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,
My paternal grandmother did a mountain of research on both her and my grandfather’s (her husband) family line. We have a window shade where she hand wrote both family trees going back to France for our namesake side and to around Revolutionary War time in North Carolina for her side.
ReplyDeleteShe also created a binder full of each generation from myself all the back to a couple generations in France.
It’s a remarkable gift to have to be able to look back on, and to inspire the future.
The author is lucky to have the previous good research. Unfortunately, I have encountered numerous errors by my predecessors that are compounded by repeated use of a small number of names in a small geographical area through the generations. John and Mary are killing me. That said, I have established deep links into three Scottish clans. Plus, there may be a fourth — the Stewarts.
ReplyDeleteA never ending journey!
ReplyDeleteWhile researching my family genealogy, I was puzzled to find one of my ancestors listed as an “inmate.” Eventually, I realized the record referred to her being confined to the local insane asylum. The discovery filled me with sadness as I considered the hardships and suffering she may have endured. It also left me with many unanswered questions: Was she committed by her husband? By other family members? What circumstances led to her institutionalization?
ReplyDeleteSome years ago I read an article on “ancestor collapse.” I gets complicated, but if you go back more than about 600 years just about everyone who was alive then and has living descendants today (some lines die out) is the ancestor of every one alive today. This concept is somewhat limited by the tendency of people to form families in their own locality, but the conclusion of the article was that if you have European heritage, you are almost certain to be a descendant of Charlemagne.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great topic. Thank you! I took the trouble of joining the Mayflower Society, and I think it was worth it. They require meticulous documentation, which was a lot of work. But it gave me a chance to study the original records, not just genealogies published online, which are sometimes highly inaccurate and misleading. A falsehood gets submitted to a tree on Ancestry.com, and soon it is in a hundred trees and treated as truth.
ReplyDeleteMy eldest Mayflower ancestor was one of the first to die in the winter of 1620-1621, when half the passengers and crew perished from malnutrition and exposure. It makes it more real, somehow, when the wretched death in question is one's own great-grandfather (however distant). I also find it incredible that, faced with disease, starvation, and a New England winter, the Pilgrims decided to write the Mayflower Compact. They were a group of very tough and educated (if somewhat eccentric) people.
Another interesting fact that emerged is that on my father's side, I am descended from one of the women executed in the Salem Witch Trials, and on my mother's side, I am descended from one of the ministers who supported the persecutions. The minister in question, John Hale, changed his mind about the trials when his wife was accused of witchcraft!
I was also fascinated to learn more about my ancestor Katherine Marbury, who was Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson's sister. Those two ladies were not to be trifled with! My goodness. When the Puritans started persecuting the Quakers, Katherine walked up to Governor Endecott in person and told him he would go to hell for it. When she was subsequently threatened with execution, she said, "If God calls us, woe be to us if we come not."
I believe Katherine's father, Francis, and mother, Bridget Dryden, are both Royal Gateway Ancestors, that is, documented descendants of European royalty. I believe Katherine's ancestry extends back through Alfred the Great and even Charlemagne. But somehow, I lose interest as soon as the ancestral line crosses the ocean. I'm more interested in the American scene. Thank you again!
Actually, I have significant, if not inconsequential, knowledge of the Royal Gateway. In your case, Katherine's ancestry does indeed trace to Charlemagne. Far, far more interesting, and perhaps a touch exoctic, is that tracing through Charlemagne, you will come to learn that you are also the direct descendant of Msyx, a famed Cro-Magnon who lived in what we know know as Bulgaria about 9,000 BC. Msyx was quite prolific and left family lines throughout the Baltic states and Turkey.
DeleteMsyx was known for wearing shirts made out of horsehide and crocodile skin, and is considered by historians to be the original inspiration for today's Ralph Lauren and Lacoste polo shirts.
DeleteYou bring back memories with this topic. We are direct descendants of Peter Bulkeley (also spelled Bulkley) the first minister in Concord Mass. Some Bulkley family members moved on from Concord to Connecticut. They became known in Colchester Conn and in the Hartford area. Bulkley Bridge and Bulkley H.S. are named after the family. Morgan Bulkley was the 1st president of the National League and the founder of Aetna Insurance. Be that as it may. The family also were part of the first group of settlers in Southport Conn which is now technically part of Fairfield Conn. Some time ago I stopped at the Fairfield Historical Society to inquire if they had any information on our family. “Yes,” answered the kind woman who greeted me. “But,” she said, “our book only goes up to 1870.” C’est la vie.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of FDR’s infamous greeting to the convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution: “My fellow immigrants…”
ReplyDeleteFDR that evening also quipped “ Remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”
ReplyDeleteOver the years, I have often pondered the attraction of the DAR. In my experience, most members have rather humble means and cling to their ancestry as the only thing of any value passed down from generation to generation. I also consider the premise of the DAR to be essentially racist. By very definition, a citizen of our nation whose ancestors arrived here from West Africa, or Florence, or Kiev cannot become members. Indeed, while the DAR does not publish statistics on the race or national origin of its membership, one must only suffer through one of their annual meetings to get the drift. In the end, any American organization that non-too-subtly seeks to be 'better' than the rest of us is rather sad, don't you think. And this, from the son of a member of the DAR who proudly traced her ancestry to a descendent who arrived in Pennsylvania on the same ship as William Penn in 1682 and went on to settle a small town in Bucks County in 1692.
