By John Slaughter
Welcome to new member Mike Saul. At the time of writing I am waiting to hear from Mike about his Saul ancestry.
I have had some interesting correspondence with Andrew McIlvaine who lives in America. He is assisting a descendant of Alexander Sawhill (1777-1837) who first appears in Pennsylvania in 1802 when he applies for US citizenship. Family records show that he had married in Pennsylvania in 1798 and had two siblings William and Isabella and that his father’s name was John.
Family tradition is that Sawhill was a phonetic spelling of an unknown name (possibly Saul) and that the immigrant family may have come from Ireland. Andrew’s research into Irish records have not found any positive links. I am also told that an Ancestry DNA test has thrown up a match with an Elizabeth Saul who married Thomas Burrow at Warton, Lancashire in 1811. In our records we had tentatively linked this Elizabeth to a baptism of an Elizabeth Saul who was baptised at Cartmel, Lancashire in 1771. However subsequent research suggests that the Elizabeth who married in 1811 was born circa 1790 so the tentative link is clearly wrong and I am unable to find an alternative baptism for her.
