America is considered to be a nation of immigrants, with the initial immigrants entering the country about 500 years ago. In the 17th through the 19th Centuries, most immigrants were from various European countries, bringing various cultures and customs with them. Due to America’s environment of freedom, these “Old World” heritages were shed and blended into a unique American culture. This mixing of cultures and customs has left American families with a widely diverse ancestral heritage. I believe your family’s ancestral heritage forms the basis of who you are or have become. Perhaps then, tracing your family history is the beginning of understanding yourself. As a minimum, tracing this heritage aids in answering the key questions: “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”
Tracing one’s family ancestries has always intrigued me, especially mine since knowledge of my family’s history was so limited. Tracing family ancestries is intriguing, but becomes very expansive with each generational step into history. In essence, tracing your ancestry is to create a family tree. This ancestral tree expands geometrically by a factor of two with each generational step back. You proceed from two parents to four grandparents to eight great-grandparents and so forth. In fact, it only takes 20 generations to reach a million ancestors. Is it possible to trace my family roots back 20 generations? I’m not really sure, but the goal is to discover in what country my ancestors originated. All that remains is tracing my family ancestry and gathering information for my family tree.
The seed for my ancestral tree was planted many years ago. I’m not sure when the planting occurred, but it was the result of a few family stories and basic family information. Obviously I knew surnames of my parents, Price and Graham. Also, I knew the surnames of my grandparents, Price, Huckstadt, Graham and Clifford. Plus, I was aware of some birthrates and birth places for them. Preliminary knowledge of just these names revealed that my family heritage probably included traces of Welsh, English, Scotch, Irish and German cultures. At this point my family tree was like a sapling with buds for branches. In the late 1990s these buds sprouted a little more when my Cousin Carol provided some additional family data, then I received more family information from one of my Dad’s cousins in Kansas. At this point, I decided to construct the family tree digitally, or computerize the data. This process was started about ten years ago, but has essentially lain dormant until recently. Deciding to write Reflections provided the impetus to begin watering my family tree in earnest.
My first step in watering the family tree was to consider the origin of family names. Knowing the origin of a family name could provide some insight into a family’s history. Of special interest to me was the origin of the Price family, knowing full well that this Price was a conglomerate of a minimum of three other family surnames. So, my first watering was really a sprinkling that involved internet searches on the four family surnames of my parents and grandparents: Price, Graham, Huckstadt and Clifford.
The name Price is of Welsh extraction, and was apparently a shortened version of “Ab” Rhys or “Ap” Rhys. The “a\Ab” or “Ap” meant “son of”, or Son of Rice. After the English subdued the Welsh, they apparently forced the Welsh to drop the “Ab/Ap” prefix, and replace it with a “P” or “B”. Therefore, the Welsh name became “Price”, “Pryce”, Bryce”, ”Brice” and even “Rees”, “Rhys”, and so on.
One branch of the Price family was from the northern area of Wales, which had a Coat of Arms, or a family crest. The motto at the top of the crest reads, “Vita brev gkiris acterua”, which translates into “Life is short, glory eternal”. Wow, that sounds like a warrior motto to me. There are at least two other versions of a Price motto I have found.
While on a trip to England and Scotland in 1990 I discovered Graham was Scottish and had a tartan, or clan cloth. The Graham clan was first noted around the 12th Century. A Graham coat of arms is shown along with a patch of the clan tartan. The motto Ne Oublie is translated as “Do not forget”.
Graham Tartan
One often hears about Scot-Irish. Apparently there was a portion of the Graham clan that were considered to be outlaws. If caught they were to be summarily hung. To avoid being caught and hung this “outlaw” clan would use Maharg as the family name. It is Graham spelled backward. This interesting tidbit eventually enters family history in the 20th Century. Eventually this subset of the Graham clan emigrated to Ireland. Records show that Grahams from both Scotland and Ireland emigrated to America beginning in the 17th Century. The primary regions of immigration were Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New york.
The Huckstadt surname in my family has a Germanic heritage. Extensive internet searches failed to discover the origin of the family name. Besides a Germanic origin, Scandinavia is also a potential origin of the family name. Although the specific origin of the family is uncertain a Huckstadt coat of arms was discovered.
There does not seem to be any translation of the “Berthier” name at the bottom of the coat of arms.
The migration of Germans to America began as early as the Jamestown settlement. Germans form the largest numbers of immigrants besides the English. This immigration reached its peak during the 19th Century. Emigration from Germany was due both for religious freedom and economic reasons. Germans settled in all sections of America, but concentrated in the farming regions. These pioneers were one of the major ethnic groups that led the migration West.
The Clifford family originated in the Nottingham region of England. A literal meaning of the name is “by the cliff”. The family was granted land by Duke William of Normandy for their assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D. Their coat of arms, or family crest, carries the motto “Semper paratus” which translated means “ Always prepared”. Sort of like the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared”.
Some of the first Clifford settlers arrived in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Massachusetts in the 17th Century and continued into the 19th Century.
As the family tree grows there will be new surname origins to investigate. This effort will be left to the future for now, but will be added as necessary to complete the family picture. So far, the results from watering the tree has exceeded expectations. In fact, some branches have leaves. Joining Ancestry.com has aided immensely the tracing the family genealogy.
Tracing my family’s background and history has been rewarding, challenging, confusing and frustrating. Rewarding because of the ability to discover countries of origin for the Grahams, Huckstadts and Cliffords. Challenging due to incomplete and incorrect information. Confusing since multiple Ancestry.com family trees used the same source datum to construct their trees which differed in names, places and dates. Frustrating because the Price family origin has been stopped in the in the early 19th century. The next chapter of Reflections will summarize what the watering has produced so far, based on research to date.
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