Party of Ogles from USA on county visit

The family reunion is of 49 cousins from the USA who are all members of the Ogle/Ogles Family Association (O/OFA) and bear an ancestral line connection to the Northumberland Ogles.

The association is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of the history and genealogy of the Ogle and Ogles families in the USA. This is the association’s third trip to Northumberland in the past 12 years.

The Americans are descendants of the Ogle family, who were prominent in Northumberland and British history, owning castles at Ogle, Kirkley Hall, Bothal, Seven Shields, Harbottle and Towers of Burradon, North Middleton, Cockle Part, Hirst, Choppington, Hepple, Newstead, Downhem, Ford and Eglingham Hall.

The British Ogle family lived on at Kirkley Hall until the early 1900s. Its members included Captain Chaloner Ogle, a knight and Admiral of the Fleet, and Newton Ogle, who became Deacon of Westminster.

The first Ogle ancestors who went to the American continent, John Ogle and Samuel Ogle, are believed by researchers to have come from the Ogle family that owned Eglingham Hall.

John Ogle sailed to America in 1664 with a group of British soldiers under the authority of the Duke of York, later King James 1, to recapture Delaware and particularly the town of New Amsterdam (New York), from the Dutch military.

The group will be arriving on Sunday, September 3, and staying at Linden Hall, with visits to the likes of Bamburgh Castle, Warkworth Castle, Eglingham Hall and Alnwick Castle planned.