The search for James Finnie and
John Finnie is an epic story that follows brothers as they moved west in search
of “a heaven of a place” during some important times in American history. What began many years ago as a short history
of my ancestor James Finnie has now blossomed into a large volume that cannot
be told without the inclusion of his brother John Finnie. The evolution of this work has been due
largely to the amount of information that is available to researchers. You can rest assured that even as you read
this, new information has been found and the story continues to grow (Appendix
4).
Before the reader can continue, a
few important topics must be discussed that will help answer questions that may
need clarification before reading the Finnie history.
First of all, is the surname
correctly spelled “Finnie” or “Finney”?
It actually seems that both variations can and should be considered
correct. James Finnie signed his will
“James Finnie” in 1819 and brother John Finnie signed his will “John Finnie” in
1811 but their father signed his will “James Finney” in 1764. Somewhere between these two dates “Finney”
became “Finnie”.
Perhaps the only way to trace the
evolution of the surname Finney is to look at the records by date. It would be nice if a pattern appeared but it
seems that the name was used alternately through the years. When James and John came to Kentucky
in 1784, Fayette County
court records spelled the name “Finnie”, but Woodford County
There may have never been an
exact date of the change but for the purpose of using the name in this project,
1795 will show the official change. The
Woodford County tax records until 1794 spelled the name “Finney” but perpetually thereafter as “Finnie.” Though the name
was definitely spelled by the family as “Finnie” after the death of these two
men, for the next 150 years, the misspelling of the name remained a common
error.
A relation to the surname
“Finnell” cannot be discounted. There
were many Finnell families living near the Finney and/or Finnie families (in
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri) and for some unknown reason they could often
be found with the name “Finney” and “Finnie.”
Finnell researchers cannot explain this misspelling of the name but it
may have had something to do with pronunciation. I have been told Finnell is often pronounced using a long A for "ell". Ultimately, no common relation has been found and a
discussion of the Finnell family can be found in Appendix 5.
As far as writing style, I chose
to follow an approach that may seem odd to many readers. The style of writing that makes up the body
of this book/website was changed several times.
The final format I chose follows what I like to call a “detailed timeline.” You may not feel the natural flow of a normal
book/website but flow was not the attempt. What
you will see is a sequence of events and records. Not all of the timeline events and records reported
include a Finney or Finnie. Events were
included based upon how they may have impacted the family either locally or
nationally. They were also included so the reader could gain a better time perspective by comparing commonly known events with Finney/Finnie events.
My attempt was to keep the book/website as accurate and factual as possible.
Quite often though, educated guesses were made but these instances were
always stated as so in the book/website or discussed in the endnotes section. After years and years of research I offer you,
the reader, the scenario that makes the most sense to me. It may be up to you to argue or discount
information that has been included. I
have tried to provide you with the very best possibilities and probabilities
when information was not found, records were lost, or none ever existed.
Another topic you may wonder
about after starting the book/website is the drawings, maps, and pictures that are
included on nearly every page. To make
the book/website more exciting and interesting and to provide the reader with some
visual stimulus, images were included to supplement the timeline. These images include copies of original
documents, records, photos I took, and pictures that I drew. At one point, I had "borrowed" many photos from the web but later decided to eliminate those. If I was to publish, they would pose serious copyright issues. Hence, my drawings became part of this work!
Part one follows the grandfather
of James and John Finnie from his arrival into America until his death. Part two documents what is known about the
father of James and John Finnie. Part
three begins the story of James and John Finnie during their infancy and each
chapter thereafter advances sequentially until 1820.
Though the content was intended to have been a book for years, I chose to present it as a website for several reasons. For one, I just could never publish something I know is incomplete. Since I will never consider it complete, the only proper think to do was to offer the "book" to everyone as a free access website. Second, I felt like I was hoarding information that so many people and descendants don't know about. Though I have posted Finney/Finnie information many times to many different websites, I still see incorrect information floating around the web. And third, this is just easier!
All records that I have
been able to find have been included in this book/website. There are definitely records that are still
out there, somewhere. I will include a
list of sources that I plan to research in Appendix 4 but there will be others
that hopefully you or I will just happen upon in the future. Maybe some of these future or surprise discoveries
that have yet to be found will give us new information and tell us more about
these fascinating men and their exciting lives.
Click on the chapter links below to access the chapter content and...enjoy!
Click on the chapter links below to access the chapter content and...enjoy!