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An Interactive Jibson Family History

David Jibson

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Origins in Yorkshire 

1755:  George II Augustus Hanover, sits on the English throne, the second in a line of German Kings to govern the country. In America, the French and Indian War rages in the swamps, forests and mountains of a continent still mostly unsettled. In Austria, Marie Antoinette is born. The sitting Pontiff in Rome is Benedict XIV. Captain James Cook, England's greatest explorer, is sailing the Pacific on a voyage of discovery. He is a Yorkshire man. Not far from his birthplace in  Yorkshire, at a place called Metham Grange, just north of the tiny village of Hive, Robert Jibson is born. Most Jibsons alive today are his descendants.

Metham Grange still exsists as a place name in The East Riding of Yorkshire. The area is low, flat country on the north bank of the Humber.  The countryside is dotted with small agricultural villages and hamlets: Gilberdyke, Eastrington, Howden, Everingham, Sandholme, .  The nearest city of any size is Hull where Yorkshire meets the North Sea.  To the north are the empty stretches of the North Yorkshire Moors. 

Robert Jibson is the ancestor of all of the Jibson family that we can positively trace. The name is older but the relationships further back are lost to us. The Jibson name in Yorkshire can be seen earlier in other villages. In Askham Richard, on the outskirts of  York, the christening of a William Jibson was recorded in 1693 and that of a Richard Jibson in 1698. Records show their father's name as William Jibson.  At some point members of that family may have appeared in the nearby village of Kirkby Wharfe.  A John Jibson was recorded there in 1710. Earlier still, and a few miles further along the road from York to Leeds at Barwick in Elmet there is record of a Robert Jibson (1665) and a Solomon Jibson (1668), brothers who's father is listed as another Solomon Jibson. That gets us to 130 years or so before Robert Jibson of Hive.

To continue with what we do know for sure, on February 23, 1783 in the village of Everingham Robert  married Mary Wolton of Hive. The couple produced 8 children; Richard, Thomas, Robert, Jane, Mary, Elizabeth, John and Ann.  Robert and Mary's son , married Mary Prince in 1817. In 1821 they bore a son they named Robert. This Robert was born at . His birth was significant in the family history because in 1849 Robert and his wife, Ann Buttle, together her father, George Buttle, emigrated to the United States where they became the first Jibson family in America. Robert was already 28 years old when he left Yorkshire. Ann was 8 years younger and just short of 20 at the time of the couples marriage on November 23, 1848. 

The Jibsons in America: Thanks to MariLou Moll

George Buttle worked on the sailing ships going back and forth from America to England. When Robert Jibson met Ann he was a wheelwright or cabinet maker and was apprenticed to a cabinet maker traveling about Yorkshire. When Robert brought Ann home to meet his step-mother (also named Ann) the meeting must not have gone well. For whatever reason, Richard Jibson (Robert's father) gave Robert what money he might have inherited and suggested he find a new life in the new world (which Robert and Ann had learned about from George Buttle). They booked passage on a sailing ship and left for America, coming up the St. Lawrence River and into the Great Lakes. They landed at Milwaukee but didn't stay long. They set sail for Muskegon where Robert knew there was work in a "chip and shingle" business on the north shore of Muskegon Lake.  Robert soon started his own chip and shingle mill in North Muskegon. He sold out when the Homestead Act was signed and he could clear land and claim title to it for a nominal price.

Robert  and Ann had initially settled in , Michigan, which was at the time a lumber capital of the Great Lakes. Robert obtained work in one of the many mills of Muskegon. An 1860 census taker recorded Robert's profession as "shingle maker". By 1861 Robert accumulated enough wealth to apply for and receive a land on two pieces of land in Bridgeton Township in Newaygo County. The patents were recorded in the Greenville, Michigan federal land office on April 1, 1861. The papers bear the signature of W. O. Stoddard signing for then President, Abraham Lincoln. The 1870 showed Robert, Ann and the 7 oldest children in the household.

The land is flat, well timbered. The soil light and suitable for farming but Robert's initial interest in the land, near the eventual village of , is the .  Other pioneer names in the area are Squier, Matthews, Zerlaut, Ruprecht, Kempf and Willis. 

