In 1999 I wrote The Oil Creek Flemings of Venango County,
Pennsylvania, with related families McClintocks, Culbertsons, Jamisons,
Lytles, Morrisons, Watsons and Hendersons, Volume 1, 586 pages, and
Volume 2, 466 pages. I also treated several families that were
associated with the eight surname units by marriages or family history
events: the Shreves, Smalls, Stewarts, McCaslands, Neills, McFates,
Hunters, Holmdens and Storys. The two volumes are now out of print. With the completion of the Morrisons and Watsons, all eight ancestral lines are updated and online. See the Watsons Introduction for the addresses of all web sites.
For those interested in the book, the two volumes of the 1999 Oil Creek Flemings and related families should be available from (1) Family History Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in Salt Lake City, Utah, tape: 1425302; (2) Venango County Genealogy Club, Oil City, Pennsylvania, 2 Central Avenue, Heritage Room, Oil City, Pennsylvania 16301-3122; (3) Venango County Historical Society, Franklin, Pennsylvania; (4) Franklin, Pennsylvania, Public Library, 421 Twelfth Street, Franklin, Pennsylvania 16323; (5) Crawford County Historical Society, Helene Barco-Duratz Cultural Center, 411 Chestnut Street, Meadville, Pennsylvania 16335; (6) Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, 1212 Smallman Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15222; and (7) the Genealogy Department of the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Except for more federal census records, I did not make extensive changes to what was reported in the Morrison section of the 1999 book, since there is an active group working on our Morrisons, especially trying to find Hugh and Isabella (Wilson) Morrison's ancestors in Great Britain, presumably in northern Ireland and Scotland. Two members of this group that I have been in contact with are Nancy (Morrison) Briggs, who descends from Hugh and Isabella's son Thomas Morrison, and Mary Louise (Morrison) Ostman, who descends from Hugh and Isabella's son Matthew.
Apparently our Morrisons were in Venango County before the nineteenth century. By the early nineteenth century other Morrisons, who may or may not have been related to our Morrisons, were also in central and southern Venango County and adjoining counties, especially the Corydon and Kinzua areas of Warren County, Pennsylvania—whereas our Warren County Morrisons were mainly in Deerfield Township, including Tidioute. Our Morrisons probably were from the north of Ireland and might have come to Venango County “over the mountains” from eastern Pennsylvania, instead of up the Allegheny River or south from New England.