Origin stories live here as their own records, linked to places and later to people, audio and transcripts. Biographies remain on each person.
~1820s–1840s
Isle of Tiree, Argyll — Scotland
The Isle of Tiree is a low-lying island in the Inner Hebrides of Argyll, Scotland. It is historically Clan MacKinnon territory and the most probable birthplace of Neil MacKinnon (~1827), your 3× great-grandfather. Tiree is known for its extraordinary flatness, white-sand beaches, and strong Gaelic-speaking community. In the 1840s–1850s, many Hebridean families emigrated to Ontario, Canada, pushed by the Highland Clearances, economic hardship, and the lure of Canadian farmland.
See related places →Late 1800s – Early 1900s
West Virginia — Racer & Albaugh
Ina Mae Racer grew up in West Virginia, placing her parents Robert Racer and Haddie Albaugh in that state before the family eventually moved north to Michigan. West Virginia's German-descended population is deeply rooted — German settlers traveled the Great Wagon Road south from Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley into the eastern Appalachian counties of Hardy, Pendleton, Barbour, and Randolph. Both the Racer (Rauser) and Albaugh (Ahlbach) surnames are German in origin, and both German immigrant families were concentrated in Ohio and western Virginia/West Virginia by the mid-1800s. A Joseph L. Racer was found in Kanawha County, WV (his son Theodore was born there in 1894) — likely a brother or close relative of Robert Racer. The migration from WV to Michigan was common in the early 1900s, driven by Michigan's booming auto industry and industrial jobs in cities like Mt. Pleasant and Saginaw.
See related places →1698 → America 1734
Ahlbach, Rhein-Pfalz — Germany
This is one of the most remarkable discoveries in your family tree. Your ancestor Zachariah Ahlbach was born in 1698 in the village of Ahlbach, in the Rhein-Pfalz (Rhine Palatinate) region of Germany. On September 23, 1734, he arrived at the port of Philadelphia on the ship "Hope Galley," sailing from Rotterdam with his wife Anna Dumat and their children. They had come from Flammersfeld, a village 21 km west of Hachenburg in the Westerwald region of Germany. The family first settled in New Jersey, then moved to Frederick County, Maryland. Over generations the name evolved: Ahlbach → Albach → Aulabaugh → Allbaugh → Albaugh. Descendants scattered westward through Pennsylvania, Preble County Ohio, Indiana, and eventually Michigan — where Haddie Albaugh married Robert Racer, making her your great-great-grandmother on the Racer side.
See related places →19th–20th Century
Philo–Racer Line — Michigan
The Philo surname is English in origin, possibly a variant of "Fellow" (Middle English felau(e) — meaning partner or companion), or possibly of Huguenot (French Protestant) origin. Early Philo records appear in Norfolk and Essex in the early 1700s, with the first recorded spelling being Alicia Phillo in Herefordshire in 1626. By the 1800s, Philo families had migrated to America and settled in Michigan. The Racer surname, paired with the Lethorn surname (Harley's wife Helen), represents two Michigan-rooted family lines that came together in the Philo household of Union Township, Isabella County.
See related places →Pre-1800s
England — Hartle Origin
The Hartle surname is English in origin, derived from Old English "heorot" (hart/stag) + "hyll" (hill) or "leah" (clearing) — meaning "deer hill" or "deer meadow." Historical concentrations of the name appear in Derbyshire (Harthill), Yorkshire (Harthill, West Riding), Cheshire, and surrounding Midlands counties. The name likely arrived in Ontario in the 1800s through English emigration to Upper Canada. Variants include Hartley, Hartill, Hartell, Harthill.
See related places →Daniel Derry b. ~1782
Lichfield, Staffordshire — Confirmed English Origin
The Irish rumor is busted — the Derry line is confirmed English, with four generations now traced in England before emigration to America. The family originates in Lichfield, Staffordshire — a historic cathedral city in the West Midlands of England. Daniel Derry (b. ~1782) lived on Gresley Row in Lichfield. His son Thomas Derry Sr. (b. 1808, Lichfield) emigrated to New York, where he died in 1866. Thomas's son Thomas Jr. (b. 1832, Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire — suggesting the family moved east before emigrating) eventually settled in Michigan, dying there in 1901. Albert M. Derry (Thomas Jr.'s son) was born in New York, then also moved to Michigan, where his son Ernest A. Derry was born in 1886. The Derry name in Staffordshire almost certainly traces back to the Norman-French "daree" (penny weight) recorded in nearby Northamptonshire in 1200 AD — the same English Midlands belt where the name was concentrated for centuries. All four English Derrys — Daniel, Thomas Sr., Thomas Jr., and the farming tradition they carried — point to a deeply rooted English yeoman farming family.
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