A reader sent in the following note, along with the question for readers, "Have you ever researched your family's genealogy? If so, did you come across any surprises?"
(I took the liberty of X-ing out his name for privacy.)
I know you can trace your lineage back to the earliest settlers to arrive in New England and I've always thought that was really neat. Similarly, my wife has some fairly illustrious ancestors (Benjamin Stites, founder of Cincinnati in 1788) and can trace their arrival in what was then the New York Colony to the 1620's. Again, I always thought this was neat, but something I just don't have.
I knew my two grandfathers quite well. My paternal grandfather, Anthony XXXX, was a terrific, loving grandfather who came from a VERY humble background. He arrived at Ellis Island in 1911 as a 15 year old, without his parents, without any money, without any command of the English language. My mom's father, Raymond Keith Pearce, was a fairly curmudgeonly farmer in southern Michigan - as was his father. I always heard "Scots-Irish" for the background on that side of the family and I figured they'd probably come over during the Irish potato famine in the 1800's and were just poor farmers going way back, nothing at all distinguished or noteworthy.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
We've recently begun some genealogical research to establish my wife's Canadian ancestors (the non-Stites branches of the tree) and I thought I'd take a look at my own family tree. It's a dead end on the XXXX side so far, but on the Pearce side someone has done a ton of research and it's amazing. The first Pearce to arrive here came over from Lancashire, England in 1623 and settled in Plymouth, MA where the family stayed well into the 1800's. Neat - but it gets more interesting.
If you go back through the generations in England, these people (Pearce, Pearse, Pierce, and Percy - the name wiggled around over the years) were actually English nobility, various Barons and Earls in Northumberland, and the builders of Alnwick Castle beginning in 1096 (still standing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnwick_Castle).
I've always gently kidded my wife "How did the Stites' go from founding Cincinnati in 1788 and owning 40,000 acres to a son striking out into the trackless wilderness of northern Michigan in 1850?" I think I'll have to let that go. It's nothing compared to the huge gulf (in every possible way) between Alnwick Castle and Grandpa Pearce's farmhouse in Camden, Michigan.
If you want to see the Pearce family tree it's at https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/pedigree/portrait/LTB1-1MQ. You might have to create an account to view it, but it's free and they don't ask for any personal information.
In any event, I think I now understand my love of New England and all things English!
Best wishes,
