Contents |
Robert Finley was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1772 to James Finley and his wife Ann Angrest. His father, James Finley, was born 1737 in Glasgow, Scotland, where he was trained as a yarn merchant and where he became acquainted with Rev John Witherspoon, then a pastor in the town of Paisley about six miles from Glasgow. His father immigrated from Scotland to New Jersey in 1769. His paternal grandparents were James Finley from Paisley, and Ann McDonald Finley.
He married Ester Flynt Caldwell on 16 May 1798. They had 9 children.
Robert Finley and Samuel John Mills, both clergymen, helped organize the American Colonization Society at Washington, D.C. in 1816 and 1817, which was intended to establish a colony in West Africa as a destination for free American blacks. [1]
In 1817, Finley fell ill while traveling to assume his new position as president of the University of Georgia. He died three months after arriving. He was buried in Jackson Street Cemetery on the school's north campus in Athens, Georgia.
Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
Robert is 24 degrees from Herbert Adair, 21 degrees from Richard Adams, 17 degrees from Mel Blanc, 24 degrees from Dick Bruna, 19 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 33 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 18 degrees from Sam Edwards, 17 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 19 degrees from Marty Krofft, 16 degrees from Junius Matthews, 15 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 20 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.