Adlai Ewing Stevenson was born in Christian County, Kentucky, on October 23, 1835, to John Turner and Eliza Ewing Stevenson, Wesleyans of Scots-Irish descent. The Stevenson family is first recorded (as the Stephensons) in Roxburghshire, Scotland, in the early 18th century. The family appears to have been of some wealth, as a private chapel in the Archdiocese of St Andrews bears their name. At some point, probably shortly after the Jacobite rising of 1715, the family migrated to County Antrim, Ireland, near Belfast. At least one Stephenson was a police officer. william Stephenson, the great-grandfather of Adlai, was a tailor who specialized in millinery. After William's father died in the 1730s, his family moved to Lancaster County, Province of Pennsylvania; william joined when his apprenticeship was completed in 1748.