John Cears Kear Family
A History of the John Cears/Kear family
John Cears
John Cears is believed
to be the first of the line to come to this country.
Very little is known about him,
but there are two traditions to be considered; one from a Van Wert
County, Ohio, history, and one from a descendant.
One
tradition has John Cears owning a shipyard between Baltimore and
Annapolis, Maryland.
The tradition also has him being a sea-going man before owning the
shipyard. Supposedly, the shipyard was confiscated during the
American Revolution [note 1].
If this were the
case, John would have been a Loyalist.
In the second tradition, a John Cears was a British Army Major, who was assigned to Norfolk, Virginia, in 1750. His wife, Evelyn Nesbitt, joined him two years later. When he remained loyal to the crown during the Revolution, his three sons, John, William and Robert ashamedly disowned him and changed the surname [note 2]. Recent research has disproved this tradition.
It
is known that his son,
John, officially changed his name to Kear in Licking County, Ohio,
around 1818
[note 3]. What the
other brothers changed their surnames to
is not known. A Robert Kear, however, served in the
Revolution [note 4] and
the will of a William Kear is in Augusta County, Virginia [note 5].
The
Bible of Thomas Reed Kear spells the surname as Cears as late as 1823.
The marriage license of his
sister, Mary, spelled her name "Sheers," which could have been a
phonetic of Cears [note 6]. And
with the Van Wert County, Ohio, history giving Thomas
Reed
Kear's father's name as John Cears Kear, we might conclude
that the family name originally was Cears [note
7].
1. Record of Mercer and Van Wert Counties, Ohio (Chicago: A.W. Bowen ∓ Co., 1896), "Biographies of Van Wert County, p. 904. [Return to text]
2. Letter, undated from Helen Kincaid to Donald Kear. [Return to text]
3. Unpublished papers, Wiley McDonald Kear, 1931. [Return to text]
4. Revolutionary War Records, Record Group 93, Card No. 39136063, The National Archives, General Services Administration, Washington, D.C. [Return to text]
5. Virginia Will Book, Cumberland County, Virginia, Virginia State Library, Richmond, Virginia, Vol. VII, p. 445. [Return to text]
6. Marriage Records, 1777-1813, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, p. 80. [Return to text]
7. Record, Bowen. [Return to text]
Copyright
Information on this site related to the Kear family is from The John Cears Kear Family compiled, written and edited by Donald L. Kear, copyright © 1984. Copyright © 2000 - 2006 by Donald L. Kear. All rights reserved. Portions of the pages on this site may be reproduced for nonprofit use only. Credit shall be given to the source.