Histories

THE ALLENDER FAMILY OF LEHIGH COUNTY, PA. / by Wm. H. Rinkenbach. --1958.
Efforts to discover the antecedents of the Allender family founded by the Joseph Allender who settled in what is now Lehigh County, Pa. have not been entirely successful but have led to an unexpected conclusion.
The first records of Joseph Alender (1763/3-1845) are those as a member of the York County militia in the Revolutionary War. He might have come there from adjacent Maryland; and searches have shown that there were several Allender or Ellender families in that colony.
On Dec. 17, 1733, a marriage license was granted to Joshua Allinder of Burlington, N.J. and Mary Nixon, who settled on a part of Bond's Manor in Harford County, Md. and died in Cecil County in 1748 [1. New Jersey Archives; Series 1, vol. 22, p. 4]. He is said to have been a son of a William Allender, of unknown national origin, who died 1698 [2. Register of Maryland's Heraldic Families: Allen Norris Parren; Series II, 1938, p. 57]. Frederick Allender (2/26/1720-2/13/1816), who was a native of Germany, settled in Baltimore about 1765. A George Allender, "marriner", in 1772 leased a tract now in Baltimore, and died in 1785 leaving a son William. No national origin for George has been found.
There was a Joseph Allender (1747-1797) who was born in Ireland, came to Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War and died in the Bald Eagle Twp., Centre County. He had a son Joseph, born about 1782, who could not have been the Joseph of Lehigh County [3. Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, vol. III, p. 403]. In 1945 there was at least one Allender in Ireland; and there was an Allender family in England prior to World War I.
To add to the international character of the name is the fact that in the shires of Dunbarton and Stirling in Scotland there is a small river named the Allender [4. Patronymica Britannica; M.A. Lower; 1860; J.R. Smith, London; p. 6]. However, in 1945 there were no Allenders resident in Scotland; and Black's authoritative volume shows that Allender was not a Scotch name of record since 1100 A.D. [5. The Surnames of Scotland; George F, Black; The New York Public Library]. It appears that the name of the river is Gaelic, means "white water river" and is not connected with a family [6. Gaelic Topography of Scotland; Robertson].
However variations of the name are found in Sweden [7. Anna Olander; Vallfarossanger; 1906; Stockholm. --Gunnar Olander; The Kings of Kinda; 1927; Lund University. -- Carl Wilhelm and Olof Olinder; Komumunalskatten; 1927; Stockholm. -- Valborg Olander; Selma Lagerlofs; 1938; Stockholm]; and in the marriage license records of Wilkes Barre, Pa. there is listed an Olinder born in Russia (probably Finland).
From the German, Swedish, Irish and English occurrences of the name it is deduced that in ancient times the migrations of individuals from a certain point made the name international. A search for such a point of origin has led to Oland Island off the northeastern coast of Sweden, and the Aland Islands off the east coast of Sweden and at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia. It is thought that at a time when family names did not exist, individuals leaving those islands became known as Gunner the Olander, Orm the Alander, etc.; and in time the descriptive appendix became family name. It is probable that the migrations that resulted in this took place chiefly during the Viking Age (789-911), when Germany, France, Russia, Ireland and England were invaded by the Scandinavian Vikings.
It has not been discovered from which Allender family Joseph Allender sprung. Since he chose to settle in a section where German was spoken almost exclusively and married Maria Nagel, of German blood and speech, it is probable that he was of German origin. It may be that Joseph Allender had a brother Jacob; as there was a Jacob Allender in the Philadelphia militia in 1785 [8. Pa. Archives; Series 6, vol. 3, p. 956] and Joseph named his second son Jacob. No record has been found of the arrival of Jacob or Joseph at Philadelphia as an immigrant, and it is possible they came from Maryland. However, efforts to find a connection with one of the Maryland families have not been successful.
Table I shows the first three generations of the Joseph Allender family, with each generation numbered. These individuals are discussed in numerical order, with additional tables showing descendents. Female lines are not followed beyond the offspring of Allender daughters. By this means the history presented is kept within reasonable scope. Descendants in the male line beyond the third generation are not discussed; as they bring the record to the period of modern legal and other records; and future descendants should have little difficulty in obtaining desired information concerning those of the fourth and fifth generations. --Rinkenbach, p. 1-3.