The Surname Roush in Germany and Switzerland

Karen Morrison shared her books about her Roush family with me.  She has four huge volumes that she bought at a reunion of the Roush family held this summer in Shenandoah Caverns.  I took photos of some of the pages that dealt with the family in Germany before they moved to our shores before the Revolutionary war.  It is possible that we could have a connection in the Middle Ages....and the information was interesting.  I am putting the copies of the pages that I have photographed into a file on my computer.  Genealogy Documents>Roush.  

It is very interesting information. The beginnings of the surname perhaps as early as 1539 which seems to be the first indication that these farmers (Roush indicating "dig in the earth"). "In Middle Germany the surname seems to exist in many towns around Halle not far from the Harz Mountains.  In other part of the country the name is rare"

The above map didn't turn out as clear as I had hoped:  https://www.google.com/maps/place/Halle+(Saale),+Germany/@51.700648,11.4553242,9.69z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x47a66347fcfc709f:0x4236659f806e460!8m2!3d51.4953567!4d11.9662371!16zL20vMDE5ZnY0!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

In the Harz Mountains there are two villages in which families with the surname have lived for several hundred years.

I found a copy of Volume I on archive.org site:

https://archive.org/details/historyofroushfa01rous/page/n11/mode/2up

Tenth Legion in Rockingham County, Virginia

I received a comment on my fairly new post about John Sevier's location on the Great Wagon road near New Market from resolute.  She referred to the Tenth Legion region and while I waited for her to respond to my question via my blog, I decided I wanted an answer now.  So I asked AI and it was so interesting that I decided to post the answer here:

Daniel James's branch is not a military unit, but rather a historical stream or water tributary (a branch of Smith's Creek) located in the Tenth Legion area of Rockingham County, Virginia. 18th-century colonial land deeds and Quaker migration records place this stream just south of present-day New Market. and

Impressed by their absolute political loyalty, Thomas Jefferson nicknamed the region the "Tenth Legion of Democracy". He compared the area's steadfast voters to Julius Caesar’s famous Legio X Equestris (the Tenth Legion), which was Caesar's most trusted, elite, and loyal military unit. Over time, the local post office and the community that grew along the Valley Pike simply adopted "Tenth Legion" as its official name. 

Joanna Goad Sevier's sister Elizabeth and her husband lived on Daniel James Branch according to Resolute who is a descendant of this couple.  And Valentine Sevier and Elizabeth's husband, Johannes Cock, are named in court cases together according to Resolute.  

There is a book on Ancestry available to read called:

Tenth legion tithables (Rockingham Division) Rockingham County, Virginia

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Huguenot

As I prepare to visit Harper in Spain this fall with the Goldy Girls, I am thinking about Huguenot research.  I am deleting old e-mails and decided to cut and paste some information offered by a book company to start my blog post.

The character of French emigration to the Americas was heavily influenced by religion. Following the declaration of the Edict of Nantes by King Henry IV in 1598, French Protestants were granted a wide degree of religious freedom. Given the opportunity to practice their trades and commerce, the French Calvinists (Huguenots) mostly chose to stay in  France during the 1600s rather than seek opportunities elsewhere.

This picture would change dramatically commencing in 1685, when King Louis XIV rescinded the Edict of Nantes, denying religious freedom. In response, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled their homeland for the safety of Protestant Europe (the Netherlands, England, Wales, parts of Germany) and the Americas. Popular destinations for Huguenot exiles along our Eastern Seaboard included New England, New York (New Amsterdam), Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida.

Of, course, what has captured my imagination about the Huguenots is the ancestors of John Sevier and his father Valentine.  Here is an URL for information about the Xavier/Sevier family that I found interesting:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/memories/memory/123450588

And another URL that takes me to my own blog post....and the answer to why I found Spain to be of interest to me for Huguenot reasons:

https://serendipityreading.blogspot.com/search?q=Sevier

John Sevier's family seems to have been living in Navarre before his father escaped to London.

There seem to be MANY trains between Barcelona and Madrid.  The high speed trains take about 3 and1/2 hours and cost about $70.  There are also trains between Barcelona and Pamplona costing about $130 and taking again about 3 and 1/2 hours.  The train between  Pamplona and Madrid is 4 hours and costs under $200.  Be sure to choose high speed train.  

Jacob Castle at Battle of Kings Mountain

Mary Kegley stated in her book Early Adventurers on the Western Waters Volume III, Part 1 The New River of Virginia in Pioneer Days 1745-1805 on pages 247-248 that Bazle Castle had said in his pension application for Revolutionary War service that he had had to stay home in 1870 because his father had gone with Virginia volunteers to South Carolina for the Battle of Kings Mountain.  However, when I looked at Bazel's application I could not find that information.  

The librarian at Boyd County who is also a Castle descendant found the information for me on Heritage Quest.  It seems that Fold3 was missing page 3 of Bazel's application.  Then I was chatting with James Castle about this and I could not pull up what the librarian had given me.  James found what I needed and sent it to me and I am putting it here so I won't misplace it again:

Page 3 of Bazel Castle's Revolutionary War Pension application.

James told me one can also access this page at a blog site along with interesting information about Bazel's time as an Indian spy:

https://beckysbridge.blogspot.com/2017/01/bazle-castle-part-2-indian-spy.html

In addition I have placed a clearer copy of page 3 in my file that is labelled Castle on my computer.