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/McCaslins, Neills, McFates,
Hunters, Holmdens and Storys. The two volumes are now out of print. This 2005 web
site pertains to Jamisons of Volume 2, updated 2005 for the online version.
(April 2006 update) All web site versions are now online:
Oil Creek Flemings.
Oil Creek McClintocks and Culbertsons.
Oil Creek (and Westmoreland County) Jamisons.
Oil Creek Lytles.
Oil Creek Hendersons.
Oil Creek Watsons and Morrisons.
Our Lytles were early settlers of the Oil Creek area, Venango County, but probably were not in Venango County before the nineteenth century. Indeed, there are conflicting reports on when our Lytles did come to Venango County and where they were located in North America before coming to Venango County. As for most of our other ancestors, the Lytles probably can be traced to Scots who emigrated to the north of Ireland and then to North America. There were other early, apparently unrelated Lytle families in Venango County, even in northern Venango County, in the first part of the nineteenth century.
Our Lytles were probably not in Venango County at the time of the first federal census, 1790 (Venango County did not become a county until 1800, until then it was part of Allegheny and Lycoming Counties), but our Lytles were known to be in Venango County by 1805. Probably our Lytles came to North America in the late eighteenth century, and then migrating west to Pittsburgh. After a stay in Pittsburgh they probably came up the Allegheny River to Oil Creek and hence to Venango County with the McCaslands/McCaslins or at about the same time the McCaslands came, early in the nineteenth century. This would be the route taken by our Fleming and McClintock ancestors as well.