Fred

Profile manager: One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message]

If you wish to contribute, please feel free to add your name (Wiki Link) to the Membership list, add links to any relevant free space pages you're working on or simply leave a message for other researchers at the foot of the page.

Volunteer to be a Coordinator

About the Project

The Bell Name Study project serves as a collaborative platform to collect information on the Bell name. The hope is that other researchers like you will join the study to help make it a valuable reference point for other genealogists who are researching or have an interest in the Bell name.

As a One Name Study, this project is not limited to persons who are related biologically. Individual studies can be used to branch out the research into specific methods and areas of interest, such as geographically (England Bells), by time period (18th Century Bells), or by topic (Bell DNA, Bell Occupations, Bell Statistics). These studies may also include a number of family branches which have no immediate link with each other. Some researchers may even be motivated to go beyond the profile identification and research stage to compile fully sourced, single-family histories of some of the families they discover through this name study project.

Also see the related surnames and surname variants.

How to Join

To join the Bell Name Study, first start out by browsing our current research pages to see if there is a specific study ongoing that fits your interests. If so, feel free to add your name to the Membership list below, post an introduction comment on the specific team page, and then dive right in!

If a research page does not yet exist for your particular area of interest, please contact the Name Study Coordinator: Name for assistance.

... ... ... is a member of the Bell Name Study Project.

Once you are ready to go, you can also show your project affiliation with the ONS Member Sticker:

Research Pages

Here are some of the current research pages included in the study. I'll be working on them, and could use your help!

Membership

• Joe Sneed
• Jim Vondrak
• Paula Snyder
• Mary Van Deusen
• Carol (Bell) Syers
• Francis Bell

Related Surnames and Surname Variants

• Beall

Stone Church Bells

For more information on this branch of Bells who settled in Augusta County, Virginia, see the profile for William Bell (b 1685), the immigrant ancestor.

Bealls of Maryland

Sometimes "Bell", see the profile of patriarch Matthew Beall, born about 1720 in Maryland. This branch is associated with the Harveys.

Missouri Bells

John B. Bell, a doctor from Salisbury, Maryland, moved to Potosi, Washington County, Missouri. He was a Union Army surgeon in the 1860s. It’s said his father is Peter Bell, whose family from Germany and is Lutheran. John’s family was Presbyterian & the DNA test of a lineal descendant showed 68% English and 20% Irish.

Pennsylvania Bells

Several generations of Bells stayed in Pennsylvania and are the ancestors of John Evans "Jack" Bell, born in Mercer County in 1864, who struck out West, following "the shining rails of steel to the camps known temporarily as 'end of the road.'" Some clues of his immigrant ancestor must be within Weeks' The Bell Family of America.

Bells of Paisley and Old Kilpatrick (Scotland)

A number of Bells lived in Old Kilpatrick in Dumbartonshire in the late 1700s/early 1800s, though there is evidence to suggest that they moved there from Paisley. They were associated with the Church of Scotland. There are still Bells living in the Old Kilpatrick area, though whether they are descendants of the same family is currently unknown. When a branch of this family later moved across the border to Lancashire (Preston and Lancaster), some became nonconformists rather than join the established Church of England.

Bells According to Weeks

This is a subproject of the Bell Name Study and was established to try to sort out the information provided in the following reference, which is available online but includes unreliable information:

Weeks, Lyman Horace, The Bell family in America, New York, W.M. Clemens, 1913.

See more information about this reference at Weeks, 1913 (including links to online sources).

In order to catalogue information provided by this reference, and attempt to connect valid information to the correct Bell, a line of "Weeks-based profiles" was created with Mathew Bell as its patriarch. The Weeks-based profiles in Mathew's tree were once found in his Descendants Tree, but wikis being what they are, it has changed over the years. The Category:Bells According to Weeks is now a more reliable collection of Weeks-based profiles, albeit not nicely laid out in a descendants list.

The profiles showing the Bell line from Weeks were intended to be static & not be integrated into the global WikiTree. The Weeks-based profiles were meant to serve as deterrents to the creation of additional profiles with the jumbled information and lineage provided by Weeks (see Weeks, 1913 for a critique of the information provided).

This subproject was launched April 10, 2016, after a Bell descendant whose line goes through one of the Weeks-based profiles pointed out the confusion such a parallel line creates. The goal of this subproject was to find the "real" Bells who match Weeks' Bells and merge them, but that plan has not panned out either.

As of August 30, 2017, duplicate Bells will be merged. When appropriate, the following caution should be added:

== Research Notes ==

: {{Red|Caution}}: Information about this person found in [http://www.worldcat.org/title/bell-family-in-america-being-an-account-of-the-founders-and-first-colonial-families-an-official-list-of-the-heads-of-families-of-the-name-resident-in-the-united-states-in-1790-and-a-bibliography/oclc/5083799&referer=brief_results ''The Bell family in America,''] by Lyman Horace Weeks,<ref>Weeks, Lyman Horace, [http://www.worldcat.org/title/bell-family-in-america-being-an-account-of-the-founders-and-first-colonial-families-an-official-list-of-the-heads-of-families-of-the-name-resident-in-the-united-states-in-1790-and-a-bibliography/oclc/5083799&referer=brief_results ''The Bell family in America''], New York, W.M. Clemens, 1913.</ref> can be added in this section until it can be verified by another source. Much of the information in that reference is inaccuate. See the [[Space:Bell_Name_Study#Bells_According_to_Weeks|Bells According to Weeks section]] of the [[Space:Bell_Name_Study|Bell Name Study]] for more information.

See also:
Category:Legends
Category:Fictitious_Genealogy
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Frauds_and_Fabrications