More on the Ongs

Today is the first anniversary of my starting this blog, and to celebrate (and to minimize effort during my vacation!) I re-print below my first longer genealogical essay "More on the Ongs" posted to the Ong Family Forum on Genforum in December 1998 when I was living in London and beginning to explore work being done on the family in the early days of the internet.  I have made a few editorial remarks, but more or less my opinions made here still reflect what I know or believe. 

Market Square, Lavenham, Suffolk, England:

Edmund and Frances Onge were shopkeepers in Lavenham in the early 1600's

 



I thought I would respond to the recent challenge made by the site Webmaster by posting on this forum some general background material I have shared with other members of the forum in direct e-mails.
My name is John Francis Harlan Ong.  My first middle name is a result of the Francis/Edmund error in the 1906 book, "The Ong Family of America" by Dr Albert R Ong, in which he names the (male) progenitor of the American Ongs as Francis.  However we now believe that this was actually the name of our female progenitrix, Frances Ong (nee Reed), married to Edmond Onge in 1602.  It seems that the error was caused by the possibility that Frances Ong crossed the ocean as a widow, as there is no record of Edmund's death in Massachusetts Bay and there is a death record of an Edmond Onge in England in 1630. My parents discovered this in the late 1960's, but by then it was too late for my name!  (Dr Ong named his son Harlan Francis Ong for the same reason.) This error is well known to many of you.   (There was a Francis Onge who crossed the Atlantic with Frances Onge and her children, but he was likely Edmund's cousin who later returned to England with wife and child, attended Cambridge University, and was ordained as a Church of England priest.  Maybe life as a Massachusetts Puritan just didn't agree with him!  -Ed.)
   
For those of you who have access to the 1906 book ("The Ong Family of America" by Albert R. Ong, -Ed.), I am descended from (Dr) William Franklin Ong ("Frank"), #177.  My great Aunt Helen is mentioned as there as a child; my grandfather was her brother Louis Brosee Ong.  Most of the 20th century Ongs in our branch can be found in the Blackburn database (www.blackburn-tree.org).  The well-known Jesuit scholar Father Walter Jackson Ong is descended from Richard Marshall Ong (#141).
   
The 1906 book is obviously in need of corrections and updating. In fact Dr Ong had missed out several lines, especially those of Jeremiah's (who lived in the mid-18th century) younger sons Jesse and Jeremiah Jr.  Their descendants can still be found in Western Pennsylvania.  It's surprising they were not known to their Smithfield, Ohio-based cousins such as Dr Ong, all of whom were descended from the older son Jacob Ong (see below).    

The American Ongs emigrated in 1630-31 as Puritans but migrated to Quaker beliefs by the late 17th century, and actively participated in this movement until the late 19th century.  They were pioneer settlers of Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, and parts further west (including Ong, Nebraska!).  My ancestor Jacob Ong (1760-1849) fought in the Revolution in the 8th Regiment of the Pennsylvania Line(unusually for a Quaker).  This regiment served in the Western Pa frontier and was part of the Fort Laurens expedition into the Ohio country, where Jacob later setted.  Jacob is known to have designed and built the Friends Yearly Meeting House in Mount Pleasant, Ohio (built 1814), now a State Historical site.

There are many theories for the origin of the name "Ong".  Many are wild and speculative, but the only scholarly etymological source I have seen is by Henry Barber in his "British Family Names" (London 1903). It has the following entry (my explanations of the abbreviations are indicated by "(=xx)"):
    
ONG. N (=Old Norse/Icelandic) Ungi (?) (the younger); F (=Frisian)
Onke, dimin. of Onno; G (=German) Unger; Fl (=Flemish) Ongers; p.n.
(=place name) or Ongar; a loc. n; Essex.

