Researching the origins and genealogy of the surname worldwide
John Hoodless (1834-1912) was a cousin of Gerrit L Hoodless and William J Hoodless, both of whom immigrated to the United States in the mid 1800s and whose experiences I’ve documented on the site previously. John’s father, James Raithby Hoodless was brother to Gerrit and William’s father, Captain William Hoodless, who arrived in New York,…
In 1889, 20-year-old William Hoodless boarded the SS Buffalo in the port of Hull bound for New York. The manifest tells us he was “in charge of horses” by profession a groom, so he may have worked his passage across the Atlantic in that capacity. William was born June 1868 on a farm in the…
My previous post about Gerrit Lansing Hoodless mentions him recorded in the 1855 New York State Census. He was living with his wife in the house of a W J Hoodless, in Brooklyn, and I had no definite family connection at the time for them. I have since found an obituary for his mother, clipped…
On 19th March 1833 a ship called the John Wells sailing from Liverpool, England, arrived off the New Jersey seaboard, sailed up the Delaware River and arrived at the port of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, the gateway to the state of Pennsylvania – the Keystone State. Two passenger cards tell the story of Susan Hoodless, aged 32…
Gerrit’s name was spelled multiple ways throughout his life. Gerritt, Gerrit, Garrett, Gerrett. His initial “L” I have never seen documented but there are some who anecdotally state the “L” was for Lansing, but without an official record to back it up. His name and initials “G L” were passed to a son and a…
United States Federal Census taking began in 1790 a few years after the American Revolutionary War. The earliest record of a Hoodless to appear in a US Census is one Adaline Hoodless, a woman in her thirties with two teenage males in the residence aged between 15 and 20 years old. She resides in Portsmouth,…