INTRODUCTION TO DUEY HISTORY FROM THE 16th CENTURY

by Charles John Duey, Sr., Th.M., D.Min., Newington, CT

Please begin this section by reading the paragraph - "Who Are We?" - on our immigrant ancestor, John Conrad Duy (a.k.a Jean Conrad Douey), on the opening page of this website. The facts we have been able to gather across several decades of research and networking with other researchers are laid out here.

The most famous Dewey/Duey line in America is that of Thomas Dewey (also spelled Duey Duee), immigrant to Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, about 1630. This Thomas moved westward with those who settled Palisado Plaza (Windsor), Connecticut in 1635, a year before others from the colony came to settle Hartford. His descendant, Admiral George Dewey, wrote that Thomas was born in Douai, France, a city of Flanders (directly across from Sandwich, Kent, Enland), in about 1597. We Dueys who entered via Philadelphia have no known connection in America to this line from Massachusetts. However, it is a fact of history that a large number of Dueys left France during the times of persecution by the Spanish and French monarchs; many going to England and many others going to Holland and Germany. Our Huguenot ancestor is also named Thomas Douay from that same area of northern France.

Our earliest Duey in Kriegsfeld, the Palatinate, is Thomas Douay/Duy, who had his sons Wilhelm, Conrad, Nicholas and Joachim baptized in the Evangelical Church. Nicholas was born in 1657. Nicholas and Angelica Frantz had their children baptized there also, including Johan Conrad Duy, born 1689. There are baptismal records for Conrad's children from Anna Margretha Boehm as well as his second wife, Anna Maria Reissen. There are also records for Conrad's brother Simon's family. Some of them migrated east to Austrian Empire land in what is now Poland, and later some descendants came to America as Duys as late as the 1890s.

Conrad Duy and family arrived in Philadelphia in 1740, soon taking up residence in the area of the Tohicken Reformed and Lutheran Church, Bedminster Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This was an historic church, founded by pious Lutherans and Huguenots as an effort to Christianize America. Many of the church members were sent by the Pietistic Movement associated with the University of Halle, Germany. Christian and Frederich Duy, Conrad's nephews, came to Philadelphia in 1750, and settled in Germantown. Their brother Johann Phillipp arrived in 1764. These Pioneers served in the Pa. Militia during the Revolutionary War, and at least two died in the service.

From this colonial beginning, the Dueys began a march westward, first to Bucks Co., then the area today known as Lebanon Co., and thence into the area now occupied by Harrisburg. A few years prior to the Revolutionary War, John Jacob Duey and his wife, Anna Catherine Wolfersberger, with their children, moved across the Susquehenna River into the new farming area around Carlisle (founded in 1750). They speculated in land and also owned farming sites. Sons Peter, Martin, Philip, and Conrad either owned farms or rented them. Peter was a weaver, as was another Duey in Hummelstown. Some were wheelwrights and/or wagon makers, one a cooper. In the next generation, a grandson of the Duey/Wolfersberger family, Jacob, was involved in real estate. These all were associated with either the Lutheran churches or the Reformed churches, including the Presbyterian. By the middle of the 1800s, we have record of a strong musical talent in the family. John Samuel Duey, b. 1820, was a choir director in Quincy, Pa., and his son, George Sylvester, had a small music school along with his wagonmaking business. John Samuel also taught musical instruments, having a marching band and being involved with the training of soldiers in the Civil War. George was choir director for a time at the Pine Street Presbyterian Church in downtown Harrisburg.

John Samuel Duey House
bought by J.S. and Mary Ann Durnbaugh in 1854.
A blacksmith and carriage shop
were in the foreground years ago.

Several family groups began moving into Ohio, Indiana and Illinois during the 1800s. Some also went to Nebraska. Meanwhile, from the Harrisburg families, some moved up the Susquehenna toward New York, and Minnesota. Nebraska has a number of Dueys, many of them farmers. We are not sure where all the Nebraskans originated, the best guess being that they are from several lines, for some of these Dueys kept contact, while others simply lost family ties. At least one group took wagons down through Kansas, stopped in Arizona for awhile, and ended up in southern California.

In the twentieth century, as we are aware, people were transferred around the country by their companies, or the Armed Forces moved them to places where they met and married their women. Duey women are harder to trace, but there are many records, and we have gathered quite a few surnames for these marriages.

At the outset of the 21st century, we find that Dueys have moved into so many places, that it is possible to find several lines represented in large states, and especially in the warmer states, where our senior citizens are gathering from more northerly climates. Florida now boasts a large directory of Dueys. My father and his brother Charles went there to live early in the twentieth century. Since then some of us have moved out, while many more have moved in. Some of the midwesterners moved into Texas and Arizona. And that is why we need a Duey Family History Website. Welcome in! We hope we can share information and eventually write some sort of history that will tie us more closely together.
CJD

Please see the Huguenot research at the end of the Newsletter.