For some time now I have believed that all the Principal Forney families are related, if not after their arrival in America certainly in their native countries.

I have removed the message board I had attached to this site. Unfortunately it was used much like all the other message boards already in existence. It had been my hopes that people would post only clues that would connect the principal Forney families. You can find my listing of Forney message boards here. Help Stuff

Perhaps the best place to start with a connection would be "where did our ancestors come from". I am reasonably sure our Forney ancestors were what we call Huguenots. Consider the following history of the Huguenots.

The Huguenots were French Protestants who were members of the Reformed Church established in France by John Calvin in about 1555, and who, due to religious persecution, were forced to flee France to other countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Protestant Reformation began by Martin Luther in Germany about 1517, spread rapidly in France, especially among those having grievances against the established order of government. As Protestantism grew and developed in France it generally abandoned the Lutheran form, and took the shape of Calvinism. The new "Reformed religion" practiced by many members of the French nobility and social middle-class, based on a belief in salvation through individual faith without the need for the intercession of a church hierarchy and on the belief in an individual's right to interpret scriptures for themselves, placed these French Protestants in direct theological conflict with both the Catholic Church and the King of France in the theocratic system which prevailed at that time. Followers of this new Protestantism were soon accused of heresy against the Catholic government and the established religion of France, and a General Edict urging extermination of these heretics (Huguenots) was issued in 1536.

An escalation in hostility and conflict between the Catholic Church/State and the Huguenots in 1562, lead to 1200 Huguenots being slain at Vassey, France, thus igniting the French Wars of Religion which would devastate France for the next thirty-five years. The Edict of Nannies, signed by Henry IV in April 1598, ended the Wars of Religion, and allowed the Huguenots some religious freedoms, including free exercise of their religion in 20 specified towns of France. On October 22, 1685 King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nannies and began a new persecution of the Huguenots, and hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled France to other countries. The Promulgation of the Edict of Toleration in November 1787 partially restored the civil and religious rights of Huguenots in France.

Because many of our ancestors lived in the region of France located along the Rhine River we can assume they also spoke the Germanic language. The particular land in question for hundreds of years had been the source of boundary disputes by France and Germany (AKA Baden and Hesse). When the persecution of the French Protestants began in earnest. These people fled to their nearest sanctuary. For those in the North of France this was the Palatinate and for those in the South of France this was Switzerland. Forney ancestors lived in these areas in some cases for generations before immigrating to America. Palatinate, Or German PFALZ, was, in German history, the lands of the count palatine, a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Geographically, the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the Rhenish, or Lower Palatinate, and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate included lands on both sides of the Middle Rhine River between its Main and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg. The Upper Palatinate was located in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south toward the Danube, and extended eastward to the Bohemian Forest. The boundaries of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of the counts palatine.

During the War of the Grand Alliance (1689-97), the troops of the French monarch Louis XIV ravaged the Rhenish Palatinate, causing many Germans to emigrate. Many of the early German settlers of America (the Pennsylvania Dutch) were refugees from the Palatinate. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Palatinate's lands on the west bank of the Rhine were incorporated into France, while its eastern lands were divided largely between neighboring Baden and Hesse.

After the defeat of Napoleon (1814-15), the Congress of Vienna gave the east-bank lands to Bavaria. These lands, together with some surrounding territories, again took the name of Palatinate in 1838.

Switzerland had also become a place of refuge. One of the three national languages as it is today was Germanic. But tolerance for Protestant religious views was clearly a lure. The religious freedoms allowed in Switzerland gave early forms of Protestant religion a birth place. The Reformed church had its beginnings in Switzerland in 1519 with John Calvin. In 1536 Menno Simons began what we know as the Mennonites.

Unfortunately France again imposed its will on Switzerland and the most severe of the persecution began on the Protestants of Switzerland. Those who were able migrated to America in the early 1700s. Others escaped back into Germany before they or their descendants migrated to America.

William Penn and the Quakers
Penn was born in London on October 24, 1644, the son of Admiral Sir William Penn. Despite high social position and an excellent education, he shocked his upper-class associates by his conversion to the beliefs of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, then a persecuted sect.

The Board taking the same into their serious consideration, observed that as these People pretended at first that they fly hither on the Score of their religious Liberties, and come under the Protection of His Majesty, it's requisite that in the first Place they should take the Oath of Allegiance, or some equivalent to it to His Majesty, and promise Fidelity to the Proprietor & obedience to our Established Constitution; And therefore, until some proper Remedy can be had from Home, to prevent the Importation of such Numbers of Strangers into this or others of His Majesties Colonies.

A Paper being drawn up to be signed by those Palatines, who should come into this Province with an Intention to settle therein, pursuant to the order of this Board, was this day presented, read & approved, & is in these Words:
see DOCUMENT 1 see DOCUMENT 2 see DOCUMENT 3

I found a transcript of one of these documents which contain the names of what I believe to be our Forney ancestors it can be viewed here: An Act For the Better Enabling Divers Inhabitants Of The Province of Pennsylvania to Hold Lands, And to Invest Them With The Privileges Of Natural-Born Subjects Of the Said Province

I also found a transcript of another document which may lead to understanding cause for some of our ancestors to leave Lancaster County in haste. it can be viewed here: PROCLAMATION OF GOV. THOMAS AG'ST SETTLERS ON LANDS IN LANCASTER, 1742.

There has been much consternation of just what the proper spelling of our ancestors is or was. I am sure we would all like the spelling to be that which we have come to know as our own name or that of our immediate ancestors. But the truth is perhaps even my own surname of Forney may not be the proper spelling as it was in the home land of our ancestors.

If we can assume our ancestors were of French decent with earlier German roots and in fact lived along the Rhine River they most likely spoke a dialect of French but their native language would have been most likely a German dialect. Switzerland where we know some of our ancestors came from do not have there own unique language but one is a dialect of the German language. Even if some of our ancestors were educated for which there is considerable proof. This does not mean they spoke or could write English. The use of consonants and vowels are very different between the French and German languages and our English language.

Consider this; if you were to travel to Germany and be asked to sign your own surname, what are the odds that it could be pronounced correctly? Starting in 1729 our forefathers landed in America and were required to provide their names, any number of things may have occurred. a) They wrote their own name in their native language or their own second language. b) A clerk wrote their name for them, spelling it in their own phonetic interpretation of how it sounded. c) The ancestor wrote it with his own phonetic interpretation of the English language.

Most researchers can point to verified spelling changes within their own line. This could lead one to conclude they became more familiar with English has time went on or that they opted to spell the name in a common way to that of their relatives living close to them.

My own personal research has led me to believe, the most significant cause of surname spelling variants was the association of various churches. Either intentional or by dialect.

We also have proof that some spelling variants are a direct result of which language an ancestor spoke. In a transcript of a letter written to John K. Forney he included in his book. Peter Forney wrote: "My father spelled his name in German Fahrney and in English Forney...". This Peter Forney was born in 1828 and his father of whom he spoke was born in 1777.

One stumbling block I believe is chasing the name Johann or Johannes I came to this conclusion after reading this article by Charles F. Kerchner, JR's web page at http://www.kerchner.com/germname.htm.

In the late 1600's the Catholic Church decreed that only given names from the New Testament could be used. The single fact has been the source of considerable consternation for genealogists attempting to identify their ancestors.

I also believe there is strong evidence that such surnames as: Ferney, Ferree, Ferie, Forrey, Furney, Fahrney, Lefevre, and even in some cases Frey.