We have a personal interest in some of
our ancestors who were among the English Catholics who settled in Maryland --
and eventually found themselves moving westward, to Kentucky and Indiana,
principally. This CD-ROM will address that topic, and consists of
two sources
1. Stella Bogner's "Kidwell Family notebook"
For several years we tried to decide how best to make a wonderful
notebook of genealogy dating from the mid-1940s that has been passed along in
our family available. Stella Mulholland Bogner, of Daviess County, Indiana, was an
avid family historian and genealogist for decades, and this represents a work in
progress of hers.
The bad news is that it is just that: a
work in progress; a genealogist's notebook. She obviously would not have
considered it ready for publication, although there is evidence in it that
publication was her objective. There are 137 handwritten pages (her
handwriting is very clear, fortunately) of descendents of Hezekiah Kidwell,
originally of Maryland, and later of Virginia and Kentucky.
A partial list of family names
that dominate this compilation include Kidwell, Dant, Mattingly, Norris,
Bowling, Brewer, Brothers, Brown, Carrico, Cissell, McAtee, Queen, Seal,
Sinnott, Spalding, Wathen, and Wedding.
We finally concluded that the best way to make
her research available was to publish page images, and compile a complete index,
which is now complete and available for your examination.
Please
to view the Kidwell
index in a new window.
2. The Hon. Ben.
J. Webb's "The
Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky"
[1884], by the Hon. Ben. J. Webb.
594 pages, including index. If you have family who were involved in
the migration of Roman Catholics from Maryland to Kentucky and points north,
south, and west, this book will at a very minimum provide background
information about the migration and the way Roman Catholics made their way
and were treated in America in the early years. It is likely to
provide you with far more than that, however.
The book discusses the Catholic settlement
of Kentucky in settlement-by-settlement detail. It discusses the early
clergy, the arrival of the various missionaries and the foundation of the
various religious orders, convents, cathedrals, colleges and missions.
To provide a sense of the scope of the
families discussed in the book -- some at great length, here is a quote from
the Preface:
Among these names, alike
familiar to the Catholic ear in Maryland and in Kentucky, may be
mentioned the following: Adams, Alvey, Aud, Bean, Beaven, Boone,
Brewer, Beckett, Blandford, Bowlin, Blacklock, Boles or Bowles, Burch,
Cecil or Cissell, Carrico, Clark, Clements, Clarkson, Cambron, Coomes,
Cooper, Craycroft, Dant or Dent, Downs, Drury, Elder, Edelin, Elliott,
Fenwich, Forrest, Fowler, Gardiner, Gwynn, Greenwell, Gettings, Hayden,
Hardisty, Howard, Hamilton, Hill, Hutchins, Jenkins, Jarboe, Johnson,
Lancaster, Livers, Lucas, Luckett, Montgomery, Mattingly, Miles, Medley,
Mills, Mudd, Norris, Osborne, Payne, Queen, Raley or Raleigh, Rapier,
Rudd, Rhodes, Roby, Spalding, Sanders, Speaks, Spink, Sansbury, Sims,
Smith, Thompson, Tucker, Wathen, Wheatley, Willett, Weatherington,
Worland, Yates, and numerous others....
Then we have others that are
as distinctly Irish, such as Bryan and O'Brien, Byrne, Dolan, Donohoo,
Fagan, Flannigan, Gannon, Gallahan, Hagan, corruntion of O'Hagan,
Hughes, Kelly, Mahony, Mollahorne, corruption of Mollihan, McAtee, Nally,
Neeley, O'Neil, Roney, and possibly, Riney, by some written Raney.
No question about it; this is an extraordinary book.
