My husband is descended from 4 people who were in the Revolutionary War. One on his father’s side of the family, Peter Doxtater, who I wrote about a few weeks ago. The other three are on his mother’s side of the family, Oliver Blizard, James Finch, and Abraham Elston. The Elston family has been in the US since at least 1673, most likely earlier. They are believed to have come from England. The branch Abraham descends from settled in Woodbridge, New Jersey. They eventually moved to Orange County, New York. Apparently some of the Woodbridge branch moved south to Kentucky and then Illinois which explains why my mother-in-law and husband have DNA matches on Ancestry from states that none of the family they knew about lived in. Since the Elstons have been here for so long they have a lot of DNA matches that have shown up in the 5th to 8th cousin range, but at least that confirms the family connection.
There is a 632 page book, “The Elston Family in America” by James Strode Elston, written about the Elston family, which I own.
I found a newspaper article in The Evening Gazette from Port Jervis, New York from Tuesday February 9, 1886 about a gun that belonged to Abram(Abraham) Elston from the Revolutionary War time period. The gun is described as an old-fashioned long-barreled rifle of antique pattern. The rifle had been passed down to his son David, and then to David’s son Abraham, and then to Abraham’s son-in-law O.P. Gillson who donated it to the Carroll Post G.A.R. (The G.A.R. is the Grand Army of the Republic, aka the Union in the Civil War.) I tried to find information about the Carroll Post, but couldn’t find anything. I e-mailed the Minisink Valley Historical Society to see if they knew if the post still existed and if not what would have happened to the artifacts that the post held. I heard back from the Executive Director who told me the post closed once there weren’t enough living Civil War veterans to keep it going. She doesn’t know what happened to their holdings, but was going to check to see if the Historical Society had it although she didn’t think they had anything older than the Civil War time period. Now I really want to know what happened to the rifle. I hope someday I can find out.
The Elston family tree can be found here https://myfamgen.com/elston-family/. The Abraham Elston in this blog post is in the fifth generation.
Did you ever find out what happened to the gun? Abraham Elston is my 8th great grandfather, and I’ve recently been obsessed with learning more about where my family comes from. It would be really cool if they had found it.
No unfortunately I never did find anything else about it.
I have found it so difficult to tract my Elston family. My 3rd Great grandfather is Jacob Elston(135) in Elston Family in America. He was married to a Freelove ?. That book was written so long ago you would think by now I would have been able to connect him to his parents and find his wife’s maiden name but no! I have 4 male Elston’s DNA on Gedcom, ancestry and 23 and me but no clear hits.
Thanks
Kathleen Elston
Sorry I haven’t replied sooner. I get so many spam messages to my blog that sometimes real messages get lost in all the noise. I just went through and deleted over 300 messages. What the spammers don’t realize is that I have to approve a message before it gets posted, so the only person who ever sees their posts is me.
My husband is definitely an Elston descendant as he has so many DNA matches on Ancestry with other Elston descendants. There are a lot out there. Other than the book which you already know about, I don’t think I can help you. Have you been able to look at the trees of your DNA matches to see if you can get back to anyone who has more info about his parents and his wife’s maiden name?
Good luck.
Hi. Not sure if there is any connection but I have a flintlock brass barrel blunderbuss by Abraham Elston of doncaster England circa 1770 , the barrel is earlier circa 1670/1680 interested to know if there is a link with gunmaking ??
Sorry it’s taken so long to respond. I get so many junk comments that sometimes real ones fall through the cracks.
My husband’s Elston ancestors have been in the US since the late 1600s as far as I know, but maybe the Abraham Elston you referred to in England was a distant relative. I don’t think they were gunmakers, but I really have no idea.