Melissa Craven Fowler's
and
Thomas Lee Fowler's
Genealogy
Melissa's lines include the surnames Craven, Brook, Kitching, Gough, Manship, Lindal, Kirkham, Durden, Murray, Diven, Linn, Junkin, Gettys, and Ramsey , to name a few. As I wrote in the Forward (below), my mother passed on to me the spider-web of family ties and ancestry. Every detail she passed down proved to be correct after I consulted public records, census tallies, and the like -- although there were some people missing from the tree. Plus, I have been able to build on her information, adding many ancestors she did not know about.
Like Tom's family saga, the text documents began to be written after younger family members proved disinterested in the great family stories we had to tell. And like Tom's family saga, my paternal line was originally tackled in one chapter, with each direct male ancestor being discussed in turn, and with their wife's family line being discussed in the same section in which the husband was found, back as far as possible.
As various documents got longer and longer with each iteration of research, and because there was so much information, I separated the various lines out into separate documents/stories (below). So the "tree" or map below may be helpful. The text documents are continuously revised and you will find the last-edit date in the lower right corner of each page. I have also offered drier reports generated by the Family Tree Maker software [originally marketed by, and still synchronized to, Ancestry.com], some of them updated to include people as close to present day as I could locate.
The various chapters bring together the many lines of ancestors leading to two Americans who met and married in 1948: Frank Tempest Craven, a second-generation Englishman whose parents fled industrialized Yorkshire in the early twentieth century; and Nancy Manship Craven, whose lineage reached back in U.S. history to pre-Revolutionary English and Scottish settlers in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Cravens arrived in the United States in 1905 and 1906 aboard steamships, seeking better economic lives in the States. Nancy’s earliest immigrant-ancestors came to Maryland and Delaware from England as early as 1656 (certainly by 1715) on sailing ships, some of them looking for religious freedom; also to Pennsylvania by the 1740's and '50’s among huge waves of Scots-Irish settlers
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Each of the lines chronicled is listed in such a way that the generations lead to either my father, Frank Tempest Craven, or my mother Nancy Lindle Manship. Here is how the lines came together:
Each of the choices below will take you to a PDF file with either text about a branch for one of these ancestral families (top line of each family group, with simple title "The XX's"), or outlined report generated from the "Family Tree Maker" software program in which our large Ancestry.com database is stored (lower lines).
PLEASE feel free to right-click on any/all of these and save them to your own computer for posterity. That's why we wrote them!
The "version" will be reflected in the revised-on date at the bottom of each page.
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Forward and Acknowledgements
(lots of info on the chapters and how they are assembled. PLEASE read first!)
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Melissa's paternal side from England:
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Descendants of Jasper Craven (1744-1813) and Rebecca Child (1745-1823)
Descendants of Joseph Craven (1771-1847) and Sarah Normington (1770-1848)
Descendants of John Kitching (1841-1890) and Elizabeth Greenwood (1821-1898)
generated from extensive database at Ancestry.com
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The Brooks and Goughs
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Descendants of Isaac Brook (1730-1852) and Ruth Jowett (1766 – 1839)
Descendants of Thomas Gough (1802-1869) and Susannah Smith Leeming (abt 1809 – 1855)
generated from extensive database at Ancestry.com
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Melissa's maternal grandfather's side from Maryland and Delaware:
The Manships, Lindles, Kirkhams, and Durdens
the above contains new information on the Lindel/Lindle lineage
of Sussex County, Delaware, starting with Joseph and Zaddock Lindel
Descendants of Charles Manship (1810 - 1882) and Araminta Dickerson
Descendants of William Kirkham (1655 -1686) and Ann Paxton
generated from extensive database at Ancestry.com
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Melissa's maternal grandmother's lines from Cumberland and Perry Counties, Pennsylvania:
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The Murrays
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Descendants of Samuel Murray (1804-1877) and Arabella Morrow
generated from extensive database at Ancestry.com
(Note: this descendant document was "finished" in the summer of 2017, systematically using all the exhaustive records in Ancestry.com's database to locate as many, and up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day, as possible.)​
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There are a lot of trees at Ancestry.com which indicate that Alexander Diven (1715-1762) and Margaret Smith had as many as 6 children. We are sure of the connection of Alexander to three of them and not to the other three. As the number of descendants of this couple grew through the research of 2017 and 2018 in my FamilyTreeMaker (Ancestry.com) database, the program became unable to export a single document with all the descendants in it. So I have had to break the family down into the descendants of each child of Alexander and Margaret.
