Elizabeth Alexander

Brief Life History of Elizabeth

When Elizabeth Alexander was born in 1806, in Easttown Township, Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, her father, Andrew Alexander, was 26 and her mother, Lydia Smedley, was 27. She died on 24 October 1889, at the age of 83.

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Family Time Line

Andrew Alexander
1780–1869
Lydia Smedley
1780–1871
Sydney Alexander
1804–
Elizabeth Alexander
1806–1889
John Alexander
1808–
Jane Ann Alexander
1812–
Mary Ann Alexander
1816–1887
Caleb Alexander
1820–
David Alexander
1810–1900
William Alexander
1814–1899
Western Alexander
1818–1887
Samuel Hampton Alexander
1823–1904

Sources (3)

  • Elizabeth Alexander in household of David Alexander, "United States Census, 1870"
  • Elizabeth Alexander, "Pennsylvania Deaths and Burials, 1720-1999"
  • Elizabeth Alexander in household of Andrew Alexander, "United States Census, 1850"

World Events (8)

1808

Atlantic slave trade abolished.

1812 · Harrisburg Becomes the State Capital

Harrisburg had important parts with migration, the Civil War, and the Industrial Revolution. 

1830 · The Second Great Awakening

Being a second spiritual and religious awakening, like the First Great Awakening, many Churches began to spring up from other denominations. Many people began to rapidly join the Baptist and Methodist congregations. Many converts to these religions believed that the Awakening was the precursor of a new millennial age.

Name Meaning

Scottish, English, German, and Dutch: from the personal name Alexander, classical Greek Alexandros, which probably originally meant ‘repulser of men (i.e. of the enemy)’, from alexein ‘to repel’ + andros, genitive of anēr ‘man’. Its popularity in the Middle Ages was due mainly to the Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC ) - or rather to the hero of the mythical versions of his exploits that gained currency in the so-called Alexander Romances. The name was also borne by various early Christian saints, including a patriarch of Alexandria (c. 250–326 AD ), whose main achievement was condemning the Arian heresy. The Gaelic form of the personal name is Alasdair, which has given rise to a number of Scottish and Irish patronymics, for example McAllister . Alexander is a common personal name in Scotland, often representing an Anglicized form of the Gaelic name. In North America, the English form of the surname has absorbed cognates from other languages, e.g. Spanish Alejandro , Italian Alessandro , Arabic or Assyrian/Chaldean Iskandar and Iskander , and their derivatives, e.g. Greek patronymic Alexandropoulos.

Jewish: from the adopted personal name Alexander (see 1 above) or shortened from the eastern Ashkenazic (originally Slavic) patronymics Aleksandrovich or Alexandrowicz.

History: A number of Scotch-Irish families of this name landed at New York in the early 18th century. By 1746, six of them were established in NC. Others came in through Philadelphia, for example Archibald Alexander, who came from Londonderry in northern Ireland in 1736 and established himself in VA. — The Revolutionary general William Alexander (1726–83) was always known as ‘Lord Sterling’ to his compatriots, although his claim to the title was denied by the College of Arms in London. His father, James Alexander, was a Jacobite who had fled to New York after the failure of the Jacobite rising in 1715. The claim to the title arose in connection with their ancestor Sir William Alexander, a courtier and poet at the court of King James VI of Scotland (James I of England), who created him Earl of Stirling in 1633.

Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.

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