Ungi "younger" is also a nickname for another name "Uni". It's all
speculative, but I prefer the idea that Ong is a Nordic cognate of young or younger. Modern Norwegian for young is "Ung". Viking or Germanic sources are more likely for an East Anglian family. (That said, I have found a reference to a 1562 John Ong in a history of the Scottish Clan MacKinnon. He was the 2nd son of the 24th Chief Lachlan Dubh and is slain in the battle of Culivi or Coolin.) By the way one of our Akron, Ohio-based distant cousins changed his name in
the late 70's "back" to "St.Onge". This will confuse future genealogists for sure! We didn't really know this family so we made no objection to their error, but it's part of the family ethos to put up with other people assuming you're Chinese, so we're disappointed.  (After all if my mother, Lee Ong, can put up with this, anyone can.)  St.Onge was no saint, the name is a corruption of the ancien regime province of Saintonge (across the Garonne from Bordeaux), a name derived from the Celtic Santones tribe.    

Some facts about the English Ongs which Frances and her children left behind: Edmond/Edmund Onge was born in 1568 in Lavenham. His father Edmond/Edmund was born in 1537 and married Elizabeth Ladyman in 1562, all in Lavenham.  Edmund & Frances had at least many children born in Lavenham, but only two are certain to have made the crossing, We can confirm that most (but not all) of these children died in infancy or childhood, and the stats of the family can be found in John Sawyer's recent message in this Forum.  The oldest child, Mary (b 1606), sailed to Boston separately in 1634, and an Edmund, who may or may not be a son of Edmund and Frances, went to Cambridge in 1629/30. (see below).

It is not easy to link these Edmund Onges precisely to the many other Ong/Onge records in the villages south and east of Bury St Edmunds.  But the English parish records start around this time, so linkages are difficult to make. Onges appear on many earlier tax and
muster roll records.  The earliest I know of is the 1327 "Subsidy
Return" in Suffolk (5 men named in 4 towns).   (But see post on this blog: "The earliest Ong (or rather "Onge") records: 1280 and 1283 AD" -Ed.).   

Ongs seemed to prosper during the 17th century - 6 attended Cambridge University in the period 1629-1653, the earliest being Edmund who matriculated in 1629 and who is either the son of Edmund & Frances born in Lavenham, or a son of a family in Bury St Edmunds.  I link all of these events - including the crossing by Frances - to the growing influence of Puritan dissenters and the Ongs' participation in this movement.    

Some Ongs also moved to Ireland in the 17th or 18th centuries, I believe as part of the protestant merchant class in Dublin.  An Ong was a High Sheriff of Dublin in the 18th century. 

By the way, Lavenham, the ancestral home of the two Edmonds in Suffolk, is one of the most beautiful and well preserved medieval villages in England, little changed from when the Ongs emigrated.    

There are still Ongs in England, and some live in London, where I currently reside although I have not yet intruded upon them - it is very un-English to do so!  (But I did connect with a distant English cousin not long after writing this. -Ed.)  However we are heavily outnumbered in the phone book by Asian Ongs!

I used to live in Turkey.  When visiting the Gallipoli WWI battlefield site, I found an Ong grave within a few minutes of wandering around the British Commonwealth cemetaries - the
headstone read "W.H.Ong, Quartermaster Sergeant, Lancashire Fusiliers".  There are over 20,000 headstones, so I've always felt I was led there somehow by the spirit of a very distant English cousin.

My paternal descent from 1537:

Edmund Onge (Lavenham)Edmund Onge (Lavenham, family to MA)
Isaac Ong (MA to NJ) (Might be Edmund's grandson? -Ed.)
Jacob Ong ("Sr" NJ)
Jacob Ong ("Jr" Burlington Co NJ)
Jeremiah Ong (to Western PA)
Jacob Ong (to Smithfield OH)
Finley (Smithfield)
Moses Harlan Ong (Smithfield)
Harlan Ong (Smithfield)
Dr William Franklin Ong (Uhrichsville OH)
Louis Brosee Ong (Uhrichsville)
John Doyle Ong (Hudson OH)
John Francis Harlan Ong (London UK) (and now Norwalk, CT  -Ed.)
   
That's all folks! (for now!)
JFHO