The Wilsons of Michigan

Did you know I'm named after my great-great-grandmother, Rebecca Eleanor Wilson Manary? Well, now you do.

The Wilson family came from England. Rebecca Wilson Manary was born in the U.S. in 1852, and married Joseph Charles Manary in 1871. Her son, Otto, was my great-grandfather.

The Wilson family Bible has some interesting information about the family, although there seems to be a mish-mash of material inside. 

The Bible has a leather-embossed cover, fairly typical of the time it was printed, in the mid- to early-1850s. It is in decent shape, although the spine is falling apart. You can see my thumb holding it on in the picture above.

The first page inside the cover reads "Eleanor Wilson". This would, presumably, be Rebecca Wilson Manary's mother. The handwriting is fine but not extremely fancy. I mention this because someone who wrote in this Bible did have beautiful calligraphy. I assume it was not Eleanor Wilson, based on the handwriting on the front page. 

The second page reads "This book was purchased about the year 1858 at a book store near the corner of 5th and Water St. Bay City, Mich. given to C.J. Manary by his mother" It looks to me like this is different handwriting, but I can't particularly tell. C.J. Manary would be Otto's older brother, Charles, which would make "his mother" Rebecca Wilson Manary. I'm not sure how the Bible ended up in our branch of the family, but Rebecca Manary did live with her son Otto when elderly and died in his house.

As usual, the best information comes from the family pages between the Old and New Testaments. There are several pages of births, marriages, and deaths.

The first page has "Parents' Record". In fancy calligraphy, under Father it reads "John Wilson was Born Nov the 6 1810". Someone added, in much poorer handwriting, "in Suttontown Linconshire, England". The handwriting looks to me very similar to the name "Eleanor Wilson" on the first page. The E is the same. Under Mother, the Bible records "Eleanor Wilson was Born April the 13 1823". Again, in the same shakier handwriting, someone (perhaps Eleanor) added, "in Yorkshire England."

The Births page has a list of all of John and Eleanor's children. It has two columns, and most of what is in the column on the left is repeated on the right. Most of the writing here is the fancy calligraphy. I wonder if that is John's handwriting or if they hired someone to write the information when they first got the Bible? The actual information reads:

Elizabeth Wilson Born March the 7 Seventh 1842

Robert Wilson Born April the 9 Ninth 1844

 Thomas Wilson Born May 29 1846

Burton Wilson Born Oct the 10 Tenth 1848

Rebeckah Born February the 8 Eighth 1853 [note: there seems to be some confusion about when she was actually born, because it is written in on the left column where the date was missing entirely, and on the right column someone wrote over the original in blue pen. The original said February 9, 1852]

Jabus Born Nov the 1 First, 1855

John Born July the 10 1860 

The marriages page includes a list of the childrens' marriages, as well as that of their parents. The left column has three different versions of the parents' marriage information. It looks like someone was practicing their fancy calligraphy and just started over when things when bad. The information on the page is as follows:

John Wilson and Eleanor Pearson married February the 13 in the year of our Lord 1841.

 Elizabeth Wilson Married April the sixth in the year of our Lord 1859 [note: there's no mention of who she married. Maybe they didn't like her husband?]

The two entries above were written in the fancy calligraphy. Everything below was written in a much shakier hand:

Robert Wilson and Elizabeth J. Petherick were joined in holy matrimony April 20 1871 

John Wilson and Margaret Hagerty married September 28th, 1868

Thomas Wilson and Lizzie Garner were joined in holy matrimony Oct 28th, 1875

Joseph C. Manary and Rebecca E. Wilson married July 27th 1871 

 

The last page, of course, catalogs the deaths. It seems to have been filled in by a number of different hands over the years. The information is a little muddled in order because some deaths were put in the left column and others in the right. 

Jabus died July the 4 fourth in the year of our Lord 1857 [He would have been not quite two. A note in the bible, which I'll show later, said he died of whooping cough]

John Wilson died March the 28th 1866 [This is the son of John and Rebecca Wilson, who would have been five at the time. The same note that mentioned Jabus's death said John Jr died of typhoid fever]

Joseph C. Manary Died Nov 22 1916

Rebecca Manary Died May 1st 1930

The above entries were in the left column. In the right column are listed:

Eleanor P. wife of John Wilson died February 19th 1867 [note: the E looks a lot like the one on the first page, which does discount my theory that it was Eleanor's own hand.]

