Emigrants from England to America

The earliest names we are looking for are Reuben, Nathaniel, Matthew, William, and John Elbon or variation.

Looking at http://www.familysearch.org and http://www.findmypast.co.uk for Elbon (or variation) in England, we see familiar names later seen in Maryland such as Mary, Sarah, John, William, and Elizabeth from 1700-1760, mostly in Hertfordshire, England.

When you change Elbon to Elb*, and add in Nathaniel or Mathew, you will get them also, but their name is spelled Elbourn, and Mathew’s name is spelled Ellbourne. Hugh Elbon is there also. You will see they are all in the same area. Just to fool the search tool (because maybe you might think that only records from Hertford are in the index), you can change Elb* to “Smith” or “Brown”, and look what you get – thousands of entries from all over England. The names George and Thomas Elbon exist, which we do not see in Maryland early on.

All the early Elbons are listed except for Reuben, Ruben, or Reubon. Even when I search for R* Elb*, he does not show up at all in England. This leads me to believe that perhaps Reuben was born in Maryland.

Because no Elbon or derivative thereof is listed in the Ship Records, let’s go back to England. Let’s suppose that William, Nathaniel, Matthew, and John were born in England, immigrated to Maryland, were active in the Revolutionary War ca. 1780 and were therefore born before 1765.

Maryland Emigration and Immigration website: https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Maryland_Emigration_and_Immigration and Price and Associates Immigrant Servants Database website http://www.pricegen.com/immigrantservants/search/surname.php?letter=E, gives you a good idea of ports, ships, etc. No Elbon is listed as of the last time I checked.

No records showing a pre-1750 Elbon (or variation) family in Ireland have been found. Likewise for Scotland; the name appears after 1800. Likewise for Germany where the name is spelled Elben. But this doesn’t mean we should count those countries out – it merely means that no records have been found in those areas. A few members of the Elben family of Germany immigrated much later to America.

So where do we go from here? Did the Elbon family in Maryland in the mid-1700s emigrate from England? I’m using the spelling Elbon here because I believe that is the spelling of the earliest Elbon in Maryland. Mathew, Nathaniel, John, Reuben, and William Elbon were the 5 men listed in the Revolutionary War. These 5 men were in the Rev. War in Maryland ca. 1780.

Hertfordshire is just north of London. The following scenario has NOT been verified in any way whatsoever, but it is merely a study. So far we have found all these names above in Hertfordshire, England, except Reuben who could have been born in Maryland.

My Ancestors Emigrated from Hertfordshire:
http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/topics/t001-emigrated.htm

Elborn Family History from England to Canada

A Word From Chris Reynolds – July 2013

· Apart from convicts who were deported to America before the Revolution, there are unlikely to be any explicit records of people emigrating in the Hertfordshire records. Perhaps somewhere there might be a document such as a will where a father makes a bequest to a child who has gone overseas - but at the time very few people made wills.

· Nearly all the baptism records in the modern indexes for 18th century come from Church of England parish registers - and there are no surviving birth or baptism records for those who did not worship in the established church. If a person left Hertfordshire for religion related reasons it is quite possible that there are no records of there ever having been born in the county. I have come across cases where there was only one indexed baptism but three adults with the same name - so two of them had no indexed birth records. In such circumstances it is easy to make errors!

· Marriages could only be carried out in the Church of England - so the marriages of non-conformists are recorded - although some refused even to enter the parish church and would travel out of the county (often to London) to marry Of course anyone who emigrated before marrying will not be recorded in this way. In addition there may have been a few cases of the earlier "Common Law" marriage where one simply declared that you were married and there was no written record.

· Some non-conformist groups had their own chapels and burial grounds, but many did not - so some non-conformists were buried in the parish churchyard. So again you can find burials for people for whom there are no birth-related records.

· The web site FindMyPast has a special project computerising Hertfordshire registers which is in progress. Nearly 2 million new records were added on July 1st and there are many more to come - including many burial records which have never before been indexed. Similar records are not yet available online for adjacent counties.

· There is some good general advice at My Ancestors Emigrated from Hertfordshire.

· The most important set of records you need to consult at this stage are the Hertfordshire Militia Ballot Lists (available on CD). These recorded men on a suitable age who were eligible for the militia - and who had not yet done duty as a militia man. There were some other exemptions - but the lists serve as a partial census on working men from 1758 to 1786.

· I have not had time to comment on your extensive collection of data but spotted one technical point. The letters C, M, and W on the burial register of St Martins in the Field probably stand for Child (large numbers of both sexes), Man (all male) and Wench (all female - this word was sometimes used as a word of endearment in England - but I understand developed a different, racist, meaning in America)

Links

Emigrants from England to America

A Word From Chris Reynolds – July 2013