Friday Funny - 18 Kids & No Reality Show!

While helping my students do some research for their family history projects, I found this source. While scrolling through and perusing the names, I happened on the family of John & Sarah (Winslow) Morrell. They were Quakers and had eighteen children born between 1758 and 1784. I know large families were common in colonial times and I don't even bat an eyelash at twelve to fourteen children but at fifteen or more with one wife is pretty rare in my research. I start to look at the names of the children and notice the ones at the end seem to take a turn - or is it just my quirky sense of humor? 

1. Abigail
2. Kesiah
3. Peter
4. Joseph
5. Benjamin
6. William
7. Sarah (Twin)
8. John (Twin)
9. (Unnamed, stillborn)
10. Hope - hmm...as in "I hope this is the last one?"
11. Hope - born two years after the previous Hope
12. Joseph
13. Enoch - as in "enough already?"
14. Hannah
15. Peace - as in "For the love of God, I just need some peace!"
16. Content - as in "In case you didn't understand, I am content with what I have!"
17. David - (Twin)
18. Thankful - as in "I am so thankful that I will not be having any more children?" (Twin)

Sarah died in 1793 at the age of 52. At that point her children would span ages 9-35 if they all were living. She was 17 when her first child was born and 43 when the final twins were born. 

Friday Funny - Too Much For Her

I found this while searching on Genealogy Bank for articles about my relatives in Bethel, Maine. I'm not sure why it showed up in by search but the story is too interesting not to share. I can't imagine a hen laying an egg that is 8"X6"! No wonder she died in the process!

Josiah Winslow - Governor of Plymouth Colony

My mother's ancestry goes back to the Winslow family who were some of the earliest settlers of Plymouth. Edward and Gilbert were passengers on the Mayflower, brother John came on the Fortune in 1621 and the two younger Winslows, Josiah and Kenelm came about 1631. My family descends from Kenelm so this Josiah is my first cousin, 11 times removed.


Josiah Winslow, shown here was the 13th Governor of Plymouth Colony, serving from 1673 to 1680. He was born in 1628 to Edward Winslow and Penelope Pelham (daughter of Herbert Pelham, the first treasurer of Harvard College). Josiah was the first governor of Plymouth born in the New World. By the time he took office, the colony was well established and no longer reliant on Native Americans to teach the colonists survival skills. The expanding British settlements of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were expanding and putting pressure of the lands of the Native Americans. Chief of the Wampanoag, Metacom (or King Philip) and Josiah did not have a good relationship and this contributed to the outbreak of King Philip's War. Josiah's half-brother was Peregrine White, the first English child born in New England.

It's All Relative

I was absent from blogging for about a month - from mid-May to mid-June. I was, however, heavily involved in research. I had a group of students who wanted to find out about their families and I was helping them rather than doing my own research and writing. I have done this with students before but this time I tried to give emphasis to the story aspect of family history.

Some of my observations:

• Nothing warms my heart more than to see a student whip out his cell phone and call grandma to find out information and observe an extended meaningful conversation between them. This is an approved use of a cell phone in my class!
• In today's mobile society, families are often spread out and don't have (or take) the time to talk about their lives and pass on family stories. I'm certain many of my students have not had more than a superficial conversation with their grandparents. It makes me sad because I know a lot of stories from my grandparents' lives. 
• Everyone can find information and stories. It was great to see students who thought there was nothing interesting in their family, find something special. Even ordinary people have interesting stories. The internet makes it easy to find information if you have some basic information on ancestors who lived in the early 20th century. Almost everyone can get that information on at least one branch of their family. 

Some things my students found out

• My father was raised as a Mormon
• There were two Pillsbury families: "One brother founded the baking company and I'm descended from the other one"
• There's a historic house in Topsham that belonged to one of my ancestors
• My (how ever many) times great-grandfather designed the logo for Humpty Dumpty potato chips
• My mother's ancestor and my father's ancestor both fought for the Union at the same battle in the Civil War in different regiments and from different states.
• My Civil War ancestor survived one of the bloodiest battles of the war and then got a land grant in Maine where he broke his back in a fall while building his home. 
• Hey, I'm related to Ms. Carter! 

They discovered accused witches, artists, inventors, politicians and writers. Their origins were very diverse: Canada, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Italy, England, Ireland, Scotland and more that I can't remember. 

What's Your Excuse?

I was researching some of my grandfather's family and trying to untangle the case of the two William Bassetts. One William Bassett is the son of Roger and Ann (Holland) Bassett. Roger died before 1635. Ann remarried Hugh Burt and he is profiled in the Great Migration series by Robert Charles Anderson. Mr. Anderson does a great job of combing through records to put together a profile of the early immigrants to New England. One of the more interesting parts of the profiles are reading the comments section where he puts miscellaneous court records. I found this one amusing. In November 1661 Hugh Burt was expected in court to witness against Hugh Dickman for absence from public ordinances but the court noted that he did not come because..."Hugh Burt was dead."