John Wilson Sr died January 20th 1897

Elizabeth Wilson Fagg died Feb 6th 1920

Thomas Wilson died Feb 28 1921

William W. Fagg husband of Elizabeth Wilson Grant [not sure what the Grant is there for?] died January 11, 1922

Elizabeth Garner wife of Thomas Wilson died November 1924 

One of the great things about family Bibles is that people often left important papers in them for safekeeping.  The papers I found in this Bible were mostly underwhelming. For some reason, there's a receipt for a piano payment from Eleanor Manary, Joseph and Rebecca Wilson Manary's daughter, dating to Nov 8, 1902. There is also some assessment paperwork from Monitor County in 1877. Maybe related to buying their farm out there? There are also some obituaries pasted onto the page. Two are for John Wilson. One reads:

John Wilson, aged 86, of Monitor township, died Wednesday night of cancer. He was one of the pioneers of Bay County and was well known in this city. The funeral will be held from the house at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Interment at Pine Ridge cemetery.

The second reads:

John Wilson, of Monitor township, died last evening of cancer, aged 86 years. He leaves a wife and four children, Mrs. W.W. Fagg of Bay City, Thomas Wilson of Vassar, and Robert Wilson and Mrs. J. Manary, of Monitor. He was one of the early settlers of the valley and had been a resident of Monitor for about 20 years.

Note the comment about a wife. Eleanor would have been dead for 30 years. It looks like he remarried, but if they had any children, none survived. The wife is not mentioned at all in the Bible.

Two other obituaries are pasted on this page, both related to the Pearson family, which is Eleanor's maiden name. The older obituary is for William "Pierson" [note: later in the same obituary it is written as "Pearson"] who died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Robson, on Dec 2, 1887 at 87 years old. I do not know who this person is in relation to Eleanor Wilson, but my best guess is an uncle. The obituary says that he was a native of England. He married Sarah Blackburn in 1832, and that they came to the U.S. in 1844 and had lived in Milford since. This is clearly the Milford near Howell, MI, as the final obituary makes clear.

The other obituary is for Huldah Cordelia Stedman Pearson, the wife of Joshua Pearson. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1840 but moved to her aunt's house in Howell. She married Joshua Pearson in 1862. They had three children, but only Burton and Frank survived. I have no idea who Joshua Pearson was, but I would guess William Pearson's grandson.

The final treasure in the Bible was a hand-written note about the maternal line for Otto Manary and his siblings. This is the note that gave the causes of Jabus and John Wilson's deaths. It gives the names of Rebecca Wilson Manary's parents John Wilson and Eleanor Pearson Wilson, noting that John Wilson had six sisters and no brothers. Then it gives Eleanor Pearson Wilson's mother's name as Elizabeth Massom Pearson. It does not state what her father's name was. John Wilson's parents were Thomas Wilson and Rebecca Gravis Wilson. 

I've been updating the Wikitree pages for John and Eleanor Wilson with all of this new information.

The interior has some water staining on the pages. 

Killers of the King

I just finished an interesting book called Killers of the King by Charles Spencer. It follows the history of the men who were directly involved in the execution of Charles I and what happened to them afterward. (Spoiler alert: they were mostly killed in horrible ways. To quote the immortal Omar Little, "You come at the king, you best not miss.") 

The book is interesting in its own right but I kept thinking about the relationship this history had to our own genealogy. A large chunk of our ancestors -- the Kinney line but also some on the Manary side -- came to New England through the Great Puritan Migration. That migration took place in the context of the English Civil War, the Protectorate, and the Restoration. After the Restoration, some of the regicides fled to the Massachusetts colonies where they were protected by the authorities and population alike. The colonists were mostly not big fans of the Stuarts. 

Wikipedia has a list of all the regicides here. They were all major supporters of Parliament in the Civil War and many of them were Puritans, so I ran the names through Wikitree to see if we're related to any of them. Not surprisingly, we are, although mostly not in the ways I had expected. Many of our colonial ancestors were 2nd-5th cousins of these men, but in most cases it was our ancestors in colonial Virginia, not Massachusetts. My guess is that is because our colonial Virginian ancestors (the Hancock line, essentially) was more "aristocratic" and the leaders of the Parliamentarians were still fairly aristocratic/wealthy, despite their opposition to the king. By marriage, however, we're more likely to be related to these men through our Kinney or Manary connections, since their family members often ended up moving to the Massachusetts Puritan colonies.

