RESOLVED: Ann (Hudson) Owsley or Ann (Unknown) Owsley?

+12 votes
494 views

The erroneous assumption that Ann, wife of Thomas (II) Owsley, was a West has been thoroughly disproven.

The Owsley Family Historical Society does solid work and their articles are nicely sourced. They're the ones who debunked the West connection (see http://www.ofhs.org/the-west-family.html).

OFHS has a subsequent article (http://www.ofhs.org/the-two-wives-of-thomas-owsley-ii.html) in which they posit that Ann was a Hudson. This is based upon the 1756 will of Lucy Hudson, unmarried daughter of William Hudson and Sarah (__) Hudson Settle, in which she names "my Sister Ann Housley" and "my cousin... Pine Housley", Housley being a known variation of Owsley. Cousin "Pine" is proposed to refer to Lucy's nephew, Ann's son, Poyntz or Pointz Owsley, "cousin" having been a more flexible term in those days.

It's perfectly plausible. We routinely accept such relationships (and flimsier ones) from wills as evidence. So, is it sufficient?

Should Ann's profile on WikiTree be "Hudson / West (disproven) / Owsley", or "Unknown / Hudson (unproven) / West (disproven) / Owsley"?

(Currently both Hudson and UNKNOWN profiles exist, along with a handful of bogus Wests, so this will determine the direction of the merges.)

Thanks all!

WikiTree profile: Ann Owsley
in Genealogy Help by Cheryl Hammond G2G6 Mach 3 (32.0k points)
edited by Cheryl Hammond
Really informative!  Thank you for posting!

2 Answers

+1 vote
This is an interesting one.

Do you/they have more on William and Sarah? Enough to create profiles for them? Have they reviewed their wills? Are there other situations where Poyntz is called Pine?

Does the Owsley group research tangents to their own surname, like her parents would be, or are they just happy to have a wife who married into the Owsleys name?

So, if I were you, I'd want to know that they actually do all they can to research the women's lines, too, and in this case that they/you have done all you can to confirm or deny their theory (by tracking down all the info on William and Sarah, and exploring this 'nickname' theory). It sounds like there are potentially a few puzzle pieces still out there and they may be making a conclusion a little early.

(With the last question regarding tangents off of a male line, I've often been surprised by how focused researchers are on their name and the male line. They have worked for years on their surname and have an incredible amount of expertise. When you ask them about the rest of their tree - everything but their one male line - they've never really looked into it. Because of that bias among genealogists, I typically start with the women and have found that is where the interesting discoveries are usually found.)
by PM Eyestone G2G6 Mach 3 (36.2k points)

Yes, Poyntz Owsley was called/spelled "Pine" in other documents at the time.

Yes, the OFHS has a good track record of researching the women in the line as well as the men. Perhaps that's because Dorothea (Poyntz) Owsley is their link to royalty, but even there, they've researched her female ancestors with nearly the same vigor as her Poyntz paternal line (which is entirely sufficient on its own to establish descent from kings).

It doesn't look like much more is known about the Hudsons beyond what's in the OFHS's article, at least not that Google can find. The article's evidence was:

  • 1730 administration/inventory of the estate of William Hudson granted to his widow, Sarah (this is the only record of William they've found)
  • 1750 will of Sarah Settle, naming her son William Hudson, daughter Lucy Hudson, grandson William Allen; no mention of an Ann, but see below
  • 1756 will of Lucy Hudson, naming her "cousins" Samuel Peril and Pine Housley, sister Ann Housley, sister Elizabeth Allen, sister Martha Peril, and brother William Hudson

The names in Lucy's will line up solidly with Sarah's. There are two other sisters (Elizabeth and Martha) who must have been living at the time of Sarah's will who also weren't named in it, which reassures me considerably about the fact that Sarah didn't name Ann. Sarah's will links Elizabeth and William as Lucy's biological siblings, which reassures me that when Lucy says "sister" and "brother" she likely means those the way we would expect.

I agree, researching women is where all the fun is. :)

Cheryl -

Great work. That helps complete the picture for me.

It looks like OFHS and you are drawing a reasonable conclusion, and you've done a good job of leaving a trail of proofs for future research.
This work is now done. Thanks so much for helping me clarify it!
0 votes
There maybe new information in regards to all this ... please review Ann Hudson Owsley's daughters find a grave the Memorial # is 5431023 this is the site for Ann Owsley Garrett go to the older version of the site ...and you will be able to access a ton of information explaining the 3 marriages of Ann Hudson..
She was a Owsley...a West and a Wheeler
by Rebecca Herrin G2G1 (1.7k points)
These wives are v confusing, and Find a Grave doesn't help by having info posted in not the best place.

But Ann (Hudson) was the wife of Thomas Owsley d 1750.

It was that Thomas's mother, Ann (Harris), who married an Owsley, a West and a Wheeler.

I clicked "restore" to remove the changes added from FindAGrave today, but it didn't work quite right? (Maybe I clicked something wrong.) Anyway, I cannot tell whether the marriage date/location for Ann Hudson's marriage to Thomas Owsley is new or not. Should it stay? Also, it looks like the Ann West profile attached as a wife is a duplicate with the wrong LNAB. I'm offline most of today. Could someone take a look at the wives of Thomas and let me know what I can do (if anything) to help?

Thanks!

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