Over the last week or so, I have scanned dozens of antique photos from mom’s family archives. The Davie family are her paternal relatives, and the Buswells the maternal clan.

WALES connection to Buswell/Davie family

Coincidentally, we have Davie and Davies ancestors and relatives, and connections to a Davis++ family also. And first names were ‘re-used’ down the generations. This gets confusing at times. (That’s why I’m writing this down as a narrative.)

Once upon a time, there was a young couple who were born in Wales at the end of the 18th century. They had two small children. The mother and father were Mary and William, and the daughter and son were Maria and William. Little William was about two years old when that Davies family emigrated from Wales to Pennsylvania, USA. Later, the couple had two more children.

It appears that the parents may have returned to Wales at least once.

The boy, William Davies, grew up in/near Wilkes Barre, and married Phoebe Ann Finch. In their first twenty years together, it seems they had nine children. (Not all sources list all of them…)

William died in 1886, age 70; Phoebe died in 1889, age 68.

These are the Davies siblings we know of, and we have photos of several of them:
Sarah E.   b. 26 Oct 1840   m. Winegar
Mary Louisa*   b. 20 Jan 1843   m. Buswell***
Harriet A.   b 10 Jun 1845   m. Polsue **
William D.   b. 16 Jan 1848   m. Alice Raines (?)
Thomas J.   b. 10 Aug 1850   d. age 15
Cecelia J.   b. 11 Jul 1852   m. (?)
James C.   b. 14 Nov 1854   m. (?)
Julia L.   b. 13 Jan 1857   m. Mueller
Effie   b. 1861 (?)   m. Bissell

*Mary Louisa Davies married James Murdock Buswell. The Buswell family history is mostly in New Hampshire. They were the parents of Lillie Buswell Davie, my maternal grandmother.

THIS IS LILLIE BUSWELL WITH HER HUSBAND, EDWIN LORIMER DAVIE.

Mary Buswell is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in SF.
Jas. M. (a G.A.R. veteran) is buried in Leavenworth Nat’l Cemetery, Leavenworth, KS.

** Several Polsue family photos were in a smaller antique Buswell album. (If we can find some Polsue/Davies descendants, they should have these.)

*** There were eight Buswell siblings.

Jacob P. Buswell was a brother of Jas. M.
Charles Henry Buswell was a brother of Jas. M.
FYI: Mary Ellen was their youngest sister, so her daughter, ‘Cousin May’ Coult was a niece of Jas. M. and cousin of Lillie and her sibs.

++Another sister, Sarah Hale Buswell married Joseph L. Davis. (They were parents of the twins Cora and Clara, and older sister Colista. So the ‘C-girls’ were also Lillies’s cousins.)