Research Tools - Phd Dissertation - Kinship networks
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MIERS-HAWORTH
LETTERS
The letters
of Quaker migrant Mary Haworth, later Mrs John Miers, to her brother James, and
her Delawarean born son, John, to his mother’s brother, James Haworth,
domiciled England, form part of "A Collection of Letters Written at
Various Times from America” that have not been transcribed or published. Excerpts
from these letters have been used by Thomas R Saxton in his essay, “Living in
Two Worlds: Kinship networks and Pennsylvania's Integration into the Atlantic
World.[1]
letter writing - important to keep contact;
knowledge of identity – where came from – important to sustain identity while
at the sametime create a public identity in a new society.
The Haworth
Miers letters are an important resource for ancestral studies and present an
inviolable representation of family relationships and lineage at a precise
period.
1715: Writing
to his brother James Haworth, in the summer of 1715, George wrote: "two of
my sister Mary's children, John and Mary came to see me this spring.[2]
1725: Mary
Haworth Miers informing James Haworth of their brother George’s death, leaving
a widow and six children and that "my son John [Miers] has been up lately
to see them and they were all in WORD MISSING health and desires to be
remembered to thee and all their relations".
1745: John
Miers wrote back to his uncle James Haworth in England, pleased of news about his
kin across the Atlantic. He discussed
his immediate family, mentioning the death of his mother Mary about 17 years
ago, a deceased brother, survived by four daughters. His sister Mary was deceased about eight
years leaving a daughter and two sons, while another sister Sarah, was
"yet living" with six children from four marriages.
[1] Thomas R. Saxton, Living in Two Worlds: Kinship Networks and Pennsylvania's Integration into the Atlantic World (Thesis (Ph.D.)—Lehigh University, 2011), John Miers to James Haworth, Lewistown (Lewes, Del.) October 25, 1745 in "A Collection of Letters Written at Various Times from America," Historical Abstracts Box 34, pp 38-41, Brinton Coxe Collection (collection no. 1983), HSP. p159 of thesis.
[2] (George Haworth to James Haworth,
Buckingham Bucks County, Pa 27/7/1715 in "Early letters from
Pennsylvania").
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