Geneology - What's yours?

[Alan H]

My Paternal Grandfathers line has been French Canadian since the late 1600's. My surname "Hebert" is quite common in Ottowa.

My Paternal Grandmothers line is from North Carolina, with many intermarriages in there with English and Dutch. However, there's also a "Bryson", way back during the Revolutionary War. A Bryson brother and sister emigrated from Scotland around 1750, and Bryson is a sept of the MacFarlanes.

My Maternal Grandfathers line is Swedish.

My Maternal Grandmothers line contains a number of interesting Celtic names.

Martha McKnight is an ancestor. Her father ran "McKnights Tavern", a famous landmark in Alexandria, which is marked by a prominent sign with much information. George Washington dined there and for a time, the Alexandria Masons Lodge met at the tavern. McKnight is the anglicization of "MacNacht" . Martha's Grandfather, John emigrated from Ulster in 1731, which *suggests* that there's a chance that John McKnight might be a descendent of the "Shane Dubh", quite the infamous character, who is a younger son of one of the MacNacht chieftans. MacNachts/McKnights/MacNaught has been a common name in Antrim for a very, very long time. In fact the current chief of the Clan lives in Co. Antrim, Ireland.

Martha's granddaughter married Edward Hall in Philadelphia around 1830. I can find no record of his ancestry, so I don't know if Edward was a "Scottish" Hall or an "English" Hall. Whatever the case, the Halls are a border family, though the name is widely scattered throughout both England and Scotland.

Finally, Martha's daughter Married a Henry Piercy. My g-g-grandmothers name was Katherine Piercy Romney Hall. "Piercy" is the name of the royal line of Northumberland, now the Duke of Northumberland, and in the fascinating book "The Lodge of Washington", published around 1820, which is a recounting of short bibiliographies of the members of George Washingtons Masons Lodge in Alexandria, it says..." Henry Piercy "of the Piercy's of Northumblerland"...... So I have a connection to Northumberland as well.

So I have connections, mostly very, very old ones to Hall, MacNaughton, Piercy and MacFarlane/Bryson