United States of America
© Base map Corel Corporation
This information is from Philip's World Atlas Reference Edition. 1997.
Families in the United States of America
From telephone, birth and other records available via other Internet sites, we have found that there are many family members across the States.
One family which started in Utah in the late 1800s is part of the English Burton Joyce branch.
Since August 2001, we have made contact with several Americans who have connections with Fairholm family members, and they have been most helpful. This has already resulted in two cross Atlantic connections with the Scottish Edinburghshire & Lanarkshire branch.
We have also been given data by other researchers and have found census data about family members in Iowa, Kansas and Indiana which seem to link back to New Jersey in the late 1700s - there seems to have been family members in that state from at least 1793 to at least 1850. At the moment we are not sure how these families fit together and where they link to in the British Isles and so we have created several temporary branches. Trees for the early years of each branch are included below.
New Jersey branches
New Jersey 1
New Jersey 2 / 3
New Jersey 4
Click on the images to open pdfs of the early branches of the trees. Only descendants of male Fairholms are shown - except for New Jersey 4, which is a very small branch.
Linkage
Click on the image to open a pdf of how the
branches may fit together.
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This branch is headed by William Fairholm and Margaret Vail. Their son, Jeremiah Haines Fairholm, was born 1815 in New Jersey and he married Gulielmo Rudderow (there are several different spellings of her name) in 1840. The family is associated with Kosciusko in Kansas, and with Dexter, Douglas, Massena, Penn, Washington and Winterset in Iowa and Hennepin County, Minnesota. There are 325 people on this tree, including living descendants.
New Jersey 2 / 3 (two merged branches)
This branch is headed by Johnston Fairholm. His grandson was Isaac Vail Fairholm born 1801 New Jersey. He married Mary Kindle. The family is associated with Waynesville, Ohio and Oskaloosa, Kansas. There are 85 people on this tree. They include living descendants, but none of them are Fairholms - yet.
New Jersey 4
This branch is headed by John Fairholm and Ann. They were both born in New Jersey around 1794 and were still living in the state in Burlington County in 1850. We only have one daughter for this couple, Mary I., plus her two children, John and Joseph Haines. Mary married a second time, to a Richard Jobes.
Links
The best guess at the moment is that all the New Jersey branches are descended from Johnston Fairholm (New Jersey 2 / 3 branch) who, according to family history, arrived in, what would become, the USA prior to the War of Independence. He had two sons and a daughter, but we only have a name for one of them - William. It is likely that William is also the man who married Margaret Vail (New Jersey 1 branch) given that he had a son named Isaac Vail Fairholm. In a history of the Vail family, William and Margaret are stated as having had 11 children, but only one is named in that source, Johnston (it would seem, a grandson of the previously mentioned Johnston). John who heads New Jersey 4 branch is possibly one of William's sons. There is still a lot to sort out, in particular the names of all the children of William and Margaret. (Note : Jeremiah Haines Fairholm also had a son called Isaac Vail Fairholm born 1850 - there is a photograph of him and his family later on the page.)
Going further back, Johnston Fairholm senior may have been the merchant who arrived at New Jersey via New York and Jamaica. In this case, he is likely to be from the Scottish Edinburghs & Borders branch. Johnston is a rare name in the families and only occurs in that branch. Other members of that branch undertook business in the West Indies (and in Europe).
At least three family members of the New Jersey branches were blacksmiths.
There are still many other family members that we have not yet been able to connect to any trees.
If you belong to any of the families in the States or have photographs of family members that you are willing to share then we would be very interested in hearing from you. You can contact us at queries@fairholmfamilytrees.info.
Isaac Vail Fairholm (1850) & Family
This photograph was shared by Janiece Ochoa
Back row : Arthur L. / Frank Leon
Middle row : Lottie Oris / Mabel Isis / Dora Iris
Front row : Sarah Jane (nee Woolery) / Harry Rudrow / Isaac Vail.
Leon Arthur Fairholm & Harry Dale Fairholm
This photograph was shared by Noel Fairholm
The family farm in Winterest, Iowa
This photograph was shared by Noel Fairholm
William Fairholm & allegations of assault
In 1810 a writ was issued by Andrew Kirkpatrick, Chief Justice for the state of New Jersey, to instruct the sheriff for the County of Burlington to arrest William Fairholm so that he could be brought before the Supreme Court of New Jersey on the first Tuesday of September at Trenton (the state capital).
William was required to:
“answer John Youle Junior of a Plea of Trespass; and also to a Bill of the said John to be exhibited according to the custom afore Court against the said William Fairholm for assaulting, beating, falsely imprisoning the said John Youle”
It seems that John Youle Junior was seeking damages of $5,000. This would be in the order of $100,000 today.
Unfortunately, this is the only paperwork that remains so we have no idea of the circumstances that led to the case or what happened when the court considered it, but the allegations certainly seem serious. However, there is a record of another case, this time in 1812, brought by William against John Youle Junior. This case is about costs of $18.60 (and interest on them). The original document is very faded, but there is reference to “the false claims of the said John”. It possible that William was found innocent of the claims made in the previous case and had sought costs that had not been paid.