Ambrose was a recognized patriot of the American Revolution as shown by the "List of Classes in Culpeper County, VA for January 1781 for Recruiting this State’s Quota for Troops to Serve in the Continental Army." Family tradition holds that Ambrose was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered at the close of the war.

There is controversy regarding whom Ambrose married. Again, family tradition shows Ambrose’s spouse to be Mary Turpen who came to this country from Holland. She died prior to 1840 in Washington County, IN. Documentation of this comes from Edna Garriott (born 1891) who wrote: "My father Simeon Garriott III was a grandson of Simeon Garriott and his first wife Nancy Vaughn - my Grandfather was Vaughn Garriott. My great-grandfather, Simeon Garriott lived and died on a farm not far from Little York in the Mt. Hebron neighborhood. He was a son of Ambrose Garriott who came from France and was in the Revolutionary War, so I have always been told. He lived in Culpeper County, VA and then Garrard County, KY before coming to Washington County, IN. His first wife was Mary Turpen from Holland. My father died when I was four years old. I got what I know about the Garriott Family from my mother not now living, but who knew many of the Garriotts. I have a picture of Ambrose and his wife." However, the Thomas Hull genealogy search (1993) shows Ambrose’s wife to be Elizabeth Blankenbaker (born 1752, married to Ambrose between 1768-1773). Until I can locate documentation proving this, I will use Mary Turpen as his wife.

Ambrose and Mary had 13 children: William (born 1783), Phebe, Elijah, Barbara, Jacob, Mary, Loving, Elizabeth, Rhoda, Daniel, Lucinda, Simeon F. (born May 16, 1792) and John. I have found inconsistencies in the order of their birth as well as reference to a 14th child, Ambrose N. whom I have later placed in a different family branch.

The Hull genealogy shows that Ambrose moved to Kentucky with his 2 brothers by 1788. In 1799, he sold 79.75 acres of land in Garrard County, KY. In his third move, he was a pioneer settler near Carrollton, KY until 1816. In his fourth move, he settled the 160 acre Garriott family farm at Harristown (then Norris) Indiana in 1816. The Ravenscroft genealogy (1952) indicates the following: "Ambrose moved his family to Indiana because he did not believe in slavery, which he found in Kentucky. Several of his sons did remain in Kentucky however. When some of the negroes were emancipated, they took the name Garriott."

Ambrose was buried in an unmarked grave at Spurgeon Hill, Washington County, IN. In the 1980’s, descendants located his grave and erected a fence and grave marker on a knoll at the base of Spurgeon Hill overlooking land he homesteaded.

While I was stationed in Germany with US Army (1973-1974), I was able to make several trips to Paris. During one such trip, I was eating dinner in a French cafe and struck up a conversation with an elderly French couple. The husband could speak broken English and asked my name. When I responded "Garriott" and that my ancestors came from France, he told me that the "Garriotte" spelling would be the correct version. I then told him that I was also German from my mother’s side of the family. He laughed and wondered if I fought with myself a lot.

Here is a recent Internet email from Gary: "I remember once having to spend all night in a Paris airport so aimlessly went through all the telephone books and actually found a bunch of Garriotts in the region right around Paris, but not much elsewhere if memory serves. I had this romantic notion that maybe our ancestors from way back might have come from the Andorra region -- between Spain and France -- because the name Garriott, or its original spelling (Garriotte), is so similar to the word "garrote" in Spanish which means bludgeon or club; I thought maybe our ancestors way back might have been executioners for the Inquisition or something like that! Wouldn’t that be a gas, but I wasn’t able to confirm anything."