Arthur McConnell about 1733-1795 Pennsylvania
I've recently joined Ancestry to collect sources that were lost when my computers were hit with a power surge. I finally found the marriage source that is almost universally used for Arthur McConnell and Elizabeth Wilson who eventually settled in Hopewell, Washington County, Pennsylvania. That source, I discovered, was from a Mennonite Record. Therefore, it would not be a correct source for my ancestors Arthur and Elizabeth who were Scots-Irish and lived on the bleeding edge of the frontier. Mennonites are pacifists - not the sort to settle land they have to defend.
In 1750, not withstanding the fact that the Indians were complaining about the squatters overrunning their hunting lands in the Cumberland Valley, the Proprietaries (The Penn family) devised a two pronged approach to separate the rough and ready Scots-Irish from Germans and the pacifist Quaker, Mennonite, and Amish settlers by offering incentives to get the Scots-Irish to go north into the newly formed Cumberland County and by refusing to let the Scots-Irish patent land in York County. I offer proof on Arthur's profile (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/McConnell-5074) that the couple first settled in Cumberland County near the Juniata River before the first Indian attacks in 1755. Arthur was also one of 202 founding members of the Upper Buffalo Presbyterian Church in Washington County.
Without that marriage record, I now have no reason to disbelieve the biographies written about their grandchildren and great grandchildren which say that this Arthur and Elizabeth McConnell arrived from Ireland. Even though I have still not found a ship passenger list with them on it, a preponderance of the evidence now points to them as the original colonial immigrants for my McConnell line.
Also an update, at Ancestry I found a map showing the Urie property adjoining Arthur's land 'Dundee' on the east.
New information: I have discovered that the John McConnell who married Elizabeth 'Betsy' Brown is not the correct John McConnell for this Arthur and Elizabeth McConnell family. That John McConnell born 1780, came to Pennsylvania from Ireland and settled in Adams County, Ohio for a short time where he met and married Betsy Brown. They eventually moved to Marion County, Indiana.
I'm still working on verifying the correct census records for the John McConnell who was born between 1760-1770 prior to Thomas b. 4 Nov 1772 in my Arthur and Elizabeth's family.
If anyone knows a good online source for ship passenger lists, I'd appreciate a link. I have had no luck at Ancestry with their list.
