New member introducing myself

Question

I'm excited to find this group!  I'm a newbie to research & hope I'll learn how to find out where my first ancestor to the US (Samuel Ainsworth 1716-1783) came from.  He appeared in Dauphin, PA in about 1736 & fought in the Revolutionary War.  I've seen it written that people who have researched are not sure if he came from England or Scotland.

Comments

a lot of Ainsworths or Aynesworth came from  the county of Lancaster in England. 

The following  Ainsworth while he did not sail on the Mayflower had a very large influence on  the Pilgrims see Henry Ainsworth - Wikipedia

also this may be helpful see Ainsworth Genealogy (metanoia.org)

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Thank you so much for your input!  I will do my best to learn how to do this.  :)

Answer 1

Welcome to WikiTree, LA!

He may have come from Cheshire, England. There were a lot of Ainsworth in Cheshire. It appears that your Samuel lived in Chester, Pennsylvania. The town's name was derived from Cheshire, England. I have found an emigration record for Samuel Ainsworth in 1726 arriving in Pennsylvania, it does not state where he came from.

Some history on the town in Pennsylvania

 Chester County and William Penn creates the town of Chester. There are 3 Revolutionary War records on FamilySearch and two specifically say his regiment was Chester Company. US Revolutionary War Rolls 1780, Revolutionary War Rolls 1781 and Revolutionary War Rolls 1782.

This is his WikiTree profile, it needs sourcing and cleaning up. It is orphaned right now. Samuel Ainsworth 1716-1783

Comments

So, both the WikiTree profile & the DAR records show he was born in Scotland in 1716, but I've read that many Ainsworths came from England.  I have the book Genealogy of the Ainsworth Families in America by Francis Jewett Parker & it says most were descended from Edward Ainsworth 1652-1741 but it seems they aren't the PA Ainsworths.  On p. 4, "About 1725, there was a family of Ainsworths at Hanover, Penn, of which a few details will be given but concerning whose present representatives practically nothing has been ascertained."  Would you mind pointing me toward the emigration record you've found?  Everything I've seen says Hanover, PA. (?)  Maybe that's where he ended up after Chester.  If he came in 1726, I'd guess he was about 10 & hopefully with parents.  ?

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I can't seem to get to the link for the Revolutionary War rolls.  :(

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I do not see anything about a DAR record. The person making a claim for DAR may make a mistake on a location or date of long ago. I would have to see it to be able to evaluate it.

The information in the book that you refer to is repeated in several other books. It states that Samuel settled in Hanover, Pennsylvania in 1736. The emigration record is for 1736 to Pennsylvania.

I noticed that my links to the Revolutionary War Records are not working. I am not sure why but will readd and check new ones.

As for what the profile states that is not sourced. I made a mistake it is not orphaned his son's is. None of the links work on his profile and there is no source that verifies that he came from Scotland. It looks like it was a GEDCOM upload created from a user tree. I did find a user tree on Ancestry that has Scotland as his place of birth and a Cheshire, England birth source. User trees are unreliable.

I am going to post on his profile the military records (note the 1780 his name is in a note at the bottom). I really do not know if the war records are his or his son's who had the same name and would have been younger during the war. I will also copy and paste the transcript with a citation and try to link it straight to the transcript of his emigration. If you have a subscription then you can look at it on Ancestry, I will post the whole transcript so that you can see what it says if you don't. It will take a few minutes, I will have to clean the profile up some too.

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I cleaned it up and added the sources and links. They should all work now. I added the war sources under sources and put the year at the end of the source. You should be able to see them by clicking on the link in the source citation.

Answer 2

Welcome to WikiTree, LA.  I hope you enjoy it here. Everyone is helpful and friendly.  

You may want to consider upgrading.  There is no cost.  It will allow you to add your ancestors to WikiTree, if they are not here already.  To upgrade, go to your profile and click Upgrade, near the word Guest.

Wendy