I'm guessing that was a good reason not to show up, even in strict culture of Puritan New England.

Love Thing

 

My 8th great-grand uncle, Thomas Wentworth, married a woman named Love. He was a mariner and probably remained at sea most of his life since his inventory shows no property other than real estate. After his untimely death at the in August of 1719, his widow married John Thing.

She became Love Thing!


How would you like to go through life with that name?

Ezekiel Wentworth & Elizabeth (possibly Knight)
Tamsen Wentworth & John Hayes - Tamsen was the sister of Thomas Wentworth
Hezekiah Hayes & Margaret Cate
William Hayes & Olive
Isaac Hayes & Alice Garland
Richard Hayes & Rebecca
Sydney Hayes & Aphia Delphina Cole
George H. Hayes & Anna J. Rowe
Eva Delphinia Hayes & Estes Yates
Linona Alice Yates

Image Source: http://shopisabel.com/viewcategory.php?groupid=8

Who's Your Daddy?

I found this story while looking for information on my ancestor, William Pinson. While some online trees have Edward and Sarah (Dexter) Pinson as the parents of William, I have been unable to find any documentation to back up that claim. Still, it's a good story so I thought I would share.

Edward Pinson was a "seafaring man" according to his burial record. He was the son of William and Mary Pinson and from this record it appears that he was buried 17 March 1701 in St. Martin, Ludgate, London.

Sailors have a reputation of being risk-takers of questionable morality and Edward seems to have lived up to that stereotype. Sarah Dexter was engaged or expected to marry Obadiah Bridges when Edward came into her life. It is likely that Sarah was enticed by Edward's money and the promise of a life in London. Sarah's father, Richard Dexter, warned Edward to stay away from her but the determined couple put up marriage banns which were later torn down. Then while her parents were at Sunday meeting, Edward and Sarah eloped. When they returned four days later as a married couple, Richard called Edward a "rogue, bastard dogg and son of a whore" and Sarah's mother, Bridget, beat her out of the house. It was later revealed that the couple used a forged letter of parental consent to convince the magistrate in Lynn to conduct the marriage. All that seems scandalous enough but...

Edward was not Sarah's first sailor lover...she had "lost her virginitie being overcome in Boston by a man who promiseth her marriage but afterwards went off to sea and since she heard he had a wife in England." Sarah, it turns out, was pregnant when she married Edward...with this other man's child....


Sources:
Sex in Middlesex: Popular Mores in a Massachusetts County, 1649-1699 by Roger Thompson, pages 60-61.

It's All Fun & Games

Milton Bradley is my 2nd cousin 5X removed. His grandfather and my 5th great-grandmother were brother and sister. Milton was born November 8, 1836 in Vienna, Maine to Lewis Bradley and Fanny Lyford. His grandfather was M. Dudley Lyford, older brother of Nancy Lyford. He began is career as a lithographer before he printed and sold a parlor game called the Checkered Game of Life. In 1864 he formed Milton Bradley and Company to print games and game manuals.

Checkered Game of Life - MB's First Game

Nancy Lyford - 5th great-grandmother - M. Dudley Lyford
Oliver Smith Philbrick - 4th great-grandfather
Benjamin Philbrick - 3rd great-grandfather
Lizzie Philbrick - 2nd great-grandmother
Ray Everett Cotton - great-grandfather
Fern Lyndell Cotton - grandmother

http://www.biography.com/people/milton-bradley-9223556

Happy St. George's Day!

St. George is the patron saint of England and St. George's Day is celebrated on April 23rd. In honor of all my British ancestors, I present a few facts about St. George. It's also my mom's birthday so "Happy Birthday, Mom!" 


St. George wasn't English and there is so much mythology surrounding him that it is hard to distinguish actual facts. The best guess is that St. George was born in modern-day Turkey in the 3rd century. The story is that his parents were Christian and after his father died, George's mother moved back to her native Palestine, taking George with her. George became a soldier in the Roman army. Emperor Docletian began a campaign against the Christians at the beginning of the 4th century. Legend has it that George resigned from the army and tore up the Emperor's order against Christians in protest. George was thrown in prison and tortured but he refused to deny his faith. Eventually he was dragged through the streets and beheaded. 

The story of St. George slaying a dragon originated in the 15th century. As entertaining as it is, it must be relegated to the realm of mythology. 



St. George began to be linked to England during the Crusades. One story that is recorded in stone over the south door of a church at Fordington, Dorset, tells of his miraculous appearance and leading crusaders into battle. When Edward III founded the Order of the Garter, he assigned St. George to be its patron saint. St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was built by Edward IV and Henry VII as the chapel of the order. Since that time St. George has been regarded as a special protector of the English. 

