by David T.
Hughes
i. Introduction Which Ancestors are Included? This account focuses on my own direct Hughes ancestral line. Beginning with my Hughes great grand parents, John Wesley and Sarah (Vincent) Hughes, the account traces the male line of my Hughes ancestors back eight generations to immigrant John Hugh, who was born in Wales in 1653. This ancestral line, of course, coincides exactly with that of my father, my brother, our children, and the families of my Hughes uncles, aunt, first cousins, their children, and all of my father's Hughes uncles, aunts, first cousins, nieces, and their children.
Excluded
in the text is all but passing reference to the cousins who are descended from the many siblings
of my direct Hughes ancestors, even though these relatives can claim
the same ancestral line. I have only sketchy information on all of the Hughes
and Hughes-related families from the seven generations that preceded my great
grand parents. Moreover, reporting on even a portion of the related
families would make the account too large and unwieldy. The huge size, for example, of
immigrant John Hugh's sister's family, the Foulkes, has daunted me from even attempting to
assemble it in my genealogical computer files. Appendix I provides the names
of the members of the families of the first eight generations of Hugheses
in my direct ancestral line on the American continent. Appendix II provides the names
and family relationships of the members of generations nine
through fourteen (I'm in the eleventh generation). The living members of the generations
in Appendix II constitute the
definition of "Our" family in this
account's title and text, even though, as stated above, many other Hugheses and Hughes cousins can claim the same
ancestral line. Source
Weaknesses and Strengths Time constraints preclude carrying out painstaking research at the
main libraries that store information on our Hughes family ancestors during
colonial times. These comprise the Quaker collections at the Haverford and
Swarthmore college libraries in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania
Historical Society in Philadelphia, and the Berks County Historical Society in
Reading, Pennsylvania. Therefore, I have used the publications of
others who have done the research, thus opening myself to passing on their
mistakes, and dealing sometimes with conflicting information. Nevertheless,
the few hours that I have spent at the library of the Berks County Historical Society
have convinced me that , with one possible exception, my information is
accurate and complete. The possible exception has to do with the order of John
Hugh's first two wives, and indeed whether there even were two -- or just one
-- prior to 1717 when, as a widower, he married Ellin Williams. We are
extremely fortunate 1)that John Hugh's brother-in-law, Edward Foulke, provided a written account of the 1698
migration voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia,
and 2) that our ancestors were Quakers (Society of Friends) and that
Quakers kept immaculate records. Few people who trace their genealogical background have such
resources. Some of
the information is from my own observation during trips to the Gwynedd, Oley Valley, and
Catawissa/Roaring Creek areas of Pennsylvania in September and October 1996 and in September
1997, and to Iowa and Kansas in August 1997. Click Here to continue reading |
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