Like the westward expansion of the country, our families steadily moved west.  The paternal line took a Southern route, from North Carolina through northern Alabama and western Tennessee to southeast Missouri, and while they weren't the first into an area they were still early enough to be called pioneers.  The maternal line shows nothing so dramatic, but there is a general convergence on Michigan, coming mostly from New York.

First we trace the main Howell line.  Its broad sweep in space and time gives us a good anchor for the rest.  The families that marry into it are described only up to that point.  The maternal line shows a restlessness reflected in numerous small moves, which unfortunately gives us a staccato presentation.

These are not comprehensive histories. The family spans several centuries and many states, and covers much of the history of the country. Rather than write yet another book, we rely on your basic knowledge of American history, and add enough information so you can look up areas that you might be interested in. Where we can (and when we remember) we'll put in pointers to get you on the right track. The histories have enough small detail to make them interesting, but not so much minutiae to make them boring.

Here is a simplified pedegree chart, which will help you keep track of the families.
 
 
Click on one of the families above to go to its history.
Or go there directly:

[Howell] [Riddle] [Ezell] [Wood] [Roper] [Epley] [Irish] [Maus] [Hogle] [Williams] [Osborn]

Notation

We can't do that here, and not for any reasons of "political correctness", because our maternal lines are every bit as interesting as the paternal ones.  In particular, the line from Emma³ Williams has a strong expression of the pack-rat gene, giving us a rich source of original documents, which are still frustrating because they rarely answer the questions we now ask.

So, like the males, here we number the generations of females, strictly down the maternal line.  Too many of these lines, because of the myopia of history, end at the second generation.  Hopefully we, and others, can fill in their history with further research.

This may be confusing, at first.  For an example, which you will see later, James⁶ and Judith⁷ are full siblings, but one is numbered down the paternal line and the other through the maternal line.  We could eliminate the confusion with a notation that indicated a complete peidgree, but it would be cumbersome, and too complex to read easily.  This system has the virtue of simplicity.

Please do not mistake these generational numbers for footnotes.  To avoid such confusion, this document has no traditional footnotes.  Where necessary, hypertext links will lead you to any necessary explanatory information or references.

Where known we use people's nicknames.  Why?  Well, this is not a formal, academic study, and continued use of formal given names can lead to stilted prose that quickly becomes unreadable.  More importantly, nicknames emphasize that these are people, something much more than names on a chart.

To avoid some confusion, while creating its own, women are refered to by their maden name. This reduces the ambiguity caused by using different surnames.