MY CULBERT FAMILY ORIGINS
Last Revised: 5 Mar 2004
| My Family Origins |
Today, no one knows anything about our CULBERT family connections in Ireland. We do know that Moses CULBERT stated in his naturalization papers that that he was born in Letterrkenny town, County Donegal. I also found him on a ship's passenger list, arriving in Philadelphia in 1828. Focused research is currently being conducted in Ireland in the hopes of uncovering more information, but so far no likely families have been identified. Because the ship's passenger list has him as Moses CUTHBERT rather than Moses CULBERT, 1 the research in Ireland includes consideration of the CULBERT, CULBERTSON, CUTHBERT, and CUTHBERTSON surnames, as well as similarly spelled variants of these surnames. A possible reason for a purposeful change in surname from CUTHBERT to CULBERT is provided by someone I was in contact with in Northern Ireland 2 - that CULBERT is perceived to be Catholic and CUTHBERT is perceived to be Protestant - important considerations in Ireland in those days, and still so today.
According to Anne Culbert BOURNE SCHULZ (6.4.2), who was our family historian until her death in 1985, Moses had a brother, James John CULBERT, who lived in Wilmington, Delaware. I have not been able to make a definite family connection between them. The strongest suggestion for a family connection is from the will of James' son, Thomas CULBERT, who died in Wilmington, Delaware in 1903, and who left all of his possessions to his wife, Martha, as a life estate, and then upon her death, since they had no children, to Robert CULBERT (4.3) of Chester, Pennsylvania, John CULBERT (4) of Philadelphia, PA, James CULBERT (7) of Chester, Harry MURDICK (the husband of Thomas and Martha's housekeeper, Mary MURDICK) of Wilmington, Delaware, and Mary Ellen Culbert MULDOON (relationship unknown) of Baltimore, Maryland. In the mid-1920s there was an attempt by Samuel Culbert WISDOM (believed by some to be the only child of Samuel CULBERT and the only grandson of James John CULBERT) to partition the real estate passed down by his grandfather in order to gain his share. The persons named in the summons in partition were William Eves CULBERT, Sr. (6.3), Joseph Warren CULBERT (6.1), Gertrude CULBERT BOURNE (6.4), Robert S. CULBERT (4.3), Harry CULBERT (4.4), Harry E. MURDICK, and Ellie C. LINTHICUM (a.k.a. Mary Ellen CULBERT MULDOON, now married). This inheritance and real estate evidence suggests a family connection between these two CULBERT branches.
It has also been suggested (as communicated by Anne SCHULZ) that Moses and James CULBERT were college professors in Ireland. This seems unlikely, because Moses was only 24 when he emigrated from Ireland. It has also been suggested (also by Anne) that these brothers dropped the "son" from their surname CULBERTSON because they were involved in politics in Ireland and wanted to disassociate themselves from that. No evidence supporting or refuting these stories has been found, although we do have the discrepancy between Moses' name on the ship's passenger list and how he was always known in the U.S.
When Daniel Jason CULBERT (6.3.2.2.2) was in Ireland with his family in 1986, they found indications that the CULBERT family's roots are in France, where the name was COLBERT. The surname COLBERT is Anglo-Saxon. I have been unable to determine what was the specific nature of the indications that tie our family to France. His family looked for CULBERT families in the telephone directories of places they visited in Ireland, and the only towns in which they were found were in Dublin and Letterkenny. Unfortunately, they were unable to make contact with any CULBERT family members while they were there.
One possibility for the move to Ireland from France, suggested by William Eves CULBERT, Jr. (6.3.5), is that the COLBERT people may have been French Huguenots, an artisan class of Protestants, who left France in large numbers in the 17th Century. A short discussion of Huguenot history and information may be found at: Huguenots.
As my CULBERT and related surnames research continues in Ireland, I have created a website for this data. It can be found at:
The Culbert Family in Ireland
| Notes |
1
Passenger List, Ship Asia, arriving Philadelphia 24 or 25 June 1828 from Londonderry, Ireland.
2
Emails from Kenneth CULBERT, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1999.
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