Peyton Townes and Muriel Pearce Family History
Peyton Townes Family History |
Townes Family
Townes Family Tree
(At the bottom of the page are links to other pages with information about the families that were main branches in the family tree. You can link to individuals' pages through the ancestor and descendent lists.)
Peyton Townes and his siblings, Halle, Francis Gwynn, and William Jr. grew up in Wilmington North Carolina. They have family roots in two basic areas -- Virginia and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Their father, William Armistead Townes, spent most of his adult life in Wilmington, N.C. but grew up in Richmond Virginia. His family tree extends back to Jamestown and the founding of Virginia as a colony. His ancestors were among its earliest emigrants (primarily from England) and settlers. The early ancestors arrived in south east Virginia in the areas around Jamestown, Norfolk, and New Kent but many moved up the James River and north and west as settlement spread. The various families were primarily clustered in these frontier areas including Henrico (near present day Richmond), Amelia and Chesterfield counties. While the direct ancestors of the William Townes family lived in Virginia, many (including great grandfather Armistead Townes) moved to territories south and west, including Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.
Because of the sparse population in colonial times -- and business, social and political affiliations -- certain families were interconnected in numerous ways over the years and marriages between them recurred over generations. Among those most notable in the family tree were the Townes, Branch, Peyton, Giles, Moseley, Ligon, Archer, Osborne, Hancock and Gwynn families.
Further back, the ancestry of the family extends through the history of the British Isles and France. European great parents included kings and noble (and not-so-noble) ancestors in England, France and even Russia/Ukraine. Beyond that they surely include hairy barbarians.
William was married twice to women with deep and longstanding ties in the close knit community of Wilmington.Most of the ancestors of Louise Townes and Ann DeRosset settled in the Wilmington area in its early years and were prominent in civic, business, social and political affairs.
Louise Rutland's family includes ancestors who migrated to Wilmington from England, New England and South Carolina. The family of Anne DeRossett (which has had several spellings) was established in North Carolina in the 1730s with the immigration of physician Armand John DeRosset, a French Huguenot. Four generations of his male descendants worked as physicians and merchants in Wilmington.
Among the ancestors of Louise and Ann there were several families that had numerous interconnections, including the Parsley, Grant, Nutt and Swain families, among others.
William Townes Family Lines
William Townes Family L:ines
(Maternal) Family Lines - Louise Rutland Townes and Annie DeRosset