The History of the Sheldon Jones Family
Settling the Newly Opened Land of Northeastern Pennsylvania
SHAPING HISTORY
Our Early Ancestry
Imagine how hard it is to trace a name like "Jones" and you'll see what a huge challenge I've been involved in. We do know something about our collateral ancestors, especially the Haines family, who came from Northamptonshire, England in the late 1600's during the Quaker immigration to Burlington, West Jersey Colony. Presumably the Jones' followed a similar path from England or Scotland and are believed to have settled near Mt. Holly NJ by the early 1700's.
Our New Jersey Colonists
Burlington New Jersey was first settled in the 1660's by a boatload of Quakers escaping persecution in Yorkshire, England. Somewhere in those boatloads our Jones' entered the New World, and thrived in this new colony of West Jersey. The Revolution was fought nearby and around them and they survived and thrived. New Jersey was getting crowded! And worse yet, Benjamin lost his beloved first wife Elizabeth Eldridge and was yearning to escape his litigious ex-in-laws. Time to move on.
Heading 5
About Me, The Researcher
I first became interested in my family's history after I received the typewritten notes and handwritten notebook of my grandfather, Sheldon Jones, sometime after he died in 1959. His notes were in a small black notebook, notes from his research in the 1940's and '50's. At that time there were still people who could remember and who had heard oral history passed down thru the generations. Ashame no one wrote this down, and ashame there is no family Bible as a resource (as far as I know), but a large source was Sheldon's aunt Estelle Kimball, and I believe that he did travel to Swarthmore and/or Philadelphia to research the Quaker records. I have a copy of a diagram of this land that Benjamin held in Mt. Holly, New Jersey, near Rancocas Creek, supposedly visited by James and Richard Jones sometime in the latter 1800's.
I was always intrigued by these notes, and the typewritten version I know was created by my Nanny on very frail paper using carbons. When I finally got to the point in my life where I had more time, the internet had exploded into a huge resource and I was able to discover more and more facts and history. It's been a real revelation, and a quest I will continue.
Though I live far from Jonestown at this time in my life, I've always treasured the ability to trek back to my "roots" at Jonestown's little cemetery on the hill. There I see names of my Jones ancestors, and their progeny. Now that I know about my family's history these names mean so much more to me, and I can imagine what their lives were like in those early days. Jonestown now is a ghost of what I imagine it used to be. The general store is gone, the Jones house is gone, the Jones' of my ancestry are no longer there, moved on to the larger more industrial areas near Wilkes-Barre. My grandparents completed their lives in Trucksville, but they came back to rest in that lovely little cemetery on the hill in Jonestown.
Barbara Lambert ©2023
The Family of Benjamin Jones
This is a study of the Jones family descended from Banjamin Jones, a Quaker from the Burlington Meeting in New Jersey