This web site is devoted to the descendants of John Jamison who emigrated to Pike and Lincoln Counties, Missouri from North Carolina in the early 1800s.
The origins of this family have been difficult to determine, but it is believed that they are of Scotch-Irish decent. The term Scotch-Irish is "an Americanism, generally unknown in Scotland and Ireland, and rarely used by British historians. In American usage, it refers to people of Scottish descent who, having lived for a time in the north of Ireland, migrated in considerable numbers to the American colonies in the eighteenth century."1
What we know so far is that John Jamison, was born in 1744. He, his son James, and their families went to Pike County, Missouri, around 1820.2 At around the same time, another Jamison, William, and his family arrived in Lincoln County, Missouri. William was born in Cabarrus County on 6 Feb 1799. At about age 23 he emigrated to Tennessee where he lived for about a year before going on to settle in Lincoln County.3
After the establishment of these two families in Missouri we find connections between them through marriage. For instance, William Jamison's wife's mother, Elizabeth Wilson Steele, became the second wife of James Carson Jamison. And William's daughter Harriet married William Wesley Jamison, a grandson of James Carson. This, of course, has no bearing on the ancestry of these families, and it may be that they just became close acquaintances, finding themselves in the same general area at the same time and hailing from the same state, i.e. North Carolina.4 Or, another possibility arises, and that is that they are related through a common ancestor back in North Carolina or possibly from their country of origin - Scotland.
In 1901 a book was published by E.O. Jameson entitled The Jamesons In America 1647-1900. It is a genealogical collection of a number of Jamison families. What is of particular interest to us is the Supplement beginning on page 496. It contains the record of a Jamison family that settled in Little Britain, Lancaster Co, PA. What intrigued me about this family is that one of the descendants, a Samuel Jamison, married a Catharine Cowden. Our John Jamison gave one of his sons the middle name of Cowden. A coincidence? Or could this family from Lancaster County possibly be connected to our Jamison family? (For more information, see Research Notes).
The purpose of this web site is threefold. 1) To hopefully prove or disprove the connection between the two Jamison families that came to Pike and Lincoln Counties, Missouri, 2) to trace the descendants of this Jamison line, and 3) to find the immigrant ancestor that first came to America. The information that has been gathered to date has been through the work of many people, principally Kent McMahan, Dave Schaal, Perry Jenks, Jeri Swan, Howard Watts, Ardis Jamison, Shirley Massie Simms, myself, and others that I may not even be aware of.
As all genealogical work, this is an ongoing endeavor and I invite any and all corrections and additions that you would be willing to make and provide. Please feel free to email me at the address below.
Thank you for taking the time to view this site.
1 Leyburn, James G. The Scotch-Irish: a Social History. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1962. See also the following web site: Tracing the Scots-Irish
2 Portrait and Biographical Record of St. Charles, Lincoln and Warren Counties, Missouri. Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co, 1895
4 Pike and Lincoln Counties are located right next to each other with Pike County to the north.