A Brief Family History

Little is known about the Allen family prior to 1800. This is my largest brick wall. We have always heard thru family stories that we were English. Whether or not that is true, I now believe thru circumstantial evidence that the Allen family may have arrived in America during the mid to late 1700's settling in North Carolina for a short period of time. New land opportunities opened up in Georgia when the Creek Indian Nation gave way to Twiggs County during the early 1800's. The Allen family migrated to this new area around 1820 and settled for many years. They left the area during the mass migration out of Twiggs in the mid-1800's, and headed to Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Here they stayed for many generations, in the western Louisiana, eastern parts of Texas, and southern Arkansas. My Grandfather Allen was one of the few who left Bossier Parish around 1935-36 to move to Greenville, South Carolina where many of his descendants remain today.

On my maternal side, the HORGER family came to America in 1733-35 from The Canton of Bern, Switzerland. They ported in Charleston and traveled up the Edisto River to a new Swiss/German settlement named Orangeburgh. Here they settled and farmed the land for many generations to date.