Hi Helene,
I am a 6th generation descendant of Henry Wilkinson and Elizabeth Mattinson Elwood. Henry and Elizabeth had 6 children, 4 of which went with them to America. Henry the oldest had already gone ahead to America and Margaret stayed in England. I'm a descendant of their 5th child, Elizabeth. My notes say that no one seems to know why they went to America. I can tell you Henry and Elizabeth arrived in Ashtabula Ohio on July 15, 1834. My father, Paul Robert Rennick, was born in Ashtabula in 1912. So was his father Lewis Gideon Rennick and his grandfather, Robert Rueben Rennick and his great grandfather, Gideon Noble Lewis. Gideon Nobel Lewis is the 3rd child of Elizabeth Wilkinson (5th child of Henry and Elizabeth) and John Whitfield Allcock. All I can remember from my fathers stories is that his uncle, John Truman Rennick, was the butcher in Ashtabula. He owned Rennick Meat Market. I believe it is still there today, but is no longer a butcher, instead a restaurant by the same name. Sorry, that doesn't get you any closer to know why they left England for America.
