# Americans: Do you have any Loyalist ancestors?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-do-you-have-any-loyalist-ancestors/589686>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 20, 2011, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-do-you-have-any-loyalist-ancestors/589686 "2011-07-20T07:12:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-do-you-have-any-loyalist-ancestors/589686/1 "2011-07-20T07:12:45Z")

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In the spirit of such recent threads as the [Mayflower descendants poll](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=616529&highlight=mayflower): Do you have any ancestors who were American colonists who remained loyal to Britain during the American Revolutionary War? These Loyalists are also commonly called Tories or Royalists, and for the sake of this thread we can count Hessians, some of whom remained behind after the war.

Among my ancestors are found the Kühner clan, this surname later anglicized to Keener, a German immigrant family that lived in NC. They seem to have remained loyal to the British king, and at least one relative fought at the Battle of Ramsaur’s Mill in 1780, against the American rebels. After the war, they reconciled themselves to being Americans more or less happily.

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**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-do-you-have-any-loyalist-ancestors/589686/2 "2011-07-20T07:24:33Z")

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Yes. My ancestors, the Seeleys, were loyalists and had to move to Canada after the war. We’re still kinda pissed off about the whole thing.

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**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2011, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-do-you-have-any-loyalist-ancestors/589686/3 "2011-07-20T10:52:26Z")

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Well sort of, [this rotter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phips) is an ancestor. Thankfully that branch of the family did end up learning better impulse control …