Progress on Samples Genealogy

I have been in communication lately with my fourth cousin Steve Samples.  Recently retired, Steve has taken up his passion for family history and is making great strides in pushing the envelope!

Steve and I have been talking about the earliest Samples or Semple family members. We've been working backward from Samuel Alexander Samples b. 1774, and together we are sorting out information that may take us back another 3 or 4 generations.

Most significant is the revelation that the two brothers, Samuel and John, who were with Cornwallis when he surrendered to Washington at the end of the Revolutionary War, and who spent a winter living in a hollow tree in the Dismal Swamp, then separated and never saw each other again, did not come from Ireland.

Instead, the family had a well-established presence in the new world dating from well before the Revolutionary War and tracing backward from Kentucky to Virginia all the way to Pittsburgh. We now believe that the family descended from the Scottish Semple clan, and may have been in the New World as early as the beginning of the 18th century.

How exciting! And what fun it is to be in contact with another serious researcher who has time on his hands to pursue our common interest in our shared ancestry. As for me, I'm far too busy with my quilting to be able to contribute much beyond what I had already compiled earlier, some of which was erroneous.

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available! In the meantime, check out my somewhat outdated database at Rootsweb and watch what happens when it changes!



Genealogical history of the family Semple from 1214 to 1888