This article will be a collection of my thoughts about the different families that make up my tree.  These will be based on information I have obtained from different historical data as well as what I have been told by different members of the family.  This will be an ongoing document as I add to it over time.

CLAWSON

Presently, I can only comfortably trace the Clawson branch to about the middle of the eighteenth century. From several different sources, there were 5 Clawson brothers.  Two of them, Richard and Peter Clawson fought for the colonists in the Revolutionary War as members of the Cumberland County militia.  Also in the early 1780's, Peter and Richard can be found in the tax records for Tyrone Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.  Tyrone Township is now a part of Perry County, Pennsylvania.  After this time, some or all of the five brothers moved to Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.  About this time according to family lore, these brothers got into some type of argument and the 5 brothers went to four different areas of the state. When this argument occurred, it was also told from family lore that the brothers changed the spellings of the last name as a final statement in this disagreement.  This is probably how the different spellings of the last name occurred.  The spellings that have existed were Clawson (supposedly the original spelling), Closson (still exists today), Clossin, and a few other variations.

Richard and Josiah Clawson moved to Indiana County, Pennsylvania in the Blacklick Township area.  These two brothers appear to still get along with each other since from tax and census records, their farms were near to each other.  Peter remained in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania and I have recently gotten much information on Peter from another Clawson researcher.  The members of this branch largely spelled their last name Closson.  There is a Peter who had lived in Washington Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania around 1800 and it is now determined that he is not directly related to the Clawsons mentioned above even though some of his descendants appeared in other parts of my family tree.  Daniel may be a brother to Peter, Richard, and Josiah but may also be a nephew to another brother not yet found.  There is also a John Clawson married to Elizabeth Wincher who I have a similar problem.  Is he a brother or a nephew to Peter, Richard, and Josiah?  Daniel and John eventually made their way to Indiana County where Daniel went to Blacklick Township and John went to Conemaugh Township.

Recently, a tax record was found for Josiah Clawson in Tyrone Township, Cumberland County, for 1763.  He died somewhere between 1767 and 1781.  Could he have been the father of the five Clawson brothers?  I haven't been able to make this connection for sure but I have been continuing this search.  Another interesting item is there was a Josiah Clawson who married Margaret Buckalew in New Jersey and they were both born and grew up in New Jersey.  According to the Buckalew Association website, they had at least two children named Peter and Richard.  Also, Josiah and Margaret would have living at the time that the five Clawson brothers mentioned above would have been born.  Also from some research done by others on the Clawsons as well as on the LDS website, they also have Josiah marrying Margaret Buckalew.  Josiah's parents were Thomas and Anne Clawson.  Thomas' parents were William and Mary Clawson.  As stated earlier, I haven't been able to tie my Clawson tree into this connection.  Then again, this could be a completely different family.  Presently, I think that the Clawsons from New Jersey are a different family since papers for Peter Clawson listed him as immigrating from Scotland.  Also, the same is thought for Richard that he was born in Scotland.

But this brings up a problem.  According to family lore, the five brothers were supposed to be born in Scotland and then came to America.  But if Josiah who married Margaret Buckalew was their father, he was probably born near Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey and was the son of Thomas and Anne Clawson mentioned above.  From the same records noted above, William, the father of Thomas, was probably from Dutch ancestry and he was reported to be born in New Jersey.  All of these Clawsons mentioned above in the previous paragraph were probably born in New Jersey that probably means that the five brothers were not born in Scotland if this is all the same family.  And on the possibility of William Clawson possibly being Dutch, the Scots had gone to fight for Holland as mercenaries according to the Buckalew Association website.  Some of these men married women from the European mainland and some also remained in Holland after their services were no longer needed.  These different pieces of information cause a lot of confusion that I hope some day will be cleared up.

If my Clawson ancestors were of Scottish heritage, there is a genealogy research company called Hall of Names International that has done research on the Clawsons from Scotland. The original Clawsons were of Viking ancestry who probably moved to the Orkney Islands when the Vikings established a colony before 1000 A.D.  The Orkney Islands are a group of islands located north of Scotland.  These Clawsons eventually migrated to the mainland of Scotland.

STEWART

I have also traced the Stewart family to the middle of eighteenth century. Most of the older information on the Stewarts came from a Stewart biography that can be found in the book, 'Indiana County, Pennsylvania, Her People, Past and Present' published in 1913.  This was written by Joshua T. Stewart, which also happens to be my great-great-granduncle.  This was a good article that gave me a good beginning into my Stewart research.  The earliest I can trace the Stewart family back is to Charles and John Stewart.  I do not know if they had any additional siblings in that research is difficult since there are many different Stewart families that are not related at least in America.  Charles and John were both born in Scotland and came to America.  Charles fought for Lord Cornwallis' army during the Revolutionary War and eventually settled in Indiana County, Pennsylvania where he died.  John fought in the Indian Wars and was wounded in the breast.  He established a farm in what is now Buffington Township.  His son, James; his grandson, James; and his great-grandson, William G. Stewart held many political offices during their lifetimes and were able to acquire wealth and land because of the advantages these offices provided.

John's son, James was known as Major James Stewart.  James commission came from being a part of the Indiana County militia for over 40 years.

Due to various reasons, there were a few of the Stewart families of the early nineteenth century that had only a few children which was highly uncommon in those days.  This eventually leads into that the Stewart family tree is not as large as some other family trees that also causes there to be not many researchers doing work on this Stewart family.  From my research, there appears to be at least three Stewart families in Indiana County that are not related.  This has caused some confusion in the past since the different Stewart families had members with very similar names living in the same period as their namesakes in the other families.