This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/EZm.2ACIB/1331.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Orr family: Frances McElwain, a widow whose husband died in Ireland, traveled with her numerous children (and servants) to America between the years of 1790 and 1800. They landed in Baltimore where Frances bought property but then fairly shortly, some of the sons traveled west to Kentucky where they decided to settle and apparently most of the family went to the Russellville, Kentucky area to live. Frances had 12 children - James, Joseph, Ann, Mary, Grasiah, Margaret, Lydia, Michael, Alexander, Frances, David(?) and Elizabeth, my direct ancestor. All of the children were born in Ireland - their mother, Frances, was English but married an Irishman. Elizabeth married William Orr in Montgomery County, Maryland (Prince George Parish) on December 17, 1801. William Orr and his brother, Hugh Orr, emigrated from Ireland to America - they very likely were on the same ship as the McElwain family. William and Frances went to Kentucky as well prior to 1807, with the McElwain family. The first child of Frances and William Orr was Alexander (and was the uncle that raised William Thompson Kemp). Alexander was born on August 8, 1805. The children of Frances and William were: 1.Alexander who married Loretta Ruth Hunter Kittrell on 8/14/1845. 2.James 3.Ann Marie, died in infancy 4.Ann 5.Eliza Ann (Elizabeth) died in cholera epidemic in 1833, married James B. Thompson (possibly where William Thompson Kemp got his middle name) 6.Frances (Fannie) died in Clarksville, Tennessee in 1845 - possibly of cholera. She married Thomas Kemp on 6/4/18388 at Russellville, KY. They had one son, William Thompson Kemp. 7.William 8.Joseph L. Orr Alexander Orr (1) was a cabinet maker and moved to Pulaski, Tennessee and then to Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee. He accumulated a good deal of property and was quite wealthy. An excerpt from the Columbia Daily Herald dated 2/14/1900 states that the Orr place in Mt. Pleasant sold for $188,500 to the Export Phosphate Company, the largest deed ever filed (at that time) in the Register's Office of Maury County. So, the census of 1880 was correct when stating that both the father (William Orr) and his mother (Frances McElwain Orr) of Alexander Orr were born in Ireland. In fact, William Orr's tombstone mentions County Cork. The McElwain family and the Orr family were quite well off financially. In answer to another question you raised concerning Jane W. Kemp Perry's sister, Sabina, it is very likely that Margaret Campbell Harris Kemp did not name her daughter before she died and her sister, Ann Campbell Lynch named her for her own mother in law - Sabina Lynch Bowman. Sabina Lynch Bowman was the sister of Thomas Lynch, the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence. He and his wife had no issue and both were lost at sea, either going to France or returning. Having no natural heirs, his nephew, William Lynch Bowman, son of his sister, Sabina, was the heir with the stipulation that he change his name from William Lynch Bowman to William Bowman Lynch, which he did. He became a doctor in the Nashville area and was married to Margaret Campbell Harris Kemp's sister, Ann Campbell Lynch. Apparently Ann Campbell Bowman Lynch was in the Baltimore area and was a member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church as the church records show that Ann's son, Henry Campbell Lynch was ! baptized on February 17, 1830, the same day that Margaret married Thomas Kemp. Ann Lynch was a communicant at St. Peters on 3/7/1830 but was removed from the rolls in 1835, Thomas Kemp was a communicant on 4/11/1830 but removed from the rolls as well by 1835 (they had left with the two small girls and gone to Nashville, TN where Ann's husband had a medical practice.) An interesting note is that John Bowman, who died in 1807 (and was the father of John Bowman Lynch (who was previously John Lynch Bowman) put this in his will: "To my dear Jane Campbell, the lady who lived with me many years for whom I possess the highest esteem, I leave one thousand guineas, which I inform my executors to raise immediately in sale of such property as is most saleable for cash and to remit the same to the said Jane. I desire that every twelve months beginning with the day eighteen months after my decease that my executors regularly remit to the said Jane Campbell the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds sterling and in case at any time failing to do so, I desire that they forthwith sell for cash out of my estate to raise the sum of six thousand pounds sterling which sum is to be immediately placed in the public funds of England by Isaac Weld, Roger Stevenson and High (Hugh?) Johnston, Esqrs. Of London, as Trustees for said Jane Campbell that she may every year so long as she lives receive the interest. At her death the said six thousand pounds are to revert to my estate for the general purpose of my will." This is speculation but it is fairly certain that the Jane Campbell he mentions is most likely the mother (or grandmother?) of Margaret Campbell Harris Kemp and Ann Campbell Bowman Lynch. What connection there was, we don't really know. If she was simply a servant or retainer, that seems to be an inordinate amount of money to be given to her for her entire lifetime. However, it does seem to indicate that Margaret Campbell and Ann Campbell's mother (or grandmother) was from England. John Bowman was the son of the Lord Provost of Glasgow and came to America in 1769, married Sabina Lynch and owned indigo plantations among other property in the South. (Interesting note which may be accurate or may not be. The term "lynching" is supposed to have come from the practice of quick justice by a Judge Lynch (same family) who had a large oak tree on his plantation) I'm not completely sure about Sabina, the sister of Jane W., will have to dig into records to get that but I'm reasonably sure she married a doctor in the Nashville area by the name of Dismukes. Thomas Kemp is shown in the Logan county, KY records as marrying Frances Orr on June 4, 1838, they had one son, William Thompson Kemp, born April 2, 1840 in Russellville, KY. The census of Montgomery County, TN (Clarksville) shows Thomas Kemp living there on January 1, 1841. The census record of 1841 shows Frances Orr living with her husband, Thomas, two small girls (Jane W. and Sabina), along with the baby son, William Thompson Kemp. Frances died (date of death and cause of death unknown but possibly cholera) and the two girls were sent to live with their maternal aunt, Ann Campbell Bowman Lynch in Nashville, and after Ann's death, were in an Episcopal girls boarding school in Columbia, Tennessee. (I was born and raised in Columbia and though the school was no longer in use, it was a beautiful place and I remember it well as a child - it was called the Institute and was torn down somewhere in the 1960's or so. ) The son, William Thompson Kemp, went to live with his maternal uncle, Alexander Orr and his wife Loretta, in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee. Columbia and Mt. Pleasant are only about 15 miles in distance from each other and I am sure that the half siblings got to see each other fairly frequently as later on, Jane W.'s son (my grandfather) traveled to Texas to see his half uncle, William Thompson Kemp, who had moved to Texas at about the age of 18 or so and remained in Texas the rest of his life, served the Confederacy in a Texas unit. Thomas Kemp, once he left Clarksville, TN (and his children) only surfaced once that we know of - and this came from some old Orr family correspondence. He and his son, William Thompson Kemp, met once in Galveston, we don't know when other than it had to be after William T. was grown and moved to Texas.