We're distantly related to many of the regicides, but here are a few who have closer ties:

General Edmund Ludlow was my 12th great-uncle and one of Cromwell's great supporters. Cromwell named him military commander in Ireland until he objected when Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector. Ludlow was a member of the jury that convicted Charles I and he signed the death warrant. His brother Gabriel's grandchildren moved to Virginia and became our ancestors. Ludlow fled England after the restoration and lived the rest of his life in Switzerland. He was the only regicide who is known to have survived long enough to see the downfall of the Stuarts. He kept chronicles and letters and so his work is one of the main sources cited in the Killers of the King. He's the only regicide with anything like a direct relationship to us. Sara Ludlow Carter, my 10th great-grandmother, who moved with her brothers to the Virginia colony sometime around 1660, was the great niece of Edmund Ludlow. Her descendants married into the Hancock family.

Edmund Ludlow

Colonel Adrian Scrope is a 2nd cousin many times removed, again through our relationship to Edmund Ludlow, who was his uncle (or maybe great uncle?). Cromwell appointed Scrope head of security during the trial of Charles I, and he signed the death warrant. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Charing Cross in 1660. Parliament had originally just fined him for his role in the trial, but was executed after Richard Browne, Mayor of London, testified that he had confessed that he was unrepentant. Browne, incidentally, was a distant relative of ours by marriage. We're related to his uncle's wife. 

Adrian Scrope

Adrian Scrope in more difficult times (he's being disembowled in the lower picture)

Edward Wallop, another signatory, was found guilty but sentenced to life in prison and to a trip by sledge to the gallows at Tyburn. The sledge ride was the foreplay to execution at that time period, but Wallop was merely dragged through the city on the sledge and shown the gallows before being returned to prison. He was also some kind of 2nd or 3rd cousin of Edmund Ludlow, and therefore of ours, but it doesn't seem worth figuring out the details since he's even farther from us than Adrian Scrope. Spencer quotes a Dutch visitor's letter about January 27, 1662, "We walked with thousands of people to Tyburn and saw there Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Wallop lying in their tabards on a little straw on a hurdle being dragged through under the gallows, where some articles were read to them and then torn up. After that they were again dragged through the streets back to the Tower." (p. 245)

My husband and children are first cousins (many times removed) of the wife of Colonel John Dixwell. Dixwell escaped by claiming to be unwell and asking Parliament for an extension before he handed himself into the court. He was granted the extension but he used it to liquidate some assets and flee to Europe. He was mistakenly reported as dead to the Royalists so he moved again to the Americas and managed to live a long and happy life in Connecticut under the assumed named of James Davids. Joe and the kids to are related to Dixwell through his third wife Bathsheba Howe.

They are also direct descendants of Augustine Garland's brother in law, William Newbold. Augustine Garland was a lawyer and the first committee chairman for Charles I's trial. Surprisingly, he was granted life in prison, perhaps because he pleaded he had no real choice. In his own trial he told the judge, "My Lord, I did not know which way to be safe in any thing, without doors was misery, within doors was mischief" (Spencer p.244). He forfeited his estate and was transported to a prison in Tangiers where he died.

We're not really related to the Big Cheese, Oliver Cromwell, but we do have connections through marriage. The Manary line is descended from Sarah Bucknam Dexter, who lived in the Massachusetts colony in the mid-1700's. Her brother Samuel was married to one of Cromwell's sister's descendants, Deborah Sprague. Through that same connection to Cromwell's sister, Frances, we are related by marriage to two other signatories of the death warrant: her husband Colonel Edward Whalley and their son-in-law, Lieutenant William Goffee. Both had been powerful members of Cromwell's inner circle. Whalley and Goffee fled to Connecticut after the Restoration and lived in hiding for the rest of their lives.

Death warrant of Charles I

Wehner, Wiemer, Ruffertshofer, Manary Photographs

My mother gave me a box of photographs from my father's maternal line. She found it among my grandmother's things. It includes a number of travel photo albums from the middle of the 20th century, but also some family portraits I hadn't seen before. I'm posting them here to share with the rest of the family. I'll get around to the travel albums later, but most of them aren't of as much interest.

Oldest Generation (First Generation Immigrants):

Charlotte Friedericke Wehner, nee von Heinrich, born March 3, 1807, in Wielselthal, Prussia (now part of Poland). She was the matriarch of the family that moved to Sebewaing, MI, around 1860. Uncertain when this picture was taken. She lived until April 24, 1900, but she doesn't look to be in her 90s in the picture. Perhaps late 1800s? I do not have a photo of her husband, Johann Gotlieb Wehner.

