Dave: I don't have many answers to your questions. In fact, I have more questions than answers as a general rule. However, my research in Fayette and Union Counties of the state of Indiana leads me to believe that at least Thomas and Benjamin Strong were of Methodist persuasion, both being buried in the M.E. Methodist Cemetery. Thomas, Benjamin, Richard, were all farmers. I cannot find what Nathaniel's occupation was. I have no maternal or distaff information on these families yet. I'm still trying to find the Strong connection. The only "link" I have to Ireland is the passage in a "Fayette County History" that indicates the grandfather of Richard was from the Emerald Isle. Richard was born (1790) in VA, but I don't have any idea where his grandfather landed in this country. I do find the map of the area where I found both a Nathaniel and a Thomas Strong in extreme Western PA to be interesting because a circle 10 miles from the center would include three states--OH,VA, and PA. There were two other Strong families in Washington County of PA in the 1810 Census as well: Peter and John of Donegall Township. Nathaniel and Thomas were of Finley Township. Given the names, it would seem an Irish heritage is likely. Rene'

Hi Rene... I recognize your problem in trying to trace these folks. From a general standpoint, there are significant difficulties tracing lineages through the late colonial and early American period. Many records have been lost. And many records were never kept in the first instance. Many individuals were virtually illiterate, and some were trying to forget the past... the last thing they wanted was to create a record of that past. Further, after the Revolution, the US embarked on a policy of cultural assimilation... designed to make everyone Americans. The result of this policy was to make people forget their roots and look to the American present and future. As a result, many Americans today have a rather limited understanding of the influence of British history, policies, laws, culture, religion, geography and society. However, in fact much of American geography (placenames), law, culture, society, etc., is either tracable to places and events in the UK, or developed as a reaction to the situation in the 17th and 18th century UK. Understanding some of that history and situation may be very helpful in tracing lineages back OUT of the US and across the Atlantic to England and Ireland. England used Ireland and the American colonies as a dumping ground. Many early colonists arrived as indentured servants. This is a nice euphemism in many cases for saying they were convicts who were subjected to contracts of indenture binding them to the purchasers of the contracts which were priced to cover the costs of transportation. That indentured servants were convicts should not be taken as a slur on them or their descendents. Many of the convictions were trumped up and would never stand up in a modern court of law. After the American Revolution, England turned to Australia as a dumping ground. Anyone interested in some insights as to how the system worked might want to read Colleen McCullough's recent book "Morgan's Run". It is fiction... but well written with a great deal of historical insight. England was still suffering the hangover of the feudal system inherited from the Norman conquerers in the 17th-to early 19th century. Aristocrats held great feudal grants of land from the crown... and treated their tenants as servants. It was a very different world than that which we now know, (and it should be said, from what now exists in the UK). In Ireland, there was a rather close relationship between the Landlords and their protestant Yeoman tenantry. There was a lot of history to that relationship I won't go into just now. However, even in the face of the closeness of that relationship, a lot of the tenants started to migrate out of Ireland toward America during the 17th and 18th centuries. There were large families, limited lands available, limited production of food for too many mouths... and that was all before the infamous famine years of the 1840's. America offered a lot of opportunities to acquire land and to accomodate the wants and needs of the lower classes. The English government had planted Ireland in the late 16th and early 17th centuries with settlers from both England and Scotland. Most precisely, one must ultimately try to identify a lineage as Anglo-Irish or Scots-Irish... but all too frequently there is a tendency to label ALL non-Catholic emigrants from Ireland as Scots-Irish. It was precisely the lower class of Scots-or Anglo-Irish tenant farmer which provided a lot of the 18th century colonists of the western lands of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and on into Ohio. I have read that at the time of the Revolution, at least 40% of the population of the American colonies was Scots-Irish. They were flooding into the back country to take up land, because the land near the eastern seacoast was already taken. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the Strongs you are looking for fit into this category. Back to the religious angle... There were Church of Ireland Anglo-Irish Strongs from the south of Ireland... County Wicklow and Dublin... and some Catholic Strongs from Dublin, Kings & Queens Counties, and a mixture from all over Ireland. There were Presbyterian Scots-Irish Strongs from Antrim, Londonderry, Armagh, Down, and Cavan... and even from Cork in the south. Not all Scots-Irish were Presbyterians... perhaps the first religious category most people think of when discussing the Scots and Ulster Irish. In fact, many of the Donegal-Fermanagh and Cavan-Longford-Monaghan-Sligo Strongs were either Scots-Irish or Anglo-Irish in descent, and were members first of the Church of Ireland, which was Anglican in doctrine; and later, after the Wesley brothers spread their reform movement to Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century, were Methodists. This is perhaps a long way around to suggesting that you MAY be heading in the direction of one of these groups in Ireland. The given names you are looking at make me think more of the Cavan-Longford-Monaghan-Sligo grouping, or the south of Ireland. Richard, Nathaniel, and Benjamin just don't occur in Donegal and Fermanagh... and are scarce enough in Cavan, etc. Don't know if any of this helps... but there it is for what it is worth. Good Luck! Dave Strong =============================== ----- Original Message ----- From: Rene' E. Breitkreutz <rene1111@gci.net> To: <STRONG-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 5:35 PM Subject: Re: [STRONG] Strong-- Richard from Ireland > Dave: > > I don't have many answers to your questions. In fact, I have more > questions than answers as a general rule. However, my research in > Fayette and Union Counties of the state of Indiana leads me to believe > that at least Thomas and Benjamin Strong were of Methodist persuasion, > both being buried in the M.E. Methodist Cemetery. > > Thomas, Benjamin, Richard, were all farmers. I cannot find what > Nathaniel's occupation was. > > I have no maternal or distaff information on these families yet. I'm > still trying to find the Strong connection. > > The only "link" I have to Ireland is the passage in a "Fayette County > History" that indicates the grandfather of Richard was from the Emerald > Isle. Richard was born (1790) in VA, but I don't have any idea where > his grandfather landed in this country. > > I do find the map of the area where I found both a Nathaniel and a > Thomas Strong in extreme Western PA to be interesting because a circle > 10 miles from the center would include three states--OH,VA, and PA. > There were two other Strong families in Washington County of PA in the > 1810 Census as well: Peter and John of Donegall Township. Nathaniel > and Thomas were of Finley Township. Given the names, it would seem an > Irish heritage is likely. > > Rene' > > > ==== STRONG Mailing List ====