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As you search through these pages, feel free to use the material that can strengthen your research.  I will try to give the source of my findings as it has been made available to me.  Also, I will try to give the name of the contributor who has supplied the information cited.  Lastly, as you use this material, will you be kind enough share your findings so that this web page can made available to others?  You can reach me at:  mingwv@sbcglobal.net.     

In my contact with the national archive in Wales, I have been informed that Ming is not a Welch name. The name MING can be found with various spellings and in many locations.  Thus far, I have found it spelled:  Ming, Minge, Mings, Myng, Myngs, Menzies, Minnes, etc.  The locations for the name are:  England, Scotland, Germany, France, Bermuda, and Barbados.

To start, as is probable for the most of you, I had family tradition.  I was told that five Ming brothers, Joseph, James, Thomas, Christopher,  and Robert came from Wales to this country.  In my correspondence with others, it is interesting how many researchers had the same start.  “There were five brothers”, etc.

My earliest find thus far?  In the 2d year of the reign Henry V, (1415) the king granted a Letter of Safe Conduct to Sir William Douglas, Chevalier, of Drumlangrygg in Scotland to go to Carlisle in England to “perform certain Feats of Arms”.  Going with Sir William was Sir William Harrington, Sir David MYNGES, (MENZIES) Knight, Sir Ralph Greystoke William Edmundson, Esq., and Sir Christopher Curwen.  Sorry to say , the gentlemen from Scotland lost the “Feat of Arms”.  Source:  Collins, Arthur.  A Supplement to the Four Volumes of the Peerage of England, Vol.2, Pg. 440, London, 1750.

Another interesting research area is the Ming family in Bermuda.  David Ming reportedly arrived in Bermuda on the Plough  with Governor Richard Moore in 1612.  BERMUDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Vol. 13, Pg. 13.  Another statement (not  proven) indicates the date was 11 July 1612.

David’s wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Carter.  COLONIAL RECORDS BOOK, 1,Pg. 194a.

In David Ming’s will, dated 12 June 1674, and probated 19 Aug 1674, the following are named:  wife, Elizabeth; sons, Joseph, David, Thomas, Benjamin, Jonathan; daughters, Elizabeth Brangman (receives a shilling only) Rachel Colson, Hannah Ming; Grandchildren, Christopher Colson, Hannah Ming; and cousin, Ellen Thaxton.  WILL BOOK 1, Pg. 189.   I might add, here and now, that there is NO PROOF that the Joseph Ming in this will and the Joseph Ming of  North Carolina is one and the same person.