Dear Cousins, One of the most interesting illusions I have blown away with internet research is the notion that colonials were fairly happily ensconced wherever they landed along the Mid-Atlantic seaboard and remained that way for about a hundred years. It has proved to be a great fallacy in my thinking. The Colonials were moving about, even back and forth between the old country and their new digs in the New World. They were an enormously commercial and mercantile oriented society: that focus having been the first priority of the colonization efforts. The second priority was religion, and in the Pennsylvania Colony, the two pursuits joined in prosperous movement with great Quaker zeal and enterprise. The Quakers were canny businesspeople and their religious ferfour was nearly boundless. It produced movement back and forth, up and down wherever they were. Some of the Quaker movement was for missionary activity, some for business opportunity, and some to follow other allied families. The Monthly Meetings carefully investigated potential marriages, ensuring that prospective candidates were not too closely related, and so this requirement also produced journeys to other locales as young Quaker men sought out proper brides. Other young men were often apprenticed to former friends and relatives. And so, just when you think you've pinned down a Quaker locale for some particular family, off they go again! for myriad reasons. This is greatly to our benefit despite having to constantly dig around to discover the new locales. The movement of the Delaware Valley people was constant from the time of the initial settlements of the Swede/Finns, with the great river as the means for ease of such movement. After Penn's colony got underway these families were greatly influenced by the Quakers, after they began arriving in the early 1680's (some few arriving a little before). Many of the meetings' records are included in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy Volume two, but some very important ones are not found there. Neither Duck Creek Monthly Meeting in New Castle County, nor Deer Creek MM in Harford County, MD, nor Gunpowder MM in Baltimore County, nor Nottingham MM, which straddled the PA/MD border is included. Records for these three important meetings can be found in bibliographies I'm making available at the new booksite. I'm also including records from all of these as I create new pages at American Crossroads. The Beeson family was one of the important Quaker families involved in the outward migration from the Philadelphia Perimeter; another is the Beal family. Edward Beeson founded the Nottingham tract, and the Beesons and the Beals, Littlers, Richardsons, other Quaker families who joined him there can be found in most of the other migrating families -- Quaker or not. It is terribly tempting to simply copy down these lineages which are very prevalent on the internet, and not worry about the research . . . but it would be wrong! (As I think a famous Quaker Somebody once said.) The first reason it would be wrong is almost everybody got the beginning of the lineages wrong, and if those are goofed, and unreferenced, can what follows be any different or more trustworthy? Nay, nay, say I. Rachel Pennington was not the daughter of Cousin Jim's Isaac the Quaker Pennington ancestor. Isaac had no daughter Rachel. There! Check out Cousin Jim's ancestry on our pages: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/Isaac/isaac.html The Quaker Beals too, have been distorted, mixing it up with the non-Quaker Bealls in Maryland in a most unpacific manner. Or at least it leaves me feeling most unpacific when I see these mistakes that have been inflicted on the genealogy. One Beeson website has re-created itself, or is beginning to, at least, and I am happy to be able to recommend it. As to the others, with Rachel Pennington as daughter of Isaac and Mary (Proude) Pennington -- Let the Buyer Beware! http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~beeson/index.html So, who was Rachel Beeson, wife of Edward Beeson, if not daughter of Isaac the Quaker, who had no daughter Rachel? I think if she actually was a Pennington, her most likely identity could be as a sister to Abraham The Trader and John Pennington who lived nearby Nottingham, along the Susquehanna and North East Rivers. You can see the plat of lots and owners at Nottingham at Quaker Corner. http://www.rootsweb.com/~quakers/notting.htm Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@centurytel.net ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads --- Visit Backcountry Crossroads --- http://www.backcountrycrossroads.com