St. George Chapel Windsor, England

The flag of St. George is a red cross on a white background and is incorporated into the Union Jack. 

In 1940 King George VI inaugurated the George Cross for "acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger." The award is usually awarded to civilians. It depicts St. George slaying the dragon on a silver cross. 

Info source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/saints/george_1.shtml

Image sources:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George_and_the_Dragon
http://www.google.com/imgres?
http://www.topnews.in/george-cross-theft-case-takes-another-turn-2241432
http://www.inetours.com/England/Windsor/photos/St-Georges_9927.html
http://fandangman.blogspot.com/2010/06/its-all-flags.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/altichiero/

Surname Saturday - Fun With Wordle

This idea came from a tweet I read today. I can't remember who issued the challenge to do something diffeent and post a wordle but here is mine. These are the surnames in my direct line. Wordle makes words bigger depending on the number of times the word occurs. You can play around with colors, fonts and layouts. Sometime I'll get all the first names done too but this took quite awhile to organize. I think I want to update it every year to see how it changes as my research progresses.

Another view that's more jumbled - just for fun

Follow Friday - My Inspiration

Some have asked me how I find enough to write about. Well, one thing I have just started using is the writing prompts on the geneabloggers web site. Every day they post a few ideas for topics and if you write on one of them and include it in the title of your blog, it goes on their site and increases your chances of being read by a wider audience. One of today's writing prompts at www.geneabloggers.com is Follow Friday. Bloggers are asked to highlight a blog they follow or a particular post they read recently.

I feel compelled to share the blog that gave me the inspiration for my own. West in New England is written by Bill West, my 3rd cousin, once removed. I connected with Bill on the Maine Genealogy Network when he commented on a post I made. Then we connected on Facebook and he let me know about the annual reunion for our mutual ancestors and the fact that the family has a Facebook Ellingwood reunion group. I had attended the reunion as a child but didn't know it was still being held every year. I attended the reunion and got to meet Bill and a bunch of other cousins I didn't know I had. I found out this family line adds to the existing research on the family each year with updates and a family newsletter. The Facebook page has drawn in many scattered Ellingwoods and it has been fun for them to see where they connect with those in Maine.

Sharing information & updates at the 2009 Ellingwood reunion

Through Bill's blog, I've connected with other distant cousins and fellow geneabloggers who have helped me in my research so many ways. If you're interested in learning how to research, finding new clues on your ancestors, or connecting with others who are researching the same lines, I cannot tell you how helpful it is to start blogging about your family. Then share your blog on geneabloggers, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. I get inspiration for posts from other blogs I read and they motivate me to keep digging for stories that tell not only who my ancestors are but what their lives were like. The internet and social media have been invaluable to my research. So get inspired and get blogging!! 

Why You Should Be a Geneablogger Too

I have always been interested in my family's history. I started researching my genealogy when I had a hip replacement and had limited mobility during the summer of 2004 (or 2005 - I'm not exactly sure). I was not very good at it when I started, went down more than a few false trails and gathered a lot of undocumented and extraneous information. I've been pecking away at documentation and attempting to clean up my family tree and break through brick walls ever since. 

Last summer I found a Facebook page dedicated to the descendants of Asa Freeman and Florilla (Dunham) Ellingwood - my 3rd great-grandparents on my father's side. I connected with a third cousin, Bill West, a retired bookseller from Abington, Massachusetts who writes a blog called West in New England. After reading his posts and seeing how others were sharing their genealogy through blogs, I became inspired to create my own. So in late February, I took the plunge and created my first post. It's not always easy to find the time to write but I have found a few things that have helped. Most importantly when I don't have time to write an entire post, I put down my ideas and save it as a draft and come back to it later. I have at least as many drafts as I have posts so I always have something to write about. My goal is at least 2 posts a week and in March I was able to post 16 times! I can't guarantee that pace will sustain itself so I'm keeping my goal at 2 posts a week for the rest of 2012. 


So why should you give blogging a try?

• In six weeks, I have made more connections with people who can help me than I've made in six years. 
• I've found stories about my ancestors and the places they lived. These make family history more meaningful than mere names on a page.  
• As someone who loves history, I've expanded and enriched my knowledge - giving me more to share with my students and hopefully making my teaching more relevant and interesting. 
• I am learning more about where and how to research. 
• And...I've gotten a little ego boost from those who have commented on the blog or to me in person and told me how much they enjoy the stories I've shared. 

There is a great community out there of geneabloggers. Head on over to www.geneabloggers.com for some inspiration and tips on how to get started. It is a great resource with links to a wide variety of blogs that can be searched by category. Several sites linked there provide daily or weekly writing prompts for those times you have writer's block. So what are you waiting for? Start telling the story of your family and reap the rewards! 

What's Deism?

I need to credit Chris Dunham of the Maine Genealogy Network for the information about Cyrus Buck and the picture in this post. If you haven't checked out this great web site for those with Maine roots, you really should.  This is a link to his original post. 

In the Greenwood City Cemetery (Martin Cemetery) in Greenwood, Maine, one headstone bears an unusual epitaph. The stone is inscribed with the name "CYRUS M. BUCK" and gives his birth and death dates but it is the rest of the inscription that draws attention. "God is nature; Bible a humbug written by wicked, vulgar priests. Death was a debt I owed. I have paid that debt, so must you. To do good was my religion."  Chris posted an article from the Lewiston Evening Journal of 18 Dec. 1935 that gives some explanation of the life and views of Cyrus Buck. It states that the inscription was requested by Cyrus. The short story is that Cyrus underwent a great change in outlook after the death of his mother. The author of the article said he began to follow the philosophy of "Tom Payne" and "made himself think he was an atheist." 


My connection to this headstone is that Cyrus was married to the grand-daughter of my 4th great-grandfather, Rev. Edward M. Whittle, a Methodist preacher. I hadn't found information that Edward had more children than my 3rd great-grandmother Martha who married Moses Yates. However, if Lydia Whittle was his grand-daughter then Martha must have had a brother. This makes Lydia Whittle Buck my 1st cousin, 4 times removed. 


A point of correction is that the philosophy of Thomas Paine was not atheism but Deism. Deism was a common philosophy among the founding fathers. Deists believe in the existence of God based on reason and nature but do not accept the Bible as the infallible word of God. They believe that after creation, God has left the universe to run on its own according to natural laws. Looking at the quotes of Thomas Paine give context to the epitaph of Cyrus Buck. 


"I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy." 

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." 


"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My mind is my own Church." 


Given Deism's rejection of the Bible and Christianity, it is easy to see how one  might mistake Cyrus an atheist. However, Deists marvel in the beautiful order and harmony of the natural world and believe this proves the existence of God. Since Deism isn't an organized religion but merely a philosophy, it is not possible to make a list of famous Deists. However, some famous people who expressed views in accordance with Deism include: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Ethan Allen, George Washington, John Locke, James Madison, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, and Thomas Jefferson. It would seem that Cyrus Buck's views were not so unusual after all. 

Romance in Rockport - Updated

The legend of Mary Andrews and Stephen Knutsford of Rockport. When I first wrote about this, I     thought I was a direct ancestor of Mary but then I found a mistake in my research. I was very disappointed that my connection to this story was broken. However, I recently discovered that Mary is my 4th cousin 7 times removed...hey, it's a connection and I'll take it.  

Andrews Point

Mary is described as dreamy and intuitive; a girl who liked to use her imagination. She had one daydream that came over and over. It involved her husband coming to her from across the sea. In some dreams he was lying injured and exhausted on the shore of Andrews Point. It was such a powerful dream that she turned away other suitors choosing to wait for her dreams to come true. She frequently wandered down to the shore to look for him. Finally one day, she saw him - a young man in a foreign uniform lying injured on the shore - just as she pictured in her dream. She revived him and helped him up the path to her father's home where he was nursed back to health. On November 5, 1778, Mary became his bride. 


The name of Mary's dream man was Stephen Knutsford and his background adds to the romance of the story. It is unknown how he ended up in the British Navy but in a deposition he gave in 1805, he stated that he came to this country during the Revolutionary War; was taken prisoner when General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, October 17, 1777; called himself a "seaman" and said he was born in Ireland. Others have speculated that he was the second son of a Lord Knutsford whose estate was in Cheshire or the son of an Irish lord. Eleanor Parsons wrote that he was from a titled Danish-English family; on a British ship sailing off Straitsmouth Island when he was tossed overboard by the rolling sea. Unfortunately, he died in 1807 without ever revealing any information about his family background. 

Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga

Adding to the mystery is the fact that he was not typical of seamen of the day. He could read and write quite well. His handwriting is described as beautiful and his conversation as brilliant. He was secretive about his former life and there is no evidence he communicated with his family or friends in the British Isles. Of course, he was not an American citizen and risked capture by the British who would consider him a deserter and a traitor. He lived a quiet life, teaching school at Lanesville and Pigeon Cove on Cape Cod. He and Mary had eight children. 


Common ancestors for Mary Andrews are Nathaniel & Lydia (Huckstep) Andrews. It comes through the Ellingwood line to my grandmother, Fern Lyndell Cotton, for the descendants of Asa Freeman Ellingwood who read my blog.  


Sources: 
Ancestry.com. Alluring Rockport : an unspoiled New England town on Cape Ann : an irregular, rocky shore with ledges and sandy coves, quarries [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.


Rockport: The Making of a Tourist Treasure
 By Eleanor C. Parsons, 1998