Some of My Ancestral English Relatives

John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford are my direct Great Grandparents.(19th)

This means Henry VII(Tudor)is my 3rd cousin 17x removed and his son, Henry VIII is my 3rd cousin 16x removed.

Here's a video all about the founding of the House of Tudor.

Sluggy

More Ancestry From Sluggy

Lt. Colonel Robert