurately, Gunn history <https://clangunn1.blogspot.com/>. Nov. 20, 2020.

The meat of his answer is this. “[T]he majority of people who lived in a Clan area – or drifted into such an area – simply accepted the Clan name for convenience. This is different for the Gunns who had their surname applied to them by outsiders.“

I like that answer. It’s a subtle distinction, and no doubt he will elaborate in future posts, but for now it’s short and easy to understand.

Naming Conventions

Naming Conventions

by Justin Durand ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

One of the canards of genealogy is that professional genealogists always prefer the earliest recorded name. The idea is that name is the most authentic.

More or less true, but not quite, not always.

William Shakespeare, for example. You think you know his name? His baptismal record, the earliest in a scant collection, calls him Gulielmus — Latin for William.

Wait! Do I have to change my database so that my tenuous connection to England’s most famous playwright shows him as Gulielmus Shakespeare?

No, what’s happening here is a very basic confusion. Prosopographers already know there is a difference between having a database identifier, which can be a name, and recording all the name variations a person used in their lifetime.

In short, genealogists haven’t kept up with best academic practices. Many are still mired in the amateur practices of the 18th and 19th centuries. Time to catch up.

Almost Métis

Almost Métis

by Justin Durand

I used to think my dad’s ancestors were Métis. They’re not, but I ended up with a seemingly permanent interest.

The Métis are a Canadian group, a mixture of Anglos and Indians from the area between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. Not all mixed-race people in Canada are Métis, just the ones where the men in the founding group were employees of the Hudson Bay Company.

One of those men was John Hourie (1779-1857). He came to Hudson’s Bay in 1800 from South Ronaldsay, one of the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. About 1809 he married Margaret Bird, a Shoshone (“Snake”) woman. She was adopted daughter of James Curtis Bird.

Howery is not a very common surname. When I was maybe 13 or so and just getting started with genealogy, I knew almost nothing about my father or his family. I eventually eked out the information that his grandfather was Elmer Phillip Howery, who everyone agreed was born in England. (Recently it’s occurred to me that probably I was not hearing the difference between English and Anglo that would have been significant for my mother and some of the others I was talking to.)

I wrote confidently to Somerset House, the English vital records place. Nothing. No record, they said. In fact they had no records of any Howerys. That’s just England, though. Since it was obvious Howery is a British name (so naive back then!), I started thinking Howery is probably a Scottish name. Maybe Irish.

In those pre-Internet days each little nugget of information was a treasure. My access to information was essentially just the local library and quarterly issues of The Genealogical Helper.

I could also order Family Group Sheets from the LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake, but I had to be pretty focused. I needed to have name, date, and place. It’s hard to finesse a form when you don’t have much real information. There was no Family Group Sheet for Elmer Phillip Howery, so I was out of luck.

Lucky me. I found Black’s Surnames of Scotland (1946). Yep, there’s an entry for Hourie. I wasn’t finding anything remotely similar anywhere else in Europe, so I was sure this was going to be my family.

One of my strategies back then was to use phone books to find addresses of people who had the surnames I was looking for. The Grand Junction Public Library didn’t have a large collection but they did have some. I would also call directory assistance and do a little fishing for names and addresses. My allowance at that age wasn’t so high I could afford a lot of stamps, so I had to be cagey, looking for the best opportunities. Then too, most people never wrote back, even though I learned to type on my mother’s fancy Olivetti, she taught me to use business format, and I enclosed stamped return envelopes.

With my Howery search I eventually connected with Ian Howrie in Dallas, Texas. He told me, in one paragraph, the story of his ancestors John Hourie and Margaret Bird from Red River, Canada. I was sure that was my connection. The other people I talked to mostly agreed.

I think it was probably several years before I made contact with Pat Sorenson in Yuba City, California. That was through one of her ads in The Genealogical Helper. She couldn’t help with my line, not directly, but she offered the very firm advice that my line probably belonged to the large clan of Midwest Howerys and Howreys descended from Jacob Howry of Howrytown, Virginia, and he in turn from (she thought) the Mennonite Hauris and Howrys from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Pat turned out to be right. I gave up my Métis ancestry, almost without noticing. Too bad. I think my dad would have liked that line to pan out. Many years later when I wanted Ian Howrie to do a DNA test for the Hauri DNA Project, I couldn’t find him again. The whole Métis piece just receded into the distance, although I think there might be distant cousins here and there who still think we’re descended from John Hourie and Margaret, his Shoshone wife.

More Information

  • “John Hourie“, Red River Ancestry <www.redriverancestry.ca>, Dec. 5, 2016, retrieved Aug. 23, 2020.