ReplyDeleteTry the Sons of the Confederacy, to which I am extremely well-qualified to join. Any organization that drags the sins of the past into the hope of the future is trouble.
DeleteThis is a very interesting and thoughtful comment and I find it hard to disagree with any of it. And yes I agree that it is very sad that members of such an organisation should believe that they are better than others
DeleteI don't have strong feelings about the DAR, and I don't belong, but I think we should be fair. Any woman who can trace her ancestry to people who aided the Revolution can join. These include descendants of patriots of color, descendants of white patriots whose descendants had children with people of color, and people whose ancestors came from Florence or Kyiv and married into any of these lineages. The DAR also maintains a Patriots of Color database and sponsors a study project called Forgotten Patriots that examines minority patriots. For comparison, I happen to know that Henry Louis Gates, head of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, is a proud member of the SAR. I don't find it sad. I think it's great if people want to learn about history and their families and honor the men and women who made the Revolution happen.
DeleteHenry and I were at New Haven together. Thanks for googling the DAR for all of us.
DeleteFlorence? What about Napoli or Sicilia? More discrimination?!
DeleteWhy go all the way to Naples claiming discrimination? The dividing line between Northern and Southern Italy is one yard south of where you’re standing.
DeleteI seem to recall that in a recent thread you declared yourself to be a member of a group of people who claim to be "better than the rest of us"
DeleteFrom Hawaii to the Horn of Africa someone will always find someone else look down upon. A couple of years ago I was returning a rental car in a small town in the Dolomites. The office was hopping. Phones were ringing, printers were humming. The friend who had arranged the rental for me from a local business was standing by my side. I asked him, “do they work like this in Naples?” “No, not like this,” he said. I asked, “what about Calabria?” His answer, “ooooh there it is much worse.”
DeleteSo true. No country has the corner on racism. Here in the states we claim, naively perhaps, to hold ourselves to a high standard of equality for all. It hasn’t worked out. We do not meet that standard. And we probably never will. But… that doesn’t mean you stop trying to look upon everyone the same and treat everyone the same.
DeleteThere you go. No one can claim there is not discrimination against native Hawaiians. As for the Horn of Africa, flip the coin. An old Africa hand once told me, “it’s the Tigre. They think their s*** doesn’t stink. Like the people from Boston.” (!!!)
DeleteAs Muffy's friend Jane Austin once noted, 'I simply cannot write well enough to be that unintelligible.'
DeleteIt would be nice to concentrate on the OP's question rather than getting sidetracked into an argument about racism
ReplyDeleteActually, no, it would not be 'nice'. Nice is highly overrated.
DeleteYou would rather continue the argument on racism that you started then?
DeleteMy dear, dear Anonymouse May 21 4:14 I'm not arguing with you, I'm just trying to help you understand why you're wrong.
DeleteMy Dear Cirquitor, thank you so much for pointing out the error of my ways. Always good to be corrected by one who considers himself better than the rest of us. I think you're a very "nice"person (in the original meaning of the word)
DeleteAlas, Anonymouse, I am constrained to repeat Oscar Wilde's remark: "I choose by friends for their discernment, my acquaintances for their generosity and my enemies for their intelligence." Once again, I am relieved to see that I have no enemies on this Blog.
DeleteAlas Cirquitor, yet again you have got it wrong. The quote is "I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters and my enemies for their good intellects". Please pay attention in class!
DeleteIt is not unusual for people from New Jersey to become confused. We must be patient with them.
DeleteYears ago, I did some study of family genealogy by reading Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." So now, whenever I visit a Zoo's Primate House, I can understand and trace back to where I came from. Anyway, this realization is still better than when Rodney Dangerfield looked up his family tree only to discover that he was "the sap".
ReplyDeleteMy dad's family is well documented, English lineage with some of the early settlers of the US coming here. My mom's family, especially on her mother's side is not so simple. Her grandfather was an orphaned child from the Civil War, raised by a family who was no relation, so little was known about his actual ancestry. At some point someone decided he was of German descent. I had a boss who was from Ireland who used to tell me I had an Irish temperament, and I always laughed because I knew of no Irish in my family tree. Until I went into an Irish heraldry shop in Dublin! There on the wall was the crest for my great grandfather's family! I did a bit more research and then we had the ultimate answer--my brother-in-law is really into ancestry research and my sister decided to have her DNA tested. Not only did it turn out to have the right amount of Irish DNA in it for proof great granddaddy was Irish, but even more than we expected! We felt like an Ancestry.com advertisement.