Charlotte Friedericke Wehner, nee von Heinrich

Next Generation (Born in Prussia, spent most of their adult lives in MI): 

Augusta Wehner Wiemer, born November 26, 1837, somewhere in Prussia. She immigrated to Sebewaing, MI, with her parents and married Friedrich William Wiemer (sometimes spelled Weimer, I wish they'd decide which it was) in 1862. William was also from the area of Prussia that today is in Poland, so it is possible they knew each other before moving to Michigan. Augusta died in 1926. William died in 1911. Not certain when these photos were taken. Again, probably late 1800s.

Augusta Wehner Wiemer

Friedrich William Wiemer

Third Generation (First generation born in the U.S.):

Ernestina Wiemer Anderson, the third child of William and Augusta, was born in Sebewaing, MI, on Valentines Day in 1862. She died in 1929. This photograph looks like it was taken in the early 1900s.

Ernestina Wiemer Anderson

Christiana Wiemer Ruffertshofer, the fifth child of Augusta and William, was born May 27, 1871 and died November 6, 1957. She married Frederick Ruffertshofer in 1891. This picture was part of the same set of pictures that include her parents, so I'm guessing they were all taken in the late 1800s. I don't know why the picture is sideways and not cropped like the others. If I figure it out, I'll fix it.

Christiana WiemerRuffertshofer

Mary Wiemer Fitzgerald was the sixth child of William and Augusta. I didn't know her married name was Fitzgerald until I read it on the back of this picture. She was born around 1876, so I would guess this picture was taken in the 1890s. 

Mary Wiemer Fitzgerald

I believe this is a picture of Frederick H. Wiemer, the youngest son and seventh child of William and Augusta. The back of the photograph says "Herman Wiemer". I know nothing about him except that he was born around 1877.

Frederick Herman Wiemer

 Fourth Generation:

Christiana and Frederick Ruffertshofer had four sons and one daughter. John Frederick Ruffertshofer was the eldest son, born 1894. He married Myrtle (I don't know her last name). I believe this must be a wedding photograph of them. According to the note on the back, Fred stole from Dow and was fired, making him "a disgrace to the family".

Frank and Myrtle Ruffertshofer

Mabel Ruffertshofer, the only daughter, was born  October 5, 1892, on the farm in Monitor Township, Bay County, MI. She married Otto Manary in 1909. He was born October 22, 1878 on the adjacent farm.

Mabel and Otto Manary

Fifth generation:

These are mostly mixed pictures showing the fifth generation of children with their elders. I love this picture of four generations of Wehmer/Wiemer/Ruffertshofer/Manary women. The picture is dated May 7, 1911, and shows, clockwise, Mabel Ruffertshofer Manary, Viola Manary Drescher (as a baby), Christiana Wiemer Ruffertshofer, and Augusta Wehner Wiemer

Four generations of women

My grandmother, Ilau Manary Dean, I'd guess around 1940.

Ilau Manary Dean

This is a picture of Otto Manary and his first grandchild, Z. I don't know exactly when it was taken, but Z was born in December of 1937 and Otto died in 1941, so I'm guessing 1938-ish.

Otto Manary and Z Drescher Kripke

And a random Manary whose picture was in the box:

She doesn't fit into my direct ancestral line, but here's a picture of Otto Manary's sister, Eleanor Manary Johnson (at least, I think it says Johnson on the back of her photo. I didn't know her married name before seeing it.) Her children's names were Hazel and Ernie. Eleanor was born around 1881.

Mary Chilton

Here's another...interesting organizational choice in Anderson's The Great Migration Begins. Our ancestor, Mary Chilton, is not given her own entry. Neither is her mother, whose name may or may not have been Susanne. Instead, both are listed under Mary's father, James Chilton. OK, again, maybe there's some justification in Anderson always listing the head of the household, who will usually be a man. But here's the thing: James Chilton never made it to Plymouth. The Chilton family were passengers on the Mayflower. James died before the Mayflower reached the colony, in December of 1620, while it was still anchored off the coast of Cape Cod. He may have never set foot on the land. His wife died soon after, in January of 1621. Only Mary survived.

But of course she doesn't have her own entry.

James Chilton was a tailor. He was born around 1556, probably at Canterbury, Kent, the son of Lionel Chilton. He married by 1586, but his wife's name is not known for certain. Together they had ten known children. Mary was the youngest, burn in 1607. The family moved to Leiden, part of the Puritan community there, where at least one of their older daughters married. Anderson cites a notarial record from Leiden describing an assault on James and his daughter in April 1619. Some historians believe this assault was one of the events that encouraged the Puritans to find a new, safer, home for their religious beliefs.

