The Knowles Story

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Origins of our Knowles Family

by Dave Jordan

Our earliest known Knowles is William Knowles who was born in 1798 in Scotland or Ireland. His wife was named Jane and probably for the majority of their lives they lived in Ireland. Williams died on September 10, 1879 at age 81 at Killefassy in Cavan County, Ireland. He had been suffering from a fever for two months and anemia for 3 days. He was a farmer and had rights to the land and his wife continued living there after his death.

Additional information about the national origins of the Knowles family comes from varied sources. The grandson of William Knowles, William Wallace Knowles was born in 1848 in Ireland. However, both the 1881 Montreal Census and his burial record indicate that William Wallace Knowles was of Scottish origin. In addition William Wallace Knowles' unpublished 1897 obituary indicates that was active in Scottish organizations in Chicago and that he was born in Ayrshire [County] Scotland. Years later in 1977, William Wallace Knowles' grandson, Chuck Jordan wrote a letter which supports both an Irish and Scottish origin. He wrote, "I believe there were several Blacks scattered over the country, all of them born in Canada and the U.S.A. They originated in Ireland, County Armagh. The Knowles family came from the same part of Ireland, although I had been told that when my Grandfather Knowles died that the death notice in the paper gave his birthplace as Edinburgh, Scotland."

One possibility is that both an Irish and a Scottish origin are correct. How is this possible? This is possible if our immigrant Knowles ancestors were originally Scottish and had been for many generations, then moved to Ireland for one or more generations and then moved to Canada. If so, this could explain the confusion of our oral history that suggests both Scottish and Irish origins for the Blacks and Knowles families. In the early 1800s, the English government and the landowners of the Scottish Highlands decided that much of northern Scotland was needed to raise sheep. As a result many Scottish tenant farmers were evicted in a policy known as "The Clearances" to open up grazing land. Many of the "crofters" were crammed onto ships and exiled to Ireland and the New World (Canada), their cottages burned down so that they would have no place to come back to. Thus it is possible that our Black and Knowles families moved from Scotland to Ireland to Canada, always carrying with them their older Scottish origin. Furthermore, it appears that some of them married Irish woman during their long stay in Ireland and Canada, adding to the confusion of national origin of the offspring.

There certainly is some confusion over the origins of the Knowles family. Williams Wallace Knowles claimed he was Scottish and claimed both birth in Ayrshire and Edinburgh, Scotland. His birth record showed though that he was born in Cavan County, Ireland. It is possible that that all the locations Ayrshire, Edinburgh, and Ireland are all valid locations for the Knowles, but just not for a single individual. And with the passage of time and pride in national origin, the blurred family recollections merged this conflicting data into fewer individuals.

Notes

1. Initial Web Publication Date: 5/1/2003
2. Modified:
3. Desktop Master file: Stories_Knowles