Genealogy Chat

I am struggling to find a Joseph Morgan born in or near Philadelphia in the mid 1700s, whose records in America would have stopped circa 1780-90 when he went to India (i.e. no death or burial, possibly no marriage or offspring).

My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Joseph Morgan. By 1790, he was the first American to settle in Fatehgarh in Northern India, and his trade was timber. He was from Philadelphia, USA, and his tombstone in India (he died in 1807) states that he was "a native of Philadelphia".

Family papers suggest that he had successful earlier concerns in America connected with some kind of growing (timber?). It is also suggested that he married EITHER a freed African slave in America just before he left America, or a freed African or Indian slave in India after he settled. His wife is described as a native "he had raised", and his children in India were mixed-race.

By 1791 he was fathering children in Fatehgarh (at least five - Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth, Hannah and James).

What I am hoping to find is a Morgan family tree with a Joseph who has no "follow-on" history in the USA (i.e. a birth, just possibly a marriage c. 1785 perhaps, but no death or burial), or, even more ideally, a Joseph Morgan with timber / carpentry skills leaving the USA prior to 1790.

How would someone leaving America prior to 1790 get to India, and are there records of people leaving America at that time (they all seem to be arriving!)? WHY would someone go from America to India at a time when America was seen to be a place of opportunity?

Thank you in anticipation...