The Chiltons took only their youngest child with them on the Mayflower. Mary was about 13 at the time. Her eldest sister, Isabella, migrated in 1632 with her husband, Roger Chandler. There is no further record of the other children. James and his wife died in the first major infection that swept through the Mayflower passengers. He did sign the Mayflower Compact before his death. Tradition claims that their daughter, Mary, was the first Mayflower passenger to step onto Plymouth Rock. She married John Winslow by May of 1627.

Notably, this is one of the few cases where our descent from the early Puritans is not through the Kinney line, but rather through my paternal grandmother's Manary line.

Mary Chilton -- John Winslow
  - Susanna Winslow -- Robert Latham
     - James Latham -- Deliverance Alger
        - Anne Latham -- Nicholas Wade
           - John Wade -- Sarah Arbuckle
              - Hannah Wade -- James McGregor
                 - John McGregor -- Susan Baker
                    - Ellen McGregor -- William Manary
                       - Joseph Manary -- Rebecca Wilson




References:

Anderson, Robert Charles 1995 The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society.

How Irish Are We?

Lá ‘le Pádraig sona dhaoibh!

That, according to this webpage, at least, means "Happy St. Patrick's Day". My apologies to all Irish Gaelic speakers if it actually says something profane.

In honor of the patron saint of Ireland, today's post will focus on "How Irish Are We?" This is a surprising difficult question because the answer depends on what you mean by "Irish". Does this term refer to everyone born or raised on the island? Does it require a particular ancestry, such as native or gaelic Irish (as opposed to, say, Scotch-Irish)? Does it require a particular religion?

The Feast of St. Patrick is an acknowledged holy day for the Catholic church, but also for the Anglican Church of Ireland, the Lutherans, and some other protestant sects. It is an official holiday both in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland (still part of Great Britain). Therefore, one could argue that it is a holiday that belongs to all Irish.

That one would not be me, however. The celebration of St. Patrick developed among the (particularly American) diaspora as a celebration of native or Gaelic Irish culture and the Irish Catholic religious traditions. St. Patrick's day was a nationalist holiday, mostly celebrated, for obvious political reasons, by those who no longer lived in the nation in question.

The majority of Irish Catholic, or Gaelic Irish, to immigrate to this country came during or after the Potato Famine, an Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger), during which at least one million people died (many estimates put it closer to two million) and another million found their way to the Americas on the famine ships. My mother, who is 1/4 Gaelic Irish, has one line that exemplifies this history. Her great-great-grandparents, Joseph and Elizabeth Rooney, sailed into New York, in steerage, on a dangerously over-crowded ship, in 1848. Their eldest (surviving) child was born at sea.

The Rooneys spent relatively little time in New York. They soon moved to Wisconsin where they farmed and their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married Robert Cunningham. Robert and Elizabeth (Rooney) Cunningham were my mother's great-grandparents.

The Cunninghams represent a different path of Irish immigration. Maurice and Elizabeth Cunningham were born and raised in County Cork, but came to this country in 1828, well before the Great Hunger forced so many Irish from their homes. I don't know why they chose to come to this country, but unlike most Irish immigrants of the Famine period, Maurice Cunningham was a skilled worker. He gave his occupation as carpenter at immigration, and he was soon head gardener on a very large and successful estate in New York. I assume, like many immigrants before and after, Maurice and Elizabeth Cunningham came to the United States for new opportunities they were denied back home.

Those two families are the only immigrants from Ireland on my mother's side, making her, as I said, 1/4 Gaelic Irish. My brother and I are, then, 1/8 Gaelic Irish.

On my father's side, the question is harder to answer because most of his Irish ancestry is more remote, and we don't always know their ethnic or religious affiliations. In most cases, however, his Irish ancestry is clearly Scotch-Irish. The Deans, for example, were Ulster Scots who immigrated to the mid-Atlantic region in the early 1700s. In fact, the only possible exception is the Houghton family, whose origins might be in County Cork and who might have been Catholic. That line, however, is not well researched. If we expand the definition of Irish to include all those who immigrated from the island (which I don't necessary advocate, as I said above), then my father is between 11 and 15% Irish, mostly through his mother's Manary line.

How did I calculate that? If we go back to his 6th great-grandparents, then we have (mostly) gone back to or past the first immigrants to the U.S. I can't actually trace every one of his lines back that far, but I assume that an immigrant 5th great-grandparent born in Ireland had parents from Ireland. That might not be true (in particular, they my have been Scots), but it's a reasonable assumption. Unfortunately, I can't trace every one of his lines back to the country of origin. Some of his family lines I know for certain came from Ireland (such as the Deans and the Manarys), but others, like the Dooleys, I'm guessing based on their last name. My father has 28 6xgreat-grandparents who were certainly from Ireland, and another 11 who were probably from Ireland. Since he has 256 6xgreat-grandparents, that makes him 11-15% Irish.

