Top row: Emily Arledge Snyder
of Washington, DC; the Harmon Drew Arledge family of Calcasieu Parish,
LA; Isaac T. and Barbara Arledge of Hocking Co, OH
Middle row: sisters Florence
Arledge Bremmer and Cora Arledge Nicholson of CO and WA; John Pinkney Arledge
of Polk Co, NC; sons (and their wives) of Henry William Arledge and Betsy
Alldridge of Randolph Co, NC and Warren Co, TN: Jesse L. P. "Phras" Arledge,
John Calvin (Jack) Arledge, Thomas Savage Arledge, William Clement Arledge,
and Dixie Teton Arledge; Hattie Belle Arledge, Samuel Hayes Arledge, and
Johnson Arledge of Houston Co, TX
Bottom row: Huldah Jane Arledge
Turner of Alberta, Canada; Garrett L. Arledge and sons of Montague Co,
TX; Minnie Arledge Hipp of Polk Co, NC
For more on these and other photos,
see below.
I am working on the history
of the ARLEDGE family in America. The traces of history left by this family
during the past 300 years tell a story that parallels and embodies the
settling of America.
Descending from one single
17th century couple whose children began calling themselves ARLEDGE instead
of ALDRIDGE starting about 1700, there are thousands of Arledges today
all over America.
There are large communities
of Arledges in many distinct areas of the country--especially North Carolina,
Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. Some branches--in Stanly
Co, NC and in central Alabama--have retained or returned to the ALDRIDGE spelling. Our family name resides in
the most humble of cabins as well as the most powerful boardrooms of corporate
America.
Arledges can be found who
are of white, African-American, Hispanic, and/or Native American descent.
We are Democrats and we are Republicans--in either case, many of our family
have, from the earliest days, distinguished themselves through passionate
civil service and political activity. In several counties that I know of,
ARLEDGEs have held major civic offices such as Clerks of Court, Magistrates,
Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Fire and Police Chiefs. We represent many
different religious denominations (with, interestingly, more than our fair
share of "Preacher Arledges") as well as occupational categories, with
an extraordinary number in law, teaching and sales.
In fact, a very informal
survey shows a tendency for Arledges to gravitate toward careers that allow
them to indulge in what seems to be a genetic predisposition for gregariousness--a
love of talk, of storytelling, and engaging with people through teaching,
preaching, arguing (in and out of the courtroom) or political leadership!
If you are an ARLEDGE or have Arledges
in your family tree, please contact
me and also join the ARLEDGE Yahoo groups discussion group (see the box below), which is how I am able to keep in touch with everyone who is researching or interested in Arledge Family History.
NOTE: Please know that I deeply appreciate each and every piece of correspondence, whether it is asking a question or providing new information. I enjoy my extended Arledge family immensely! Often, however, I get a bit behind on my correspondence, so please forgive me if I don't respond immediately. I will write back sooner or later! (I have a full-time teaching career as well as a new family business, so I tend to save things up up and work on genealogy on a free day or weekend about once a month). Thanks so much for your patience! If it's been a long time, please send me a reminder.
I regret that it was necessary to remove my database from the Rootsweb World Connect database in May 2004 because of Ancestry.com's and MyFamily.com's corporate plans to appropriate it into a commercialized subscription service. I believe strongly in free sharing of genealogical information rather than commodifying it. Please use the internal search feature on this site (below) and contact me directly with any questions about Arledge descendants that you cannot find on the site. My policy is to put minimal information about living persons on the web site--I've kept the names but removed specific dates of birth and marriage in as many cases as possible to protect privacy. I've also not listed everyone forward to the youngest generations in all cases; it varies from family branch to family branch.
AFRICAN
AMERICAN ARLEDGES and other people of color listed in records associated
with the ARLEDGE family
PLEASE NOTE: All of the
research notes on this web site are part of a work in progress. New information
arises every day that might add new branches to the tree or invalidate
previous assumptions. Genealogy is not a precise science, and much of it
is based upon circumstantial evidence interpreted in the best light possible
according to current knowledge. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy it.
Please let me know! Please excuse any links that are not yet connected.
LINKS TO ARLEDGE-RELATED
WEB PAGES and DISCUSSION GROUPS:
Directory
of Arledge/Aldridge/Allred/Aldred Researchers and Descendants
From "HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY" by Richard
Llewellyn:
"I saw behind me those who had gone, and before
me those who are to come, I looked back and saw my father, and his father,
and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons
upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes. As I felt, so they
had felt and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then
I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning and no
end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand
was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down
the line that stretched from Time That Was to Time That Is, and Is Not
Yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one,
born of Woman, Son of Man, made in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by
the Will of God, the Eternal Father."
--contributed by Morton Arledge
--contributed by Jamie Constance
Can anyone help verify this photo?
This request is from Jerry Limbaugh:
The person seated on the left is J. J. Arledge (a son of Captain Clement, I think from comparison with other photos), the person standing is Capt Clement (I think) and the younger man is unidentified. I have some folks who are kin looking at this photo but we are so far removed from the time of the photo that identification would have to come from comparing them with other photos (which no one seems to have).
Jerry Limbaugh
Winchester, Tennessee
jtlimbaugh@usa.net
This page is dedicated to
the memory of my grandmother, Lura Nash Arledge (1912-1995), whose deep love for history
I seem to have inherited, and to my great-great-uncles Roone and Yates
Arledge, who shared with me their family stories and their lawyerly logic
in pursuing the answers to life's puzzles. I unfortunately never got to meet Uncle Yates, but the words he left behind--passed along to me by Uncle Roone as a legacy that he expected me to uphold--were very inspirational to me.
(L to R: Lura
Nash c.1930; Roone Arledge c. 1981; Yates Arledge c.1918)
I also need to especially
thank my distant cousin and research partner Clay Fulcher, without whose
organizational abilities and techno-wizardry this body of research, collected
from many people electronically, could not exist. Clay initiated the online Arledge connections in about 1996 and created the ties that led us to this place. Because of the hard work
of Clay and the other members of the Arledge/Aldridge/Allred online research
groups, we have been able to piece many parts of this puzzle together in
the past 10 years, and continue to find new connections every day. We have, sadly, lost some of our group members along the way, such as Ann Arledge Jamison, Morton Arledge, and (Elzey) Joe Arledge--and I miss them dearly. They were great fellow researchers of this vast but tenacious family of ours.
What do I do when I'm not
working on Arledge Family History? I'm on the faculty of Reinhardt College, where I teach intercultural communication,
cultural studies, and media history. The photo below is me in the Green River Cove in the mountains of western North Carolina, home of my Arledge ancestors, in 2005. I'm descended from Amos--one son of Isaac Arledge of Fairfield County, SC--who left there and settled in what was then Rutherford County, NC (now Polk County) in the early years of the 1800s.
Thanks for stopping by
to visit! Please come back soon -- more information is being added to this
site on a regular basis. Please email me if you would like to share information!
