Allen branch

About the Allen Family

The Allens are the maternal ancestors of Rick’s mother, Shirley Louise Woodruff, shown on the right side of the following bow tie chart.

Allen family bow tie chart

The close-in Allen ancestors

Beatrice Ruth Allen, Shirley’s mother, was born in Camden, New Jersey.

Map of New Jersey

Beatrice was a nurse. She is the woman on the right in the following photo.

Nurse Beatrice

Shirley’s parents were divorced while Shirley was still young, and Beatrice remarried Thomas J Walker. Shirley lived for part of her childhood with her maternal grandmother, Louisa Ella Walton. Beatrice and Tom, who was a shipbuilder, moved to Mobile, Alabama. Eventually both Beatrice and Louisa moved to Northern California, where Shirley and her family were living. Beatrice and Louisa played a major role in the lives of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Tom, Beatrice and Ricky

Louisa and baby Ricky

Here is a five-generation picture, with Louisa (in the middle) being the oldest. Next-oldest is Beatrice, standing, on the right, followed by Shirley, on the left. The others are Rick and two of his half-sisters, Dana and Carla, with their first-born children.

Five generations

This is Louisa with Beatrice’s younger brother, Earl, who was better known as “Beany” or “Uncle Beany.”

Louisa and Beany

Earl Allen obituary

The older generations

Many of Rick’s Allen ancestors for several generations back lived in Pennsylvania or New Jersey. Most of them came to the United States from England, except for members of the Kennedy branch of the family, who came from Ireland.

The Walton branch

Rick’s most well-known Allen ancestors are the Waltons, who are the subject of a book by Norman Walton Swayne, titled "Byberry Waltons: An Account of Four English Brothers (Nathaniel, Thomas, Daniel, and William Walton)". Rick’s oldest ancestor in this line is his 12x great-grandfather (another William Walton), who was born about 1550. The Walton family lived in Warwickshire, England (near Birmingham).

Warwickshire, England

In 1683 the Walton brothers immigrated to the United States, first settling in New Jersey and later on land they purchased in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia.

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

The Waltons were Quakers, and the brothers and their families were members of the Byberry, Pennsylvania, Meeting House. They were prominent members of the community: for example, William led many meeting house activities and was probably in charge, for a time, of William Penn’s Manor House, which was several miles upriver from the Walton property. Rick’s great-grandmother Louisa Ella Walton and some of her descendants, including Rick’s grandmother, mother, and two of his half-sisters, are included in the first edition of the Byberry Walton book, which was published in 1958.

Page from the Walton book

A fully indexed, electronic version of the “Byberry Waltons” book is available on the Ancestry.com website.

For more information