My brother and I, then, are 18-20% Irish.

Tabhair póg dom, táim Éireannach! (supposedly, "Kiss me, I'm Irish". Again with the apologies.)

Mayflower Ancestors

Ella made this in preschool. I pointed to the bridge and said
"Look! There's your 12xgreat-grandfather!" She was unimpressed.

I hate to perpetuate the Thanksgiving Myth. I'd love to replace the insipid and factually inaccurate story of pilgrims and Indians with, say, the true life story of Tisquantum (aka Squanto), who was one seriously amazing person. But, I digress...

Thanksgiving is a good time to post about our family's Mayflower ancestors. I've found eleven so far, plus a number of early immigrants to Plymouth from other ships. Like my post on Revolutionary War soldiers, I will keep updating this post as I learn more. The following is as accurate as I can make it, but there are a number of self-perpetuating genealogical myths about the Mayflower, so it can be a minefield for the amateur like myself. Still, some 35 million people - about 12% of the U.S. population - can claim descent from one of the 24 original Mayflower families to leave descendants, so the odds are with us.

Now, on to those batty boaters in black.

The Bartlett Mayflower Ancestors:

Most of our Mayflower ancestry comes from Nova Scotia. Lydia Bartlett (1779-1862), my 5xgreat-grandmother and the descendant of multiple Mayflower passengers, married Thomas Kinney (1783-?). The Kinneys married into the Hancocks, and the Hancocks married into the Deans. Not all of Lydia's ancestors were on the Mayflower, of course, but those who were not had almost all reached Plymouth by 1635. Lydia Bartlett's ancestors include:

Richard Warren: Richard Warren was a London merchant and a man of some wealth. He was given the title "Mr.", which suggests he was a person of property. Unlike most of the London merchant contingent, though, he signed on to the voyage as a member of the Leiden group (the pilgrims). It is not clear why, or whether he was a member of the "Saints", as the puritans were called, or the "Strangers", as they called those who were from the more secular community and were financially backing the colony. Warren signed the Mayflower Compact, helped scout the Cape Cod region, and was part of the First Encounter (when the colonists met the indigenous inhabitants and learned that well-trained bowmen trump slow muskets.)

Warren's wife, Elizabeth Walker, and his five daughters, were left behind in England, but came over to Plymouth in 1623, on the Anne. Richard and Elizabeth Warren had seven children, all of whom survived and had numerous children themselves, making this couple one of the most common Mayflower ancestors. Some of their descendants include Ulysses Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Longfellow, Henry Thoreau, and Alan Shepard. Oh, and us.

Lydia Bartlett descended from Richard's eldest daughter, Mary, who married Robert Bartlett, a fellow passenger on the Anne, and Lydia's 3xgreat-grandfather.

Edward Doty: Doty traveled on the Mayflower as the indentured servant of Stephen Hopkins (who is also one of our ancestors), which suggests he had little personal wealth. He was probably from London, and was a member of the "Strangers" contingent - the more secular group traveling to the new colony for economic opportunities. He signed the Mayflower Compact, and was part of the group that scouted Cape Cod for suitable habitation sites, along with Warren and Hopkins.

Doty's major legacy is that he was, well, a bit of a jackass. He was never kicked out of Plymouth, like many troublemakers were, but he was well represented in the legal annals of the colony. He fought the first duel in the colony, in the summer of 1621, and his behavior didn't improve much from there. The surviving records document 23 court cases brought against him, with charges ranging from fraud to slander to theft to assault. He never suffered serious punishments, however, so his crimes must have been relatively minor.

Doty married Faith Clarke, whose family arrived in 1634, and they had nine children. Lydia Bartlett's grandfather, Lemuel Bartlett, married Mary Doty, who was the great-granddaughter of Edward and Faith Doty.

Francis Cooke (thrice): Cooke, unlike Doty and Warren, was a "Saint", a member of the puritan religious contingent out of Leiden, Holland, where the community had been in exile from the stricter religious rules of England. Actually, he was a religious seperatist who was already in Leiden when the puritans arrived. He had married a French Walloon (Protestant), Hester Mahieu, and was a member of that church, but later joined the puritans.

