52 Ancestors 2023 Week 7: Outcast

This one is a little harder.  If you are outcast, you are by definition alone or at least scorned on some level by the society or family you (formerly) lived in.  These are not usually happy stories, if you can even find them.  I think my Dutch Reform ancestors were outcasts from the Netherlands (bad theology apparently).  In fact, most of my early ancestors on the North American continent crossed the Atlantic because of religious differences with the larger society they lived in.  Pilgrims (English), Quakers (English), Huguenots (French), and the aforementioned Dutch Reform (Dutch):  none of them were welome in their lands of origin.  Of these, the Huguenots on my tree were the latecomers, arriving in the early part of the 18th century.

I know almost nothing of the Huguenot branch of the family.  They seem to have landed first in Virginia, some in what is now Loudon County where there are still people who bear some approximation of their name.  It is perhaps overstating it to say that they share the same name.  What seems to have begun as Haudenscheidt or maybe Haudenscheldt morphed into Howdeshell, Howdyshell, Houdeshell . . . well you get the idea.  This is my paternal grandmother's family name (Howdeshell, that is).  They migrated west to Kentucky, then a bit further to Missouri where my grandparents met early in the 20th century.  Whether they felt unwelcome or just restless is hard to say.  My grandparents ended up moving even further west to Washington state, but I suspect they were just leaving behind some unhappy memories rather than being run out of town.  Family members from both sides followed them to Washington so I think these were people who were looking for a new beginning.