An Unexpected Connection

Hello and welcome back to The Hogue Connection! It’s been awhile, and some catching up is in order. I hope everyone, like me, has been enjoying the benefits of vaccination and reconnecting with loved ones! Lately, I decided to spend some time looking at some of my other family lines. Not that I’m bored with the Hogues, necessarily. I wanted to see if I could easily tie into established family trees out there. Perhaps I could make an unexpected connection that would get me back several generations without having to do too much detailed investigation. My mom’s Murray line had been neglected all these years, so I started there.

The Murray Clan Society

I had saved the Murray Clan Society bookmark in my browser many months ago and went back to revisit it. They did have a genealogy section and some pretty cool information about Murray families from Scotland, so I made the commitment and spent the $30 to join up for a year. Part of the application process was to provide them details on your Murray line with a few generations of ancestors. I felt pretty confident in that line back to my 4th great grandfather, William Alexander Murray, and his wife, Barbara Julian.

So far, I have yet to explore the Society in full. I don’t know how searchable their genealogy information is, or if that is even possible. They do have two folks in charge of that data, one for Canada and one for the United States. So, using Ancestry and good ol’ Google, I went searching for more information on William and Barbara. I was hoping to tie into an already established history. The search for William’s ancestors didn’t turn up much, but Barbara Julian had a pretty extensive history on the internet.

Oh No, Not Those Hoge’s!

Barbara Julian’s namesake is her grandmother, Barbara White. I was hoping this was a connection to the White family that came over on the Mayflower. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Turns out Barbara White’s parents were Dr. Robert White and his wife, Margaret Hoge. Margaret’s parents were William Hoge and Barbara Hume, who came over from Scotland together in 1682 or so.

If you can, go back and read Part III of Red River Trails. You’ll see that one of my reasons for starting this blog, was to dispel the idea that our Hogue’s descended from this Hoge/Hume family. This family is very well documented and is recognized by many as pioneers of the Hogue line. In fact many of our cousins out there still have their trees going back to this line incorrectly. Our yDNA shows that we descend from John Hogg, who died in North Carolina in 1795. My unexpected connection comes through my Murray line! Quite a surprise.

Here’s My Unexpected Connection…

William Hoge (1660-1749)

Margaret Hoge (1688-1764)

Barbara White (1722-1778)

Rene Julian III (1756-1840)

Barbara Julian (1780-1870)

Issac Julian Murray (1816-Unknown)

Leonidas Murray (1844-1917)

William Libborn Murray (1870-1952)

Roy Murray (1911-1956)

Martha Murray (1938-2014)

Mike Hogue (the blogger)

So, William Hoge is my eighth great grandfather after all. Of course, that doesn’t apply to many folks who visit this blog. You’ll have to figure that out on your own! Thanks for coming back to the Hogue Connection! In the next post, I’ll be looking at some of the cool tools you can access at WikiTree. I’ll show you another (more famous) unexpected connection that came out of using one of them. Stay safe out there!