Rockholt Family History

  
“ROKHOLT”  a variant of the Germanic “Rockolt”, a variant of “Rocholt”, or “Rocholl”; thought to be from variants of  a Germanic personal name . “Hrokwald”, composed of the elements hrok ‘prudance’, ‘care’ + wald ‘Crule’,  and by others to be of Slavic origin.

From all I have been able to determine, our early ancestors immigrated to America from the Netherlands.  Indications are that the earliest was Robert Rockhould, who probably left England for Holland in the turmoil of the religious uprisings of the early 1600s.  Some time passed while he was in Holland, he married and had children before departing for the English colony of Virginia in 1637.  Tracing our ancestry into England, during the time of Robert, is proving very difficult.  While there is great evidence of German movement into England prior to the 1600’s, there is little recorded history from which information can be gathered.   Some of the wives of the earliest found American Rockholts were of Welch and Scottish birth, leading me to believe that the early Rockholts, while maybe of German extraction, were English.

Virginia had its’ own problems with religious practices and that seems to be the reason Robert and his family left to join other English in the new colony of Maryland where religious freedom was to be available.  History tells us otherwise but the colonist prevailed in their revolt  against British rule, eventually ceding the government back over to Colonial rule with assurances of religious freedom.  But, in time the Colonial rule just proved too much and the Revolutionary War was on.
Our family members have been present in every major war/uprising .  Robert was an armourer by trade, active in the Savern and Patuxent  uprising.  He was, from what I  can find, a prosperous individual.  His name is found as being indebted to  on several wills.   At the same time it appears that he did not get involved in politics, his name is not found on any documents relating to government.

The Virginia  Colony seems to be the earliest settling of the Rockholt/Rockhold families in the Americas.   From there they moved into Maryland and down into Tennessee, into the Carolinas, and New York .  They seemed to spread out, generally as the Unitied States expanded, so did the family.  Farmers, craftsmen, school teachers, railroad men, preachers, boat builders, merchants, solders, sailers and statesman.  They seem to have ventured into about every aspect of the nation, both in occupation and in location, There is today a large number of Rockholts in Tennessee, they are also concentrated in Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and California.

Variants of the name, be they the result of intentional or unintentional change, have been found while researching the family genealogy.  While today our line spells the family name “ROCKHOLT”, it appears also as ROCKHOLD.  The use of Rockhould seems to have been only used for two generations  The family ROCKWELL seems to have originated from some source other than Robert Rockhould, even though you will find any number of Rockwell family trees that show Robert.  The Rockwell Foundation (Norman Rockwell) has done a lot of DNA research and pretty much ruled out Robert from their line.  There is one ROCKHOLD family line originating in Maine in the late 1600s which does not appear to associate with our Robert.

Ancestry

The Tsalagi or Aniyvwiai (today the Cherokee) people trace back to the Tennessee Valley as early as 12,000 years ago.  Archaeological digs throughout the valley from 1934 to 1942, prior to the construction of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reservoirs, were undertaken by the University of Tennessee and the University of Alabama.

These digs produced a vast collection of artifacts which are now on display at the Frank H. McClung Museum, Knoxville, Tennessee  (http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu).  From the stone age, into the “hunter-gatherer” age, these were advanced civilizations.  Indications of woven cloth as early as 9000 years ago, their early work in pottery, stone and copper, much of it chronicled in the records of deSoto’s expeditions, are on display at the museum.

By the eighteenth century only the Cherokee and a few Chickasaw remained in Tennessee.  The Creek and Shawnee had moved west.  Soon the remaining “native” Indians, those who had not adapted to the European ways, would be pushed out of their lands and relocated several times, eventually winding up in the Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma.

I am a hyphenated American.  Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, German, Dutch, Welsh, Scotch, Irish and English – American.  (Who knows, I might find more nationalities to add tomorrow….)  The Europeans came to Virginia, to Maine and to the Carolinas, in the mid 1600’s.  They moved to Maryland, then to Tennessee, down to Missouri, into Arkansas, across to Oklahoma, and down into Texas.  The western expansion of the new nation saw our families scattered throughout the United States.  They moved with the railroad construction on the eastern seaboard, they moved along the Oregon Trail to the California gold rush, and they moved on the Trail of Tears into Indian Territory.  Gun smith, farmer, black smith, lawyer, soldier, sailor, statesman, preacher, and even a horse thief have seen their presence in the family.