Where Do I Fit?

I am often asked by people interested in Henthorn genealogy, "Where do you fit into the genealogy of brothers, James and John Henthorn?"

Here's a reply I wrote today after John Blankenship, who is part of The Amos Tree asked the question.

In 1957, when we lived in Wichita my mother received a letter from Norma Henthorn of Bethany, OK asking where we fit into the Henthorn family tree.  Mother replied to the letter.  Roy and Norma were working on their genealogy effort The Amos Tree.  Years later, probably around 1987, I obtained a copy of that work and one other publication that Norma did with Professor Raymond Bell of Pennsylvania.  I was never able to establish a correspondence with Roy and Norma.  I tried.  I keyed the information from both documents into my genealogy program which at that time was, Personal Ancestral File.

Two Henthorn brothers, James and John were in Maryland in the mid-1730's. They were located on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in the area of present day, Harve de Grace, MD.  Later, they moved up the west bank of the river to Wrightsville, PA where Thomas Cresap, famous Maryland frontiersman, operated a ferry across the river.

Your family descends from one of these two brothers.  I'm not sure when they separated in their westward movement. One curious thing is that both branches showed up later around Idabel, OK. 

I got interested in working on the genealogy of James and John when I got in touch with Mary Josephine (Henthorn) Bolerjack of Danville, IL who was working on your Henthorns.  We collaborated for many years and donated one 750-page genealogy to the LDS library in Salt Lake.  That's available on microfiche for use at any Family History Center where someone requests that it be sent.  The Amos Tree is also available for use at Family History Centers.

Some say the Henthorn brothers came from Ireland.  There is no documentation to support this. I'm not saying it isn't true. In my opinion it is more likely that they came from England (see the next paragraph).

Now to the question you asked. I don't fit into either line. In the mid-1850's my family came from the area of Crompton and Oldham which is now part of greater Manchester, England.  They were weavers and first settled in New York State.  Later they moved to Fishhook, Pike Co., IL where they farmed.  My grandfather, Charles Holt and his brother, John Douglas moved west to the area around Aurora, Hamilton Co., NE where they farmed.  I was born in Lincoln, NE while my father was going to grad school at the University of Nebraska. I grew up in Bellevue, NE and moved to Wichita in 1953-54 when my father got a job with Boeing.

Dick Henthorn
14 April 2015