DELZELL OR DALZELL Family

Early American Dalzells and Delzells

    Welcome to the DALZELL/DELZELL Website
   Thank you for looking into this website. What I have tried to do, is to describe as many early American Dalzell and Delzell families as I could find. Most of the families were described by Hugh Wayland Delzell in his book "Delzell Ties".  Additional families are welcomed. Some of these families are more complete than others, and additional information is always welcomed.
  To get started simply click on the Family that interests you and you will be taken to that Family Page. This page will include a "Brief History" of the family, as well as References. You can also click on  "Detailed History" and be referred to a second page with much more information about the family, or click on "GEDCOM" and be referred to "rootsweb-an Ancestry.com community" with much genealogy detail.  
   Or you can click on one of the sub titles above to find out about the name "Dalzell", or about the "Scotch-Irish". or one of the oldest Delzell "gravestones", or about Robert O. Delzell, the author of this website, or "Other Items", which includes many more items of interest, including the "Dalzell Castle", Letters from "Ole Bert", "John Delzell's Land Grant".
  Or, if you would like to contact me, you can send an Email to me, and I will try to reply as soon as possible.  Your additions, corrections, and or  suggestions are welcome.
    ( In the event you don't see any ancestors in the left hand column, below are listed Delzells/Dalzells for whom I do not have three generations:                             Robert Delzell, Shomarie Co NY;  William Delzell,b. 1815, Monroe Co. Irondequot, NY;  Robert Delzell, b. ca 1840, Licking Co. OH; James Delzell and wife Anna, b. 1797, Muskingenn Co., OH )                                                                        Bob Delzell

 Welcome to the DALZELL/DELZELL Website

        The year 2007 was more significant than you may have thought!   Just 200 years ago, in 1807, John Delzell was buried in the long abandoned Hamil/Tedford cemetery, just south of Maryville, TN. His sons carved a simple statement on the face of a local stone and placed it on the grave. That gravestone was discovered and placed in the cemetery, where it now stands to memorialize this ancient ancestor of many DELZELL families in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee.

         Welcome to a web site which is for all early American Dalzell and Delzell families.  It is our purpose to provide both genealogy and family history for anyone interested  or related to these Scotch-Irish family names. Your help in correcting or adding information to this web site would be deeply appreciated. While the site may look intimidating, it is quite simple.  The list of DALZELLS and DELZELLS on the left border contain the earliest known ancestors of the several different families,  In some cases both the earliest ancestor and his sons are listed separately.

          Have you wondered where your Dalzell or Delzell name came from, or when the first Dalzells pioneers arrived in America? Dalzell is a Lowland Scottish name, but most of the Dalzell and Delzell families in America came from Northern Ireland, most often from Counties Antrim, Armagh, and Down. Because they were Scots, but lived in Ireland, they were called “Scotch Irish,” but they usually referred to themselves as “Irish.” They were almost all devout Presbyterians.

          The map below shows where some of the early DALZELL and DELZELL families settled. John Delzell (1756-1807) married Margaret McFaren(McClaren) on July 7, 1785 in the state of Franklin (now East Tennessee. They moved to Blount County, TN and had eight children, four of their sons, and their only daughter Margaret, married and raised large families, but mostly in different states!  William (1786-1837) went to Franklin Co, TN; Robert ((1788-1858) moved to Richland Co. IL; David (1790-1855) to MO; and James (1794-1864)and his sister Margaret went to Carroll Co.,IN.  These families are all listed in the left hand column.

           The largest number of Scotch-Irish came to America between about 1725 and the start of the Revolutionary War. They usually arrived in or near Philadelphia and very quickly migrated to the western frontier where land was cheap and plentiful. They usually pronounced their name as “DL” and I will use “DL” to refer to families with the name Dalzell, and Delzell, as well as other spellings.
           Perhaps twenty DL families came to America at this time. These eraly families are listed on the left side of this page.  Click on any familiy and you will be taken to a page containing information about this family.  From there you can also go to what we know about the genealogy of this particluar family in a GEDOM file. Some of these families were closely related, others perhaps not. This web page will attempt to locate a number of these early families, and, as the map above shows, they quickly spread out to occupy lands as diverse as Tennessee and New York. Each family is linked to more detailed information.

           My purpose here is to provide a place where information about DL families can be made more widely available, and corrected, and helpful to those who are seeking more information about their own DL ancestry. I am not a professional genealogist, nor do I claim error free information. I have always been interested in family history and genealogy and have collected a great deal of information which I hope to share. Your suggestions and corrections and new additions are deeply appreciated and within the limits of my time and energy will be used to correct or add to this collection. I deeply appreciate the many researchers who have sent me information about the family. I am especially indebted to Hugh Wayland Delzell (1919-1997) whose out of print book “Delzell Ties” provided much of the information on this web page.

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