The Cowgill Family History

4/29/2018

I love reading newspaper articles from the past. They not only tell a story and teach history, but in the case of the first article below, it taught me how to correctly pronounce a name. I have several surnames in my family that are not pronounced as they are spelled and Cowgill is one of them. It is not the obvious, but is pronounced Coe-gull. No where else was the pronunciation included in the documentation while researching this family.

Ellen Cowgill is my 9th g-grandmother on my father's side, Pollock/Norton/Brown/Cowgill (going from most recent generation to first generation). The first article below gives a little history on how Ellen along with her children immigrated from England with William Penn in 1682. They were Quakers and as such, a great deal of documentation has been able to be obtained to prove lineage and history. The only thing not been proven to date and is still folklore is Ellen's husband. It is believed his name was Ralph and he was hanged for his faith in England. Documentation is still ongoing by researchers to prove the story to be true or false.

The last article is about a John Cowgill (not our ancestor) who also stood up for what he believed in, no matter the cost to him or his family. I am still researching Little Creek John and Duck Creek John and stories will follow at a later date.

The "rest of the story" and all documents regarding the Cowgill family will be found in the Family History & Genealogy section, link above. There are other articles that I will include in the next blog post about a Cowgill haunted house, stay tuned!