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James Diven (1741 Northern Ireland -1818 Sherman Valley, Tyrone Twp, Cumberland (now Perry) Co, PA, USA). We are sure of this son of Alexander's and Margaret's -- he is our direct ancestor
Descendants of James Diven and Margaret Nancy Waddell
(This descendant document was "finished" in 2018, systematically using all the exhaustive records in Ancestry.com's database to locate as many, and up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day, as possible.)
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Joseph Mason Diven (1755 Sherman Valley, Tyrone Twp, Cumberland (now Perry) Co, PA, USA - 1830 Tyrone, Perry, PA), about whose tie to Alexander we are also sure
Descendants of Joseph Mason Diven and Elizabeth Catherine McClure
(This descendant document was "finished" in 2018, systematically using all the exhaustive records in Ancestry.com's database to locate as many, and up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day, as possible.)
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John H. Diven (1757 Cumberland (now Perry) Co, PA – 1842 Dix, Schuyler, NY), certainly a son of Alexander; married twice: to Margaret Baskin and to Eleanor Means
(This descendant document was "finished" in 2018, systematically using all the exhaustive records in Ancestry.com's database to locate as many, and up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day, as possible.)
William Diven (1753 – bef.1850) , less certainly a son of Alexander's. He was supposedly born in Sherman’s Valley (now Perry County, PA) before 1755, served in the 11th Pennsylvania regiment during the Revolution and later in the Invalid Corps or Invalid Regiment and may have moved to Schuyler Co, NY where his brother John was living, and died there abt 1842. Knowledge of him is sketchy at best, and nothing is known for sure about spouse and/or offspring, although one tree has him marrying a Mary Carlisle and having a son named George. We have included this in the Ancestry tree but with caveats.
Descendants of William Diven and Mary Carlisle
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Mary Diven (1751-1847) who married John M. Glenn (1741-1819) and gave rise to a very large family of Glenn descendants starting in Centre County, PA. We have begun to document Mary and John’s descendants, although we are not completely sure she was a daughter of Alexander’s
(This descendant document is far from completed. I have worked all winter [2017-18], completing only ONE of their TWELVE children in MONTHS of daily work!!! This will take a long long time.....This document will eventually list all the descendants I can locate, up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day as possible. Stay tuned.)
Descendants of Mary Diven and John M Glenn
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Jane Diven (bef 1759-1800) for whom we found two Ancestry trees which had her marrying men named McCoy and/or McCurdy. Unfortunately, we found no substantiation for this whatever and no real records, and so have not done any further research on her.
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The Junkins
(includes some info and conjecture on the Parkisons of Cumberland County, PA)
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Descendants of Joseph Junkin (1715-1777) and Elizabeth Wallace (Bet. 1722–1724 - 1796)
(Note: this descendant document was "finished" in the summer of 2020, systematically using all the exhaustive records in Ancestry.com's database to locate as many, and up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day, as possible.)​
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Descendants of John Linn and Mary Gettys Linn
(Note: this descendant document was "finished" in the summer of 2017, systematically using all the exhaustive records in Ancestry.com's database to locate as many, and up to as-close-as-I-can-get to the present day, as possible.)
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Descendants of Samuel Gettys (1708-1790) and Isabella Ramsey
Descendants of William Ramsey (1719-1777) and his two wives
generated from extensive database at Ancestry.com
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and finally
Frank and Nancy Manship Craven after 1948
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FTM report: