I'm resending my original message with an update. Our earliest identified ancestor is
Thomas Campbell, who lived with his wife in Londonderry, NH, from 1734 until his unknown
death. We have found the birth places of two Thomas Campbells in Londonderry, NH, at that
time and since Thomas was not a common name for Campbells, we believe he was one of them
but don't know which one. They are: 1) Thomas Campbell, born 1705 in Ballybay,
Monaghan, Ireland; and 2) Thomas Campbell, born 1706 in Aughnacloy, Tyrone, Ireland.
These two towns are not far apart so we speculate that perhaps these two Thomases were
cousins since Scotch-Irish normally emigrated in groups and there was a tradition of
giving eveyone the same name in branches of the family, which has led to considerable
confusion. His wife, Jane Davidson, was born in Mennemore, Ireland, (date unknown) and as
a child immigrated to America with her parents and siblings in 1728.
Thomas Campbell married Jane Davidson in Billerica, MA, 1733 and moved to
Londonderry/Bedford area of NH where they had the children Mary (1738-1828), John,
Nathaniel (1741-1820), and Hugh Argyle (1744-1810). They had more children who didn't
survive to reproduce.
1) Mary married John Tufts, moved to Maine and there had the children: Jane, William,
Thomas, Jonathan, Susanna, and Annis.
2) John has eluded us, but is said to have had a large family.
3) Nathaniel married Agnes McCurdy and between Londonderry/Bedford, NH, and NY state had
the children: Jesse, Elizabeth, James, David, Thomas, Alexander, John, Abner, and Robert.
4) Hugh Argyle married Mary Smith and between Londonderry/Bedford, NH, and NY state had
the children: Jane, Benjamin, Caty, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret, Hugh, Robert, Thomas, Adam,
and David.
In addition it might be interesting to note that the women descendants have been more
successful than the men. Three of them are: 1) Mary Katherine Campbell (1905-1990), the
only girl to be elected Miss America twice (1922 and 1923); and the actresses 2) Brooke
Shields; and 3) Glenn Close.
I descended from Hugh Argyle Campbell through his son Benjamin Smith Campbell.
A descendant, Susan Sauve, created a web site for descendants of Thomas and Jane Campbell
at:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=c1-_ampbell
which lists over 400 non-living descendants. The families of Nathaniel and Hugh moved
from NH to NY, then Ohio, then Indiana, and then spread out over the USA and parts of
Europe. I conservatively estimate that Thomas and Jane Campbell had at least 30,000
descendants of whom at least 20,000 must still be living. Currently we have over 900.
The purpose of the web site is to attract descendants, so if any of the names seem
familiar then please check the web site and if you believe that you might be a descendant,
then contact Susan Sauve or me. We have considerable information about many of the
descendants. If you're not familiar with a web site at Rootsweb, then you must enter
a name and it will display everyone with this name. Of course the majority of the
descendants do not have the name Campbell as would be expected.
George Campbell
g.campbell(a)aon.at