ReplyDeleteI have always been fascinated since childhood to see the seemingly ancient photographs of some of our ancestors from the late1800s. My father’s line can be traced to the New Haven Colony and then back to England and Wales.
ReplyDeleteThere’s always been some lore in the family about being related to an obscure President however some recent research revealed a relation to different President altogether: Lincoln. Now I see his photograph and likeness much differently.
I learned some interesting things about ancestry recently. One thing is, if you have 2x the ancestors every generation back, pretty soon you have more ancestors than the population of the planet; go back far enough (maybe 1000 years for Europeans, varies slightly by region) and everyone alive today is descended from basically everyone alive back (whose lineage didn't go extinct). Also, because genetic inheritance is like shuffling and decks of cards, by the time you're 15 generations back, most of your ancestors have contributed no DNA at all to you. So family line is one thing, genetic line is another, and the two can diverge quite a lot. Evidently there were big advances in genetic sequencing around 2010 and there are tons of books on the subject now.
ReplyDeleteI did enough genealogical research to trace my lineage back a family of bass in Lake Winnipesaukee (on my father's side). Technically, most of the bass in Lake Winnipesaukee are distant cousins of mine, which means I have the longest direct lineage to New England that's ever been discovered. I don't mean to brag, but we've been here longer than you.
ReplyDeleteOur family is descended from native Brook Trout. We may, or may not, have been here as long as you as your bass cousins. But we’re certainly better looking.
DeleteI would certainly second that!
DeleteI wouldn't argue there. Some of my bass cousins are hideous, especially compared to a beautiful brook trout. But sometimes trout rely on their beauty and fail to develop much of a personality, ya know? I love hanging out with my cousins. I give them a hard time about how they're still fish while my line evolved into humans. They get so mad, LOL.
DeleteOriginal Poster, I was delighted to see your post. I grew up hearing about our lineage to Alnwick Castle. My children (now in their 30’s) weren’t too interested until they realized it was setting for Hogwarts in Harry Potter. Also, Anne Boleyn almost married Henry Percy - certainly would have been a better outcome! We are also in Michigan by way of Canada.
ReplyDelete(OP here) Thanks for bringing this back to genealogy, Anonymous @10:25AM! Are you related to the Pearces, then? I searched my family tree for a Canada connection but didn't see anything. With my wife's family, though, 4 generations back 6 of the 8 great-great grandparents were Canadians before coming over to Michigan in the mid-1800's, so the case for Canadian citizenship by descent is looking good.
ReplyDeleteOP, Percy family. There were Percys in Ontario. Good luck with citizenship by descent. It’s a fun, but frustrating process. I’m fortunate that I only had to go back 2 generations
DeleteMy husband and I went to Northern Ireland last summer to research his family and we found a road in the countryside that ran through an ancient town land where his great grandfather was born. Both the street and the ancient town bear his family name. My father's family is interesting as we discovered that they were Italian Protestants called Waldensians - a group that predated the Reformation and was heavily persecuted for their independent beliefs...myreat grandfather and Uncle were both Presbyterian ministers. Many Waldensians became Presbyterian in the US.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, your typical genealogy buff is looking for one thing and one thing only: proof (or, barring that, a semi-credible myth) that his/her family was really, really rich and/or really, really prominent at some point. It's a blood sport, the object of the game being to score as many "well, I actually come from a REALLY fancy family, dontcha know" points as possible.
ReplyDeleteTo make matters much worse, it is a sport very rarely indulged in by people who actually do come from a really fancy family. Instead, the most enthusiastic participants tend to be found in that weird and deeply tortured stratum found right on the line between the middle and upper-middle classes. Folks who have some reason(s), often exaggerated but not necessarily entirely imaginary, to feel that they are sort of part of the fancy set, or nearly so, but can never quite clear the bar. Which drives them crazy and leads to all manner of annoying, grasping behaviors... including genealogy.
If a person like that engaged in an activity like that, and found actual proof like that - wouldn't they feel like a disappointment for not living up to the family legacy?
DeleteI'm trying, and failing, to work my way into the mind of someone who would not be interested to learn more about ancestors who, say, fought in the American Revolution, or were involved in the witch trials, or came over on the Mayflower.
Delete(OP here) It was easy to trace the Pearces - just keep going up the male side, one Pearce to the next bringing you back to Abraham arriving in Plymouth aboard the Ship Anne 1623. Turns out, though, that I also had 3 different ancestors aboard the Mayflower: Mary Allerton, John Howland, and Elizabeth Tilley. One of my Pearce ancestors (Jesse Pierce, 1747 - 1834 married a Ruth Perkins who descended from these people through the Cushman and Perkins branches of the tree. Don't worry, I know this doesn't change who I am: the same old XXX XXXXX I've always been, 50% Italian. But that Pearce side of the family had some unexpected surprises!
ReplyDelete