Edward Norton II (1687 - 1739)

Born Dec 1687 in Armagh, Ulster, Ireland

Husband of Jane (Rose) Norton — married about 1712 in England or Ulster, Ireland

Descendants

Died 16 Dec 1739 at about age 52 in Armagh, Ulster, Ireland

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Chet Snow [send private message] and Justin Carter [send private message]

Biography

Edward Norton II was born in December 1687 in Armagh, province of Ulster, Ireland. According to Norton family genealogists, his parents were Edward Norton Sr. (1650-1690) and his wife Jane (Grimes) Norton.^[1] They were Protestants from County Carlow, Ireland, and they married in 1680 in Carlow, Ireland. Norton is an English surname (although some say its origins were Celtic and Irish as "Naughton") so it is likely that the family had emigrated from England to Ireland in the early 17th Century, when English Protestants were encouraged to settle Ireland to bolster English rule there. As their 1680 marriage was recorded in the local Monthly Meeting of the Calow Society of Friends (Quakers), it's clear that Edward and Jane were Quakers by that date.^[2]

A different, less-well-researched, family genealogy says that Edward Norton I's parents were George Norton (b. 1615) and Ellen (Owen) Norton (b. 1622), originally from Bristol (Gloucestershire) and Shrewsbury (Shropshire), England. They had emigrated to County Carlow, Ireland around 1640.^[3] Sometime between 1650 and 1680 the family moved north to Armagh in Ulster province. This was a very troubled period in both English and Irish history and English Protestants were increasingly threatened in southern, Roman Catholic, Ireland after 1650. They held a slim majority in Ulster, the northern province.

In 1712, when he was 24, Edward Norton II married Jane Rose, b. 1691, in Armagh, Ulster, Ireland. She also was from an English gentry family that owned property in the English colony of Virginia.^[4] They may have been distant cousins as Edward's mother is said to have been married to a "William Rose" in Carlow, Ireland, in the mid-1600s before she married his father.^[5]

Edward II and Jane (Rose) Norton had two children:^[6]

1. Mary Norton, b. 1713 in Armagh, Ulster, Ireland
2. Edward Norton III, b. 1715 in Armagh, Ulster, Ireland

Edward's profession is not known at this time but he had some education and owned land. Edward and his wife Jane (Rose) Norton lived in Armagh, Ulster, Ireland, their entire lives. He died there on December 16, 1739, at 52 years old. No Will has been reported. His wife, Jane (Rose) Norton's death has been estimated as around 1658, in Middlesex, England.^[7] Both of their children, raised as Quakers, emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1725-30. They both married into the well-known Brown family there.

Sources

1. ↑ She is said to have been born in 1652, the daughter of Bethel and Catherine Grimes. She first married William Rose but he died and thus in 1680 she remarried to Edward Norton Sr. See the Nortonfamily.net referenced in succeeding Note.
2. ↑ Marriage records for Carlow Co. MM from Carlow Co., Ireland, cited on: Edward II Norton on Nortonfamily.net
3. ↑ Edward Norton 1650
4. ↑ Note by Chet Snow: Family genealogies say that Edward Norton's wife was Jane Rose, b. 1691 in Armagh, Ireland; she was a daughter of Richard & Elizabeth (Sowerby) Rose, who were born in the colony of Virginia in 1668 & 1670. This seems unlikely but it is possible as there was a lot of commerce between Virginia, Ulster and England at that time, especially among people of the landowning gentry social class. See: pp. 42 and 49 of Ancestors of Thelma Ruby Wolfe A copy is in the possession of Chet Snow, April 21, 2015.
5. ↑ Edward II Norton
6. ↑ Edward Norton on Geni.com
7. ↑ Edward Norton 1687

See also:

• Ancestors of William Denny Pennington - Generation 11

• Edward Norton 1650

• Edward Norton 1687

• Ancestors of Thelma Ruby Wolfe

• Tippah County Heritage Book. In possession of Justin Carter, 2017.

• Named in Son's 1739 Marriage - U.S., Quaker Meeting Records on Ancestry.com
• Nottingham Monthly Meeting, Chester, Pennsylvania on Ancestry mentions "Edward, Son of Edward Norton of the Parish of Armagh in the Kingdom of Ireland, deceased."

Acknowledgements

• Thank you to Chet Snow, who created WikiTree profile Norton-2062 on Monday, February 17, 2014, from personal knowledge and the unpublished family genealogy notes of Prof. C.A. Bonine, developed between 1940-70. Unpublished notes and manuscripts in possession of Chet Snow as of February 2014. Chet Snow researched and edited this biographical sketch and added sources on April 21, 2015. Re-worked on April 10, 2016. Merged with duplicate profile Norton-5251 on January 16, 2019.

• Thank you to Justin Carter who created WikiTree profile Norton-5251 on 5 July 2017.