Yesterday, I was doing a little playing around on the internet. I came across an old reference. I had not looked at this reference for a number of years. The reference is that of the book; The Jamesons in America, 1647-1900: genealogiacal records and memoranda, by Ephraim Orcutt Jameson; published by Rumford Press, NH, 1901.
Before I go any further into this story, I suggest all those Jameson's that have written me trying to connect their Jameson family with mine, to read this book. For those Jameson's from our William Jameson family line, I also suggest you get a copy of this book and read it. This book is a very interesting and surprisingly, a near complete book of all of the different Jameson families that were living in the United States as of the year 1900 (1870's-1900). I must say, this is the oldest published book that contants the genealogical list of William Jameson and Mary (Haggerty) Jameson and their children, that I am currently aware of.
picture of E. O. Jameson, the author, from the index of The Jamesons in America, 1647-1900: genealogiacal records and memoranda, by Ephraim Orcutt Jameson; published by Rumford Press, NH, 1901
There are a couple of ways to obtain this book (It is very available to obtain for all who wish). My suggestion is on Heritage Quest. Most Americans have access for free to Heritage Quest from there local public library. All you need to do is have a library card and go to your county libraries webpage and follow the link from your home computer. It's free, you can download, and there are thousands of great old out of print genealogy books to access. You can also buy this book from:Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Jamesons-America-1647-1900-Genealogical-Memoranda/dp/1120891973
Ebay (on disk currently):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jamesons-America-1647-1900-Genealogy-/200483693618
Another free access:
Allen County, Ohio Public Library submitted to Internet Archive: Ebook and Texts Archieve
http://www.archive.org/details/jamesonsinameric00jame this version is poorly done by a computer and is hard to read.The Meat
Page 546, The Jamesons in America, 1647-1900: genealogical records and memoranda, by Ephraim Orcutt Jameson; published by Rumford Press, NH, 1901
Page 547, The Jamesons in America, 1647-1900: genealogical records and memoranda, by Ephraim Orcutt Jameson; published by Rumford Press, NH, 1901
Items To Note (The Interesting Parts) From The Pages Above:
Item 1: "Mr. Hagerty, Mrs. Jameson's father, was in the War of 1812, and probably was killed, Aug. 16, 1812, at Hull's surrender of Detroit, Mich."
Item 2: "Mr. Jameson came to this country in 1817, leaving a brother, Archibald Jameson, in Scotland." {Tom, you know where I am going with this one!}
Reference:
E.O. Jameson lists on page 547 "The Sears Genealogy, page 600". I have a big problem with this reference. The only reference that was in existence in 1900 that the author could have been using was: The Decendants of Richard Sares (Sears) of Yarmouth, Mass, 1638-1888 : with an appendic containing some notices of other families of the name Sears, by Samuel Pearce May, published by J. Munsell, Albany, NY , 1899. Below is the page that I believe E.O. Jameson references:
page 600, The Decendants of Richard Sares (Sears) of Yarmouth, Mass, 1638-1888 : with an appendic containing some notices of other families of the name Sears, by Samuel Pearce May, published by J. Munsell, Albany, NY , 1899.
As you can see there is nothing about the Jameson's other then the mention of Thomas Jameson and Mary E. (Sears) Jameson. So, where did this information come from of the family of William Jameson?
Is This Family Legend?
Item #1 in Detail:
Thanks to the work of my great grandfather, Hugh Edward Jameson and his relatives, I hold many copies of the Jameson records in my possession. Item #1 deals with the information from the Haggerty family. The records passed down to me say only one thing of the parents of Mary (Haggerty) Jameson. "Haggerty died serving under Hull in the Battle of Detroit ". It is hard to tell when Hugh put together his records. Most letters corresponing between Hugh and his relatives, date between 1957 to about 1972. An interesting note on the family of the Haggerty's; years ago the Mormon records of christening of Baltimore County, Maryland listed the mother of Mary Haggerty as Martha (nee Richmond) Haggerty. I, nor any other genealogist that I have know, have ever found a record of service for Mr. Haggerty during the War of 1812 from the state of Maryland. It was not till the close comparison of the 1810 US Census of Baltimore County, Maryland, did we get our first guess at the husband of Martha (Richmond) Haggarty, who appears to be Thomas Haggerty. He was the only man from the area of Ellicott Mills (now Ellicott City, Maryland) that could match the father (and family) of Mary (Haggarty) Jameson and husband of Martha Richmond. There still today have been no solid references that list this man as the father of this family. So how did Mr. E.O. Jameson find this little tidbit of information of William's father-in-law. He either had to have been told this from a families legend/ folklore or he had found some long lost record that no other descendant of this family have found on a father-in-law of a Jameson for a book only on the Jameson's. So where did this come from. I go back to the statement, what came first, the chicken or the egg.
Item #2 in Detail:
This detail is a bit more of a direct issue to this blog and our Jameson family. This detail is also why I request that the reader read the past blog that asked the question on William Jameson's arrival. Until today when doing the background research for this blog, I had never noticed the date of 1817 as of any importance of a year for the Jameson family. Today I found in thie writings wrote by Prudence (Jameson) Dangler on her great grandfather, who she listed his year of immigration as 1871 (then hand corrected to the year 1817). Prudence's work appears to closely reference earlier writings by Bessie E. (Jameson) Wolcott. No where in any part of Hugh Jameson's work does the year 1817 appear?
Now reading the page 547 we see that there is more addition information on the family of Cecil Welby Jameson then any others of his brothers or sisters. It appears that the informant to E. O. Jameson of these details might have been Cecil. If this is so, this raises one more question. Cecil is the same person that wrote the letter to Robert B. Jameson that is the basis of question #3 of my past blog 'Tom Has Some Great Questions'. Why would Cecil have left that bit of information out and added other information on the early Jameson family of America? Once again was this date a family legend/ folklore? What is going on here, what came first, our family records or this book?
The only thing I take away from all of this is, don't believe family folklore without being able to reference it and prove it. On the other side, the next time I find myself at the US National Archives in Washington, DC, I think I will start searching the year 1817 for the arrives on the James River. Are these bits of details 110 plus year old family legends?
I will leave this blog with a few big questions and will move to more stable ground on my next posting??????????????????????????????????????????????
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