Cooke and his eldest son, John, who was thirteen at the time, sailed on the Mayflower, leaving Hester and the younger children behind. The rest of the family came later, on the Anne. Cooke never held high office, but neither was he a troublemaker like Doty. The records indicate he consistently did his duty to the colony, and was particularly active as a surveyor. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Francis and Hester Cooke had seven children. We are related to them three ways. Their second son, Jacob, had a daughter, Elizabeth, with his first wife, Damaris Hopkins. Elizabeth married Edward Doty's son, and became Lydia Bartlett's great grandmother. Elizabeth's younger sister, Ruth, married Helkiah Tinkham, and their great-granddaughter was Lydia Bartlett's mother. Jacob Cooke also had a daughter, Sarah, with his second wife, Elizabeth Lettice. Sarah married Lydia Bartlett's grandfather, Lemuel Bartlett.

Stephen Hopkins and Elizabeth Fisher Hopkins (Stephen seven times, Elizabeth twice): Stephen Hopkins had a fascinating life, even before he boarded the Mayflower with his wife, Elizabeth, and three of his children. Hopkins had owned a tavern in Hampshire, but signed up to sail to Jamestown in June of 1609. His ship, the Sea Venture, was caught in a storm, and the company was shipwrecked on Bermuda. They were there ten months before they built ships and sailed to Virginia. During that time, Hopkins was charged with and convicted of mutiny. He was sentenced to death, but was spared. Many scholars believe that Shakespeare's The Tempest was inspired by the story of the Sea Venture, and that the character Stephano was based on Stephen Hopkins.

Hopkins was in Jamestown under Captain John Smith from 1610-1614. He gained valuable colonial experience (i.e., how to screw over the local people and not drop dead from hunger), but returned to England when he received word that his first wife had died, leaving their three young children unprotected. Back in England, Hopkins remarried, to Elizabeth Fisher, had several more children, and ran his tavern until the whole family packed up and left on the Mayflower. They were "Strangers", not members of the puritan religious group. Hopkins signed the Mayflower Compact and he was instrumental in developing a relationship with Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag Confederacy. He became fluent in local languages.

He ran a tavern, which did not sit well with puritan authorities, and he was frequently the focus of complaints for allowing customers to drink on Sundays, or at late hours. Unlike his servant, Edward Doty, however, he was a relatively upstanding citizen. He had traveled with another servant, Edward Leister, who appears to have left for Virginia soon after landing. Stephen died in 1644. Elizabeth must have died before him, for in his will he asked that he be buried next to her.

Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins had seven children. He also had three with his first wife. Their fifth child, Damaris (second of that name, after their first Damaris died), married Jacob Cooke, the son of Francis Cooke, above. This marriage produced a daughter, Elizabeth, who married into the Doty line and became Lydia Bartlett's great-great grandmother. They also had a younger daughter, Ruth, who married a Tinkham. Lydia's mother was their great-granddaughter.

We are also related to Stephen (but not Elizabeth) through his son, Giles, and his daughter, Constance, from his first marriage. Constance married Nicholas Snow. Her granddaughter, Bethia Snow, married her brother Giles's grandson, John Smith, and they were the parents of Mercy Smith who married into the Kinney line. There is also an unproven connection between Constance and Nicholas's daughter Ruth and the Cole line, which married into the Kinney line. If that line were proven, we'd be related to Stephen five times - twice through Lydia Bartlett and three times through Thomas Kinney. (For two more connections to Hopkins, see below).

Peter Browne: Peter Browne was from Dorking, Surrey, the same town as the Mullins family, another set of Mayflower passengers. They were apparently quite close, and he accompanied them on their voyage, but unfortunately the Mullins died during the first winter. Browne had the dubious distinction - along with John Goodman - of being the first person to get lost in the woods upon arrival in Massachusetts. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and a member of the "Strangers" group of secular colonists.

Browne was single when he arrived, but he married Martha Ford, the widow of a Mr. Ford, who had sailed with her husband and children on the Fortune in 1621. (Mr. Ford died on the voyage.) Their daughter, Mary Browne, married Ephriam Trinkham, and their great-granddaughter married into the Bartlett family, becoming Lydia Bartlett's mother. (We are, incidentally, related to Martha Ford three times, since we are also descendants of her daughter from her first marriage, also named Martha Ford, and we are descendants of a daughter from her third marriage, Martha Nelson. And, yes, if you're beginning to wonder, Lydia Bartlett's inbreeding coefficient was rather high.) Browne died of an unknown infectious disease that killed several other Mayflower passengers in 1633. His daughter, Mary Browne, was placed in the guardianship of John Doane, who is also one of our ancestors.

