Middling Folk: Three Seas, Three Centuries, One Scots-Irish Family

by Linda H. Matthews

Historians and biographers have traditionally favored stories of the powerful and the trends they set in motion. More recently, they’ve spotlighted the neglected lives of the disenfranchised and dispossessed. “But,” asks Linda H. Matthews, descendant of the pragmatic, adaptable, and lively Hammill family, “who tells the stories of the people in the middle?” Spanning three centuries and three seas, from the bluffs of Scotland and Ireland to colonial Chesapeake Bay and Virginia, then across the expanding nation into the Pacific Northwest, Middling Folk makes the compelling case that the experiences of the middle classes--those who “quietly, century after century, conducted the business and built the livelihoods that made their societies prosper”--reveal a great deal about the founding of the United States and the ways in which customs and traditions are perpetuated through the generations. Matthews combines meticulous research and deft storytelling to show how the Scots-Irish Hammills--millers, wagon makers, and blacksmiths--lived out their lives against a backdrop of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and westward expansion. Readers will come away with a newfound respect for the ordinary families who helped shape this country and managed to hold their own through turbulent times.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Immigration

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Linda H. Matthews has taught medieval literature at Northwestern University and is the cofounder and former publisher of Chicago Review Press. She is the coauthor of The Balancing Act: A Career and a Family and has contributed to various historical publications."

Reviews

[Kitten Kisser]

This is not at all what I expected. I thought it would be written more like a nonfiction novel rather than a history timeline. The author is writing about her own family history & using the info. she gathered from her family. She goes back very far. I'm sure to her, the story is extremely interesting. After all, it is in a way about her.
My problem is it reads as a choppy broken History lesson. I guess this is because she doesn't have all the information. She admits that she adds in fiction to fill in the gaps to make it more interesting. I thought this would add to the book & make it more enjoyable. When I got to her first fiction part, I didn't care for the way it was put in the book & I don't feel it went with it. It was like suddenly having a little story in the middle of all these dates & clipped bits of info. It just didn't flow. She clearly indicates that what you are reading is her little interpretation of how she feels things might have been when she fills in the gap. Anyway, I gave up. Simply not my cup of tea & I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Camille]

What a unique and interesting book about one woman's middle class family history. I reviewed it on my blog: https://wineandhistory.wordpress.com/...

[Lisa Kearns]

I just finished this book, and feel that the author (and her father) have written a priceless genealogy of not only their family but of many American families. Her title - Middling Folk - is a tribute to the millions of middle class immigrants whose stories have been lost to time. I felt like I was looking through a friend's photo album as I learned about all the Hughs, Johns, Williams, Hammills and Montgomeries through the centuries. Not everyone would be interested in a book detailing a family they don't know, but since my own family has Scots-Irish roots, and immigrated to America in the early 1800s, I found her story riveting. Reading about old battles from the 1600s can be a little dry, but the author adds enough interesting details to keep the reader reading.

The author began with several notebooks of family history that her father gave her decades before, and built upon them to give as complete a family history as possible. She traveled to Scotland and Ireland, to the earliest records of her family name. There are some holes in her family story due to age and lost records, but she did a thorough job with what is available. She visited churches, castles, cemeteries, people and libraries, tracing from the 1600s in Europe, to Maryland in the New World, and finally to the Pacific Northwest. The overall picture is of hardy, hard working people, with a strong sense of family tradition (hence all the Hughes in the family).

The only parts of the book I didn't care much for was the fictional letters she tucked among the history. As historical fiction they would have been interesting, but mixed in among all the non-fictional dates and events they felt out of place.

The Hammill family is lucky to have this well documented and researched record of their past. Linda Hammill Matthews did a wonderful job, and I enjoyed this glimpse into the past.

[Bob H]

On its face, this book is one family's history, chronicled by one of its present-day members. Ms. Matthews has done a considerable amount of primary research in tracing the Hammills from their origins in Scotland, to northern Ireland, and then on through colonial Maryland, to Virginia, and then on to Washington State in the waning years of frontier life. She went through a daunting number of county trial records, land records, newspaper clippings - all the fragments of ordinary lives that turn up in archives. That she was able to organize this and tell a coherent, even compelling story, says much for her writing and editing skill.

And the records are incomplete: the Hammills lived in times of war and revolution in 17th Century Ulster, in the American revolution and civil war, and their families and property - and the archives that recorded them - were often in peril. Many of the records didn't survive. She skillfully fills in the gaps, sometimes with educated guesses, sometimes with fictional letters written with a plausibility that never rings false. While none of the Hammills were famous in war or business, and only (if unlucky) on the fringes of history, they lived out fairly orderly and prosperous lives, and even the mundane parts come out here with a warmth and a genuine human interest.

This book is something more than a descendant's family history, nor is it fiction even in the conjectured parts. The Hammills were typical enough to stand for all the Scots-Irish families who settled down in colonial America, built the new land's industries, survived its wars and depressions, down to the present day. This book can serve as a typical sample of how they, how we, lived.

This could have been my family.

Worthwhile for those interested in Americana and in American social history.

[Martha]

I wasn't bothered by the fictional imaginings that the author interpolated in the factual narrative, since they were clearly labeled as fiction, but I did think she made quite a few gross assumptions in the non-fiction part, and did not provide enough evidence for them. In fact, in a book like this I would have liked to see a lot more documentation in general. Still, it's a good example of a readable family history.

[Katherine]

Interesting view of a family's history. I could have done without the fictionalized stories, but they were cute, and provided a way to handle the genealogist's perpetual challenge of the gaps in the record. The Hammill family is not unlike some of my own ancestors, and I enjoyed thinking about my own family in a similar context.

[MaryAnn]

Tried to read this and got waylaid by the holidays. The subject sounds interesting, but the prose is a little dense and scholarly. Maybe some other time!

[Naomi Toftness]

Didn't finish it because it was too boring. Also, i was hoping for more hard history and less supposition.

[Bhan13]

It was refreshing to read the genealogy & history of middle class people except where the author included fictional letters from her ancestors or the people around them, those parts were unreadable.

[Tom]

A decent family story, but the author "embellished" it by making up facts and stories.