James McClung - Inconsistent dates from merges ...

Hello Dan,
Yes, the dates for James McClung are a confusing area. A James McClung is my 7th Great Grandfather but the dates are inconsistent. The James McClung you mention is probably my 7th Great Grandfather.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Robert Dennis McClung

This family went down to Rockbridge County, Virginia or at least James the son of James did and were involved in business and possibly intermarried with my Petticrew and Kinney / Kenney families from Rockbridge and Botetort.

Hello Hatte,
Thanks for the invitation. I'm trying to learn all I can about my McClung line. Any info is much appreciate.

Thanks,
Robert Dennis McClung

You're very welcome. I told my mother that I ran across you today. Our ancestors lived or worked side by side. The name jumped out at me. Famous name in Rockbridge. My cousin Bev does most of the Petticrew research so I need to go back through everything that she sent me.

I was down there and visited my family's 300 acres which is now a wildlife refuge. And talked with the History Center in Lexington but frankly our ancestors were so early that the History Center only knows about their descendants. And others were even earlier in what was then a larger Augusta County before Rockbridge and Botetourt were carved out.

Yes, the farther back you go the harder it is to find information. I am struggling with my McClung family tree because things get very confusion in the 1700's as far as birth dates passing dates go. Right now Matthew McClung is are real problem because I have come across 3 different birth and passing dates and can find no way to confirm any of them. I'm not sure what to do at this point.

I'm tagging Justin Durand whose Kenney ancestors were here also and Pam Wilson (on hiatus) who has done work on this family I believe and works on VA families. Maybe they have some pointers for you.

My cousin Bev has looked into Irish and Scottish records also. We have a lot of unknowns in our ancestry, including even not being sure they came directly from Scotland or via the Ulster Plantation although I argue strongly for the latter given who they settled with in PA and VA.

James McClung is in my database because his son John is my nth great uncle by marriage, but I don't have anything more about him. Just his name.

My experience working in this area is that many times people have put together different reconstructions. (Which James wrote this will? Which John married woman? Which Robert bought that land?) In the end, particularly on a platform like Geni the different theories get confused. It's necessary to go back to basics and disentangle everyone, working from the primary sources.

A quick glance at the Geni tree for the McClungs suggests that might be the case here. James is born about 1648 but he has two brothers, both born in 1665. Then, he has a son born in 1670 (married to a woman born in 1697), another son born in 1690 (twenty years later), and no dates at all for any of his other children. Likewise, most of his Geni grandchildren have no dates.

None of these dates are impossible but the ranges suggest confusion among men with the same name. If I were going to tackle this area of the tree, I would start much, much lower down, verifying dates and relationships for all siblings and for as many cousins and in-laws as I could find. Make sure each generation is fully fleshed out before going back to the next.

The source I cite in the project on Rockbridge County is a very good one. I have also consulted histories of towns in Pennsylvania for my family. But again, it is three Petticrew cousins who have done most of the work. Land records and wills are good sources.

Thanks so much Justin and Hatte for the pointers. I am new at this research so any information or methods of searching are highly valuable. Find information from the 1800's can be difficult so one can expect info from the 1700's and 1600's will not be any less so. If you have any links or further suggestions please pass them along. I greatly appreciate your efforts.
Thanks so much,
Robert Dennis McClung

Found this cool site that allows you to search newspapers for names. I have been finding out a lot about the McClungs of Butler, Pa. this way. The cool think is, the name(s) you search for show up in red highlight.
Here's the link:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86071045/1900-10-11/ed-1/s...

Hope this helps you search,
Robert Dennis McClung

Private User - Thank you. I'll check out that sight. I will be keeping my eye out for McClung and happy to work with you to sort them out, if as Justin hints, they are a bit confused on Geni. I will also ask my cousin Bev about them.