Whittle Family Tree
Well the simple fact of the matter is that I’m on information overload. I sat down and went through all the information I have on the Whittles and started trying to sort out all the collected documentation so that I could write a summary. I am still looking for name of the father of Samuel Whittle. I am also unable to name the parents of Jeremiah and John Nelson Whittle born c. 1770s. Jeremiah is the grandfather of Samuel, and according to the family, Jeremiah and John Nelson are brothers.
My friend Marcia told me that sometimes you can only see the whole picture when you put it on paper or into a database. I created a large spreadsheet in Excel where I just covered the known information of birth, marriage, death, and parentage, and that turned into about eight pages. I was looking for people that fit into those “unnamed male age 10-15” slots from the early census records and what a mess that turned out to be. It’s bits and pieces of things without solid connections. I sat and stared at it and had the feeling that it’s there, I just can’t see it.
Arwen came by and looked at it and we discussed the gaps in the records – okay there are huge gaps in the records! There is documentation of a series of Whittles in Maryland from 1646 arrival to a group of Whittle siblings born 1730 – 1737. Then the next documented Whittles appear to be born in the mid-1750s and later. It creates generational gaps in the documentation. This is further complicated by the lack of “named” documentation. Those darling early census records which list a sex and age group. These are often helpful for elimination, but hardly proof-positive of anything else. There are no guarantees that the female between ages 26 to 36 is really the wife of the head of household. She could just as easily be a sister, cousin, or the hired help!
There are very few Whittle households listed in the early census records considering the number of people that appear later. The other issue is that there is no guarantee these are our people. Not every Whittle that appears is going to be part of the line that I’m searching. There are still Whittles immigrating throughout the 18th and 19th century and they come from Ireland, England, and Germany. Their children born in Maryland become part of the confusion factor in the late half of the 1800s.
The other part of the equation is that not everyone who came to Maryland stayed in Maryland. Many came as indentured servants, many of the first generation were “bound to others” at the age of sixteen and they went where their masters went. Like all families they had members that moved on and there are large populations of Whittles in the states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, to name just a few. Sorting out who belongs to who could take a lifetime and may never happen without more documentation.
I’ve decided that I’m going to put the information up in groups: immigration, birth (not much of that considering the era we are dealing with), marriage, death (wills, obits, cemetery), and other loose information. Then I’ll post my Excel file (at least part of it) with my theories and let everyone poke holes in them. Maybe something in this pile will trigger a reader to look through their pile of stuff and add to the mix.
So let’s begin with the early immigration:
From: The Early Settlers of Maryland, An Index of Names of Immigrants Compiled from Records of Land Patents, 1633-1680, in the Hall of Records, Annapolis, Maryland by Gust Skordas
1646 – William and Magdalen Whittle) arrive.
1657 – Susan Whittle with 2 daughters named Elizabeth & Susan Williams arrive.
1658 – George Whittle arrives. George Whittle and Alice Parker patent 400 acres of land in Anne Arundel County. George is dec’d by 1677.
15 Jul 1659 – One of the several men named Nicholas Whittle arrives.
From Passengers to America: A Consolidation of Ship Passengers from the New England Historical and Genealogical Register by Michael Tepper (Editor)
1699
Nicholas Whittle arrived Virginia, aged 22, from Leland, Lancashire. Footnote states he was the bastard son of Nicholas Whittle and Alice Parker, baptized 19 Apr 1676. Leland is a parish in which there is a township Whittle-Le-Woods.
There are other later records of Whittles from Ireland and Germany, but this is the principle group in Maryland.
Census Records
Maryland Heads of Household thru the 1840 census, all spelling is from the index on Ancestry – I did not list anything beyond the obvious.
1790 Census
David Whittle is the only Whittle listed for Maryland as a Head of Household
1800 Census
Ann Whittle, Anne Arundel
John Whittle, Frederick County
Zachariah Whittle, Prince George County
Benj Whittell, Montgomery County
1810 Census
Richard Whittle, Baltimore
Jeremiah Whittle, Baltimore
Zacharia Whittle, Prince George
George Wittel, Charles
James Wittel, Charles
Solomon Wittle, Charles
1820 Census
Nicholas Whittle, Anne Arundel Co
Reed (should be Richard) Whittle, Baltimore
Jeremiah Whittle, Baltimore
John Whittle, Frederick County
Zachariah Whittle, Prince George
John Wittle, Frederick
Thos Whittle, District of Columbia
1830 Census
Honor Whittle, Baltimore
Jeremiah Whittle, Baltimore
William Whittle, Baltimore
Nich Whittles, Anne Arundel
John Wddle, Frederick
1840 Census
Hannah Whittle, Baltimore (this appears to be Honora)
Jeremiah Whittle, Baltimore
John N. Whittle, Carroll