By Joe Crouch in Lexington, Kentucky, USA

In the mid- to late-1800s it was popular in Kentucky and Tennessee for
biographical sketches to be written and published in newspapers or
books. The biographer would come through, make notes based upon personal
interviews and then go back to their home office, typeset the sketch,
and publish it.

One such book was the "History of Tennessee Illustrated." The
biographical sketch on William H. CROUCH of Montgomery County,
Tennessee, one of my collateral relatives, indicated that his parents,
Harding CROUCH (born 16 June 1772) and his wife were both from England.
Yet Harding CROUCH was the grandson of my particular apparent CROUCH
immigrant ancestor -- Richard CROUCH of Goochland County Virginia who
immigrated to Virginia from England in 1726.

Another such book was the "History of Todd County, Kentucky" with a
biographical sketch on George W. JESUP whose grandfather, James E. JESUP
(born December 1762 in Wilton, Connecticut) is also listed as an
Englishman. James E. JESUP of Wilton Connecticut was the great-great-
grandson of James JESUP who came to New England prior to 1649.

How could these individuals be listed as Englishman, yet both clearly
were grandsons or great-great-grandsons of immigrants? The only apparent
rational for this mistake, I believe, was that Harding CROUCH and James
E. JESUP, like all other Colonial Americans born before American
Independence from England, were legally and technically Englishman and
thus subjects of the King of England. Thus the statements that the
previous generation were Englishman and leading to the assumption that
their parents came straight from England.

I've seen other sketches where similar wording was used indicating the
parent or grandparent was from England. However, one should not accept
at face value the statements in those 19th-century biographical sketches
that say their ancestors were Englishman or from England as they may
have several generations more to go before they really were from
England.

[Editor's note: In a 20th-century biography about one of my pioneer
Alaskan relatives, it was claimed that he was a "Dutchman." Ja! His
immigrant Vanderpool ancestor arrived in New Netherland in 1644, but he
was born in Missouri in 1865.]