At left is a representation of the Robert Jibson "log mark" registered in Muskegon County in 1865.  A log mark was a brand that was cut into the ends and sometimes the bark of logs before they were floated to the mills.  This was done with a large hammer or die that bore the owners registered mark.  By 1880 the Jibson holdings in Bridgeton township totaled 440 acres and included land to the east and south of the original patent that give the Jibson family access to Brooks Creek, a stream large enough for the transportation of  logs to the Muskegon River and the mills on Muskegon Lake.  This was around the time of The Great Chicago Fire and large stands of Michigan's virgin white pine were in demand for the rebuilding the city.

Robert   As each of Robert's children became of age his wedding gift to them was cleared land. The exception was Prince, who didn't want land. He wanted to go to school. He hated farming and wanted to learn to work with his head not his back. So Robert gave Prince money to go to Ferris College, now Ferris State University. The Platt Book of 1900 shows that the land, mostly cleared by now, is in the hands of several of the next generation of Jibsons. Robert and Ann produced 10  children; Ann, Mary, Robert, John, George, Sarah, Richard, Prince, E. Thomas (E. T.) and Martin.  Land was bought, sold and traded.  The Jibson holdings were divided among Prince, E. T., John, Richard, and Martin. The sons turn the land into farms.  The eldest son, Robert R. Jibson settled in Eastern Muskegon County between East Muskegon and Ravenna. Jibson land in that area eventually house a Jibson School and Jibson Church.  The Muskegon County Jibson school merged in the 1960s with Carr School to the west and Wolf Lake to the north.  They form the modern day school district of Oak Ridge. 

The two Jibsons who stayed in Bridgeton Township and near the village of Sitka, including The  of Newaygo County, the longest are Richard and Martin.  Land once held by Martin became home to the school and to the Sitka United Methodist Church.  Both men farmed until their deaths.  Martin's farm passed to his son, Lloyd.  It was the last 80 acres of Jibson land.

A Second Clan in America: [Thanks to Carol (Jibson) Wakley]

There was second immigration of Jibsons to America.  Another of Robert (1755) and Mary's children was John Jibson (1795). In 1819 John was married to Anne Green Scruton.  Among their 12 children was John Jibson, born in Hive in 1829.  He was a first cousin of Robert (1821).

This John  first married  Harriet Milner of Cawood, Yorkshire.  They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The couple's  first child, Jane Ann (Jennie) Jibson, was born in Hull in 1852. John and Harriet then emigrated to Utah probably across the as part of a company of Saints. Immigation recoreds show them arriving in New York harbor aboard the . In 1869 John was married to Kate Harper in Salt Lake City. Two more children were born; John Scruton Jibson in 1873 and John William Jibson in 1874.  Only John William survived to adulthood. Kate died in 1875 and in 1876 John married another English immigrant, Sophia Williams, who was born in Outwell, Norfolk, England in 1848. Sophia and John had four children; John Robert, Alice Gertrude, Olive and Frances Maude. Alice lived for only 9 months.

The 1860 Census of the U.S. listed 5 Jibsons in America.  By 1870 there were 9.  In 1920 there were 78 and by 1930 167 bore the Jibson surname.

An Australian Clan:

There also was a migration of Jibsons from Yorkshire to Australia.  This Jibson family is also descended from Richard (1784) and Mary Prince. One of their sons, William Jibson (1820), had a son, William (1847).  That William had a son, Frederick (1870).  Frederick died in 1905 after having 3 sons with his wife, Harriet.  After Frederick's death Harriet, with the 3 sons, Leonard, Frederick and Stanley emigrated to Australia.  They settled in St. George, Queensland where Harriet took a job as a cook in a local hotel.  Harriet eventually remarried.  Leonard moved off to Brisbane.  Frederick and Stanley raised families in St. George and are buried in the there. Frederick served in WWI as a trooper with the 5th Light Horse Regiment of the Australian Imperial Force in the 3rd Battalion of the Imperial Camel Corps. The was the unit that was so decimated during the infamous "Galipoli Campaign" against the Turks.

The Jibson Family in Canada:

The Jibson Family Today:

So by now, the 21st century, There are five main clusters of Jibsons who share the common ancestry of Robert Jibson and Mary Wolton.  The centers of these branches of the family tree are in Yorkshire, in Michigan, in Utah, Australia and Canada.  I have seen references to Jibsons in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Cuba, South Africa and The Bahamas. I try any e-mail address that I can find. Slowly our list grows.

Today we are some 7 to 10 generations from Robert and Mary.  There are many hundreds of cousins as distant as 6th and 7th.  We seem to occupy, in some small numbers, every corner of the former British Empire.