In looking through some documents I have, I found two sources that stated that the blacksmith Matthew Rea was of Irish Quaker descent. Both sources track to Jeremiah Rea, who was born in 1824 and died in 1912. He was the grandson of the blacksmith. Perhaps there is no Scottish ancestry here. I signed up for a trial subscription of an online resource to search arrival records on the east coast. But the early records in this country are sparse at best. I could find nothing of any possible ancestors arriving between 1660 and 1740. I am sure that other people have tried that approach before!
I did read that the Irish Quakers came from English parts of Ireland. They made up about 10 percent of the Delaware Valley Quakers according to estimates in the Hackett book, Seeds of Albion. I have always wondered why someone had not been able to find where we came from in the British Isles. Could we have been looking in the wrong country.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
My Line of Matthews
Since the 1700's there has been a Matthew every other generation in my Rea line.
As the last Matthew in the list is not inclined to have children, this pattern seems at an end. This alternating pattern matches the Quaker naming patterns in the Delaware Valley and possibly even earlier in the British Isles.
- Matthew (b. 1730, d. 1794)
- Joseph (b. 1763, d. 1828)
- Matthew (b. 1793, d. 1873)
- Jeremiah (b. 1824, d. 1915)
- Matthew (b. , d. 1948)
- Earl (b. 1890, d. 1953)
- Matthew (b. 1917, d. 1991)
- Robert (b. 1942)
- Matthew (b. 1978)
As the last Matthew in the list is not inclined to have children, this pattern seems at an end. This alternating pattern matches the Quaker naming patterns in the Delaware Valley and possibly even earlier in the British Isles.
Rea Surname Origin
Rea was ranked ranked 2423 in surname popularity in the 2000 US census. That is up from 2653 in 1990. So we are moving on up! It is a difficult surname as you can spell it or pronounce it, but you cannot do both without prior knowledge. If you asked my young children their last name, they would respond "Ray, R E A". That was what my wife habitually said when asked. However hard this surname is to pronounce or spell, the origin is even harder to trace.
My ancestors came from the British Isles. There surnames were not needed until individuals were taxed, which was in the 13th or 14th century. Generally, people took their surname from their occupation {Smith, Fletcher, and so on) or from place names. The river Rea is a small river in Hereford and Worchester County near the Welsh border with England. A large tome I consulted in a used bookstore years ago stated that the river name was the source of the Rea surname. That book was in the hernia class in terms of heft, so I give this explanation the most weight. For other opinions, just Google "Rea surname origins". You will find more than 2423 others.
It is my conviction that Rea is not the result of spelling variations, because it is not an intuitive spelling. Language tends to become simpler with use. The fact that Rea has maintained this non-intuitive spelling, means it is somehow important. Which leads me again to the river name origin.
The harder question is tie this surname to the Quaker roots of my family. The bulk of the Quaker migration from the British Isles came from the north midlands of England. This does border Scotland, and Glasgow is closer to that border area than the most common choices of London or Bristol for their trip to America. Wales was another source of the Quaker migration, making it close to both the River Rea and the port of Bristol. It would be nice to find some passenger lists with Matthew Rea on them in the late 17th or early 18th century. Reas did land in America as far south as the Carolinas in that era. But any of Quaker origin soon moved north or west because of the slavery issue. Slavery cannot be reconciled with that faith and they all left fairly quickly.
My ancestors came from the British Isles. There surnames were not needed until individuals were taxed, which was in the 13th or 14th century. Generally, people took their surname from their occupation {Smith, Fletcher, and so on) or from place names. The river Rea is a small river in Hereford and Worchester County near the Welsh border with England. A large tome I consulted in a used bookstore years ago stated that the river name was the source of the Rea surname. That book was in the hernia class in terms of heft, so I give this explanation the most weight. For other opinions, just Google "Rea surname origins". You will find more than 2423 others.
It is my conviction that Rea is not the result of spelling variations, because it is not an intuitive spelling. Language tends to become simpler with use. The fact that Rea has maintained this non-intuitive spelling, means it is somehow important. Which leads me again to the river name origin.
The harder question is tie this surname to the Quaker roots of my family. The bulk of the Quaker migration from the British Isles came from the north midlands of England. This does border Scotland, and Glasgow is closer to that border area than the most common choices of London or Bristol for their trip to America. Wales was another source of the Quaker migration, making it close to both the River Rea and the port of Bristol. It would be nice to find some passenger lists with Matthew Rea on them in the late 17th or early 18th century. Reas did land in America as far south as the Carolinas in that era. But any of Quaker origin soon moved north or west because of the slavery issue. Slavery cannot be reconciled with that faith and they all left fairly quickly.
Friday, January 1, 2010
About This Blog
This blog is about the origins of the Matthew Rea who was a blacksmith near Philadelphia in the late 1700s. The standard storyline was that he was of Scots Irish Quaker descent and arrived on a boat from Glasgow around 1730. For all the effort, no one has found when he arrived here. The same is true of his brother Benjamin. I started looking into the burial place of his son Joseph, looking for Quaker ties here in central Ohio. By the time I read Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer, it was clear that the phrase "Scots Irish Quaker descent" is an oxymoron. That combination is literally impossible, though the 1730 date coincides with the Scots Irish immigration to America.
My cousin, Jeff Schilling, did some inspired Google Books searching and found Quaker references to Matthew Rea Junior as the blacksmith. It also mentions a Matthew Rea Senior and a Matthew Rea, the Elder, who lived in New York. If these 2 gentlement are the antecedents to Matthew Rea, the blacksmith, then the story becomes consistent. The Quaker immigration to America was from 1675 to 1710. Matthew Rea, the Elder would have been born roughly the 1770's. This fits very well with the Quaker migration pattern. The bulk of the migration was from midlands and north of England. They generally shipped out from London or Bristol. And there were Quakers in Scotland. The first Quaker church in Glasgow was established in 1660. So Glasgow would still have been the port of origin for Matthew.
Interestingly, the people drawn to the new Quaker religion were from area settled by Vikings in the north of the British Isles. This may disappoint my sons, as they are partial to the Celtic culture, but they can always fall back on the Shannon part of their heritage!
Has anyone looked into the Quaker heritage of Matthew Rea Junior?
My cousin, Jeff Schilling, did some inspired Google Books searching and found Quaker references to Matthew Rea Junior as the blacksmith. It also mentions a Matthew Rea Senior and a Matthew Rea, the Elder, who lived in New York. If these 2 gentlement are the antecedents to Matthew Rea, the blacksmith, then the story becomes consistent. The Quaker immigration to America was from 1675 to 1710. Matthew Rea, the Elder would have been born roughly the 1770's. This fits very well with the Quaker migration pattern. The bulk of the migration was from midlands and north of England. They generally shipped out from London or Bristol. And there were Quakers in Scotland. The first Quaker church in Glasgow was established in 1660. So Glasgow would still have been the port of origin for Matthew.
Interestingly, the people drawn to the new Quaker religion were from area settled by Vikings in the north of the British Isles. This may disappoint my sons, as they are partial to the Celtic culture, but they can always fall back on the Shannon part of their heritage!
Has anyone looked into the Quaker heritage of Matthew Rea Junior?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)