RobertBio.htm
*******************************************************************************
From the Louise E. Gillispie papers, xeroxed by Pennsylvania Historical
Society, Philadelphia, PA.
Scanned by Nancy Elder Petersen, May 7, 2002.
Robert's
Will of 1807
Louise 's handwritten note on the
top of the page.
INCH ISLAND ELDER
Perth
Scotland research
*******************************************
History of the Juniata Valley
ELDER page 1311
"The ancestral seat of the ancient Scottish
family of ELDER was Elderslie,
six miles west of Glasgow, on the south bank of the Clyde, near
Paisley, in the
county of Renfrew, Scotland. The family originated in the
counties of Perth
and Fife, on the east coast of Scotland, along the Tay, at Perth,
Dundee,
Kinross and Forfar, in and below the Sidlaw Hills, many of them
settling in
the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, where their descendants still
live.
The first of the name to come to America was Robert Elder,
born about 1679
in Edinburgh, Scotland, moving first into the neighborhood of Lough
Neagh, county
Antrim, Ireland, from whence he emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1730,
locating in Paxtang township,
then Lancaster, now Dauphin county, three miles east of Harrisburg.
Robert Elder, of Path Valley, Franklin county, Pennsylvania,
progenitor
of the Elder family of Lewistown, was born near Perth, on the Tay,
Scotland,
migrating about 1737 to the vicinity of Lough Inch or Lough Swilly,
county Donegal, Ireland,
from that point emigrating to the county of Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
with his brother David,
about 1745 to 1754, and finally settled in the path Valley of Franklin
county, Pennsylvania, about 1750,
where a great many of their descendants now live.
Both these Elder families were of the same stock and were
closely related in blood to the
brothers Robert and Samuel Elder, who came from Scotland in 1729
and 1730 to the state of Maine,
and who were the first ancestors of the large family of Eldrs in
the New England states."
*******************************************
