About: Our House of Henderson

Our House of Henderson originates in colonial Virginia in the early 1700’s and follows the typical migration through North Carolina to South Carolina where they settled by the close of the Revolutionary War. The actual documented history of Bob’s ancestors begins with Chapter Two and each subsequent chapter outlines a separate generation.

Chapter One presents information that can be used by future researchers. This chapter describes how many of the Henderson name came from Scotland via Northern Ireland (Ulster) into the Tidewater area of Virginia and then migrated into the Carolinas. Others started this same migration from the Philadelphia area. Many of these Hendersons began as Presbyterian and changed to the Baptist faith by the time they arrived in the Carolinas.

A typical quote from Chapter 1 “…by 1790, there were 322 separate Henderson households in 12 of the 13 original colonies. Within these 322 families there were 1510 people that used the name Henderson. Included in these figures were 46 families from South Carolina, 45 from North Carolina and 50 from Virginia. There were 10 different Thomas Hendersons in the 1790 census in both Carolinas. If the remaining 10 states had the same ratio of Thomas Hendersons, then there would have been approximately 46 heads of Henderson families with the name Thomas Henderson in 1790. Therefore, care should be taken to insure that proper connections are made in thee early records.”

The book with over 275 pages is well documented with 510 “end-notes” and an index. It also presents family groups sheets at the end of each chapter beginning with Chapter Two.

This book is written in biographical style – not just a collection of date, facts and “begets”. Bob has attempted to weave in cultural data in order to provide a “feeling” and appreciation for each time era. The purpose of this book is to focus on a specific line of Hendersons that probably came from Scotland via Northern Ireland and settled early in Virginia. From there they came into NC and SC before the 1800’s. The book is outlined by generations, and it closes with Bob’s own family.