Our Bolen Heritage
Some time ago, my mother, and her late brother started tracing the Bolen History. This has lead in several different directions over the last few years. I myself only became interested in Genealogy in the early Spring of 2001. I would like to take the next several pages to tell other Bolen researchers (and others) what I have found and try my best to lay out an outline of the Bolen family as I know it. There are still a few loop holes of undiscovered data that needs to be worked on but this is my first try.
As you read and study these pages, if you know of anyone that should be added or maybe a cousin that is misplaced, or have a birth record or death certificate that you would like to share on this line of the Bolen family, please feel free to contact me in any way you feel comfortable doing. (email) My regular mailing address is at the bottom of this page.
My ggg grandfather was born sometime between 1790 and 1805, exactly when we do not know. There are no records of his birth, or at least we can’t find any. Now family stories have it that he came from a family of 13 children, plus his parents. As I stated this is only hear say at this time. But also a family of 15 does not just disappear, someone out there has to know more of the who’s and where’s. We also do not know WHERE he was born, some say Virginia, some say Pennsylvania. One even says he was born in England. I have one census record of one of his children that states he was born in Maryland.
The geographical area runs from the state of Pennsylvania, Maryland, down to Virginia, back to Ohio, and then by late 1860's back into West Virginia (Which by this time had become a state). We are interested in finding anyone that has any information about this family prior to 1790, that might link James Bolen Sr to his parents or brothers and sisters.
We do think that one of his sister's names may have been Emily, because we found a land record where James and Emily purchased land in Marietta Ohio on the same day, (November 7th, 1837). As a child of 13 (his daughter Emily) would not be purchasing land, and women could only purchase land under strict rules at that time, (mainly widows with children) we are trying to figure out if this Emily is James' sister. There is another mention of a sister, in his son Jeptha's war records, where he says that his Aunt has his birth records. But he does not mention the Aunt's name.
One thing I have also discovered is that there are several ways to spell the Bolen name. The ones I have so far are as follows: Balen, Boden, Bohlen, Bohlyn, Bolding, Boleyn, Bolin, Bowland, Bilen, Boeln, Bolan, Bolen, Boling, Bowling, Bowland, Belin, Boilen, Boland, Bolling, Bowling, and Bowlyn.
Snail Mail address of author:
Gladys Reinhardt
PO Box 22
Jacobsburg OH 43933
