Who Was The Immigrant Ancestor?

This is the great question which captures the imagination and interest of genealogists. Austill is such an uncommon name that in one sense the problem is made easier: all by that name are probably related in some degree. But at the same time, the problem is more difficult: the name does not appear very often, and there are large time gaps in the records. perhaps someday the fortuitous discovery of some vital document will give us this answer. As of now, all we can do is learn all we can about the earlier and later Austills, and hope for that clue which will join them together.

It is easy to imagine that one of the younger, more adventurous of the English Quakers, feeling unable to put up with the continued harassment by authorities, decided to try his luck in the New World.

In the previous chapter on Friends' records, there is a family group of the children of William and Mary Austell, of the Ore Meeting in Berkshire. The first child was a son named Joseph, born in 1672. This would make him about seventeen years old in 1689, old enough to leave home for adventures abroad.

In 1957 the Baltimore Southern Book Company published a list of Certificates of Removal received at the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends. Among these documents is one for a Joseph Austell, who is probably the oldest son of William and Mary named above. The abstract of his Certificate is as follows:

Joseph Austill, "Lately of Oare", son of William Austill, and grandson of Dorothy Austill, deceased, an "honorable woman in the truth." From Meetings of Ore and Newbury, England, dated 11 mo. 17, 1698-9. Received 11 mo. 26, 1699.

We do know that a Dorothy Austell was in the Meeting in Ore, and that she had died in 1679.

The Philadelphia Friends could find only one further mention of Joseph Austell in their records. Notes for the Meeting of 9-26-1703 read as follows:

Pentecoast Teague and Anthony Morris are desired to treat with Newton Friends about Joseph Austell's wife & children, who are like to be chargeable to this meeting, and we think they properly belong to their meeting, and therefore we think the aforesaid friends are to use their Endeavour to see what can be gotten from them towards their assistance.

There is no explanation of this situation but as the Friends librarian remarked: this Joseph Austell seems to have disappeared from recorded records, which was a common occurrence in the early days. He might have met with sudden death while away from home; he might have got into trouble with the law and changed his name; he might have felt bowed down under the weight of church and family responsibilities, and being of an adventurous nature, he may have purposely fallen from sight. It was easy to do in those days.