I am so excited to find this site. I have been looking at Wild West of Ireland travel and that is the best trips I have found so far, as to where I want to go. And just like everyone else my dream is to come to Ireland the home of my DNA contributors. I  want to touch the ground, feel the breeze and smell the air. Did the land where they settled in Virginia remind them of Ireland?  Does that sound crazy?  Maybe so but that's my dream. I am from Florida USA, Born in West Virginia which is pretty wild its self. In fact that is the advertisement. West Virginia Wild and Wonderful. I have been tracking my history for awhile, that in itself is exciting.

     Do you know how strong we are. Just think, of all the terrible things that have to our people in Ireland, the USA and all our other ancestor's. We survive, we are strong we are the remnant. One of my Irish grandfathers is Thomas Wiley  he was born in Ulster about 1760.  He married  Jenny Sellards born 1760 in Pennsylvania  in 1778. Her father Hezekiah Sellards born in Ulster about 1732 he married Jane Brevard.

      Just thirteen years after the birth of America, my great x5 grandmother Jenny was captured by renegade Cherokee and Shawnee  Indians headed by an Indian called Cap John,he later sold her to another Indian she called red shirt. They killed her children, ages eight years,six,four and two and also her brother. The youngest child, a babe in arms they allowed to live for a time. When he cried they feared they would be found so they bashed his head against a tree. She was pregnant at the time so she endured hardship as well as the torment of seeing her children murdered and scalped.

     When she had the baby the Indians put the babe on a raft and placed it in a cold river. she was told if the baby did not cry he would be allowed to live. He cried!!! When she was able to escape her leather bonds,The Indians were hunting, It started to rain the leather became soft and she escaped. 

     In the end. she arrived across the river with help from the other side just minutes before the Indians arrived at the far bank of the river.  You can go online type in Jenny Wiley and find the genealogy  it's quite extensive. Mary Boone the sister of Squire Boone the father of Daniel Boone,  married into our family also . She married John Webb. When you consider how young the Country was and how few people there were. It's common to be related to some famous and or  infamous people. I am also related to the Hatfields and McCoys, but not sure if it's the feuding family's. They all were living in the same area of north eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.

     Jenny and Thomas had more children their daughter Jane Wiley married Richard Williamson, they had a daughter Amy Dora, Amy married Abraham Smith.  Abraham was very tall said to be seven foot tall . It seems all of that branch of Smiths are very very tall the ones I know are over six foot five some seven foot.. During the Civil War Abraham was a Bushwacker and he also joined the confederates company F. He was captured and sent to Camp Chase prisoner of war camp where he died of typhoid fever.

     My grandmother Amy I understand was a character on her own. I know she smoked a pipe. They had a son Richard he was in the Civil War also and  was also a bushwacker. Like father like son. I know he spent time in prison for shooting a man named Snuffer off his horse and killing him.. Richard married Mary Bailey and they had Owen Smith, Owen married Mary Helen Johnson they were very sweet. Nothing like Abraham and Richard, they had my dad Robert Smith who married Clara Jean Mullins I think that name may be Irish also. That's where I come in. Nancy Lee Smith Hand Jarosik .Incidently my Grandmother Mary Johnson was short. Looks like short won out because all my aunts and uncles are short to average height. The Smith side can be found online under thesmithfamilycorp.

Now my moms family!

     Back in 1663 Patrick Anminer was born in Roscommon Ireland and died 1725 in Roscommon at the age of 62. He married an O'Dea I don't know her first name it may have been Anna. She was born 1665 in Clare and died 1718 at age 53 in Galway Ireland. Anminer name is very difficult to find the source.  My great,great way back came to America in 1690 when he was sixteen years old. His brother Henry was fourteen. He settled in Virginia and only said he was from County Clare Ireland His name was Patrick Anminer also.

     Patrick had a grandson Benjamin who fought with George Washington during the Revolutionary war. You can read about this side of the family by putting in his name online. There is a massive amount of information about them except where their real name came from and how was it really spelled in Ireland and was he running from something.  My grandfather's were  Benjamine  Hamrick Sr. married Mary Sias their son Joel Hamrick  married Mary Sparks who had Rev William Newton Hamrick who married Elizabeth Brown who produces My great grandmother Asenith. I guess that the Irish accent Patrick had must have sounded like Hamrick so they spelled it that way. His brother Henry when he became of age to vote and buy property his name was spelled Hambrick.A lot of people could not spell during that time but held the job of keeping records. My Hamrick family did not come from Germany. There is a family that says their Patrick Hamrick came from Germany, but that has proved untrue. If Patrick was an Anminer then Hamrick would be a made up name more than likely.

     My great Grandmother was Asenith Hamrick that married William H.H. Mullins, their child  George Harvey (Dick) Mullins who married Cornie Ethel Vandergriff, her mother was Mary Harmon another Irish name, who had Clara Jean Smith and here I am again Nancy Lee Smith Hand Jarosik. Most of my family settled in Virginia. The western part of Virginia split during the Civil War and became West by God Virginia. If I am so lucky to come to Ireland I want to kiss the ground I land on. Just kidding. I probably can't get up without help if I get down, but I want to hear the story tellers, meet the people, and maybe find some kissing cousins.

I am home from vacation and have updated my blog. June 3, 2015 11:08AM

If I can help anyone wanting to know more about the West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina side of my family. I would be glad to help if I can.

Family Names- Smith, Johnson, Wiley, Sellards, Cooke, Williamson, Mullins, Johnson, Hamrick, McCoy, Hatfield, Vandergriff, Harmon.