The Doane Mayflower Ancestors:

Those are the six Mayflower passengers from whom we are descended through Lydia Bartlett (and her husband Thomas Kinney). Lydia Bartlett and Thomas Kinney's son, Simeon, married Olive Doane, who came from her own long line of inbred religious fanatics. While the Bartlett ancestors above were mostly "Strangers", the Doanes include more "Saints", plus a shocking level of inbreeding among the early families of Barnstable, Massachusetts.

Olive Doane gives us more links to Stephen Hopkins (or should we call him Stephano?). Olive's 3xgreat-grandfather, Daniel Doane, married Constance Snow, the grand-daughter of Stephen Hopkins. For those of you counting at home, yep, we are now descended from Stephen Hopkins at least five times, maybe six, if we accept the disputed Cole connection. But wait! Can we add a sixth/seventh line of descent? Yes! Mehitable Kenney, Olive Doane's mother, was the 3xgreat-granddaughter of Stephen Hopkins, through his son, Giles.

William Brewster and Mary Brewster: William Brewster was the only college-educated "Saint", and the only one with diplomatic and political experience. As a young man, he had studied at Cambridge and was aide to William Davidson, who was a secretary to Elizabeth I. Davidson is mainly known to history as the man who obeyed Elizabeth's secret order to execute Mary, Queen of Scots, and then to take the fall for "mistakenly" having her killed in 1587. Brewster worked for him at the time.

In 1609, Brewster fled England with a number of separatists to the Netherlands, where he was elected the ruling elder of the congregation. He later became "second in command" to Pastor John Robinson, the leader of the Pilgrims in Leiden. Brewster was in hiding for the year before leaving on the Mayflower, after he published criticisms of the English king.

Brewster was joined on the Mayflower by his wife, Mary, and his two sons. In Plymouth, Brewster served as the first religious leader of the colony, and was an important adviser to Governor Bradford. He died in 1644.

William and Mary Brewster had five children: Patience, Fear, Love, Wrestling, and...Johnathan. We are descendants of Patience Brewster, who married Thomas Pence. Their great-granddaughter married Israel Doane, and was Olive Doane's great-great grandmother.

The Manary Mayflower Ancestors:

My grandmother, Ilau Manary Dean, had Mayflower ancestors through her father, who was a descendant of British loyalists in Canada. Specifically, her great-grandmother, Eleanor Holland McGregor, had a long New England pedigree. She had three Mayflower ancestors, all from the same family.

Mary Chilton, and her parents, James and Susanna Chilton: Mary Chilton was only 13 when she accompanied her parents, James and Susanna, on the Mayflower voyage. She was known for being the first woman to step ashore. She was a member of the "Saints", having spent much of her childhood in Leiden. James Chilton, her father, signed the Mayflower Compact, but both of her parents died within a month of landing, from the first wave of infectious disease to sweep the colony. He was 63, the oldest of the colonists.

Mary married John Winslow. Their daughter, Susannah, married a Latham. Susannah's grandaughter, Anne, married a Wade, and Anne's grandaughter, Hannah Wade, married into the McGregor family. Eleanor Holland McGregor was her grand-daughter.

The "Other Mayflowers":

The 102 passengers on the Mayflower arrived in Massachusetts in late 1620. The first winter was so harsh (or, rather, they were so unprepared), that almost half the colonists died. By the time of the "First Thanksgiving" only four adult women were still alive.

The Mayflower had sailed back to England, and in November of 1621, a group of 37 colonists sent by the colony's merchant backers arrived on the Fortune. By then, the situation in the colony had stabilized, and a number of men who had come over on their own sent back to Holland or England for their wives and children. In July of 1623, the Anne arrived, bringing another 96 colonists, many relatives of Mayflower colonists. With the arrival of the Anne, Plymouth colony had nearly 200 people. In addition to our eleven ancestors on the Mayflower, which constitutes nearly a third of the families who left descendants, we are also descended from a number of those early additions to the colony, in some cases many times over(descent through the Kinney/Bartlett line unless noted):

Fortune Passengers (November 1621):
Stephen Deane
Martha Ford
Mr. Ford (died during voyage)
Martha Ford (daughter of Martha and Mr. Ford)
Thomas Prence
John Winslow (descent through the Manary line)

Anne Passengers (July 1623):
Nicholas Snow
Eliza Walker Warren
Mary Warren
Jacob Cooke
Hester Mahien Cooke
John Faunce
George Morton
Julianne Carpenter Morton
Patience Morton
Nathaniel Morton
Edward Bangs

We are descended, then, from about 13% of the inhabitants of Plymouth in 1623. Given the high degree of endogamous marriage in colonial New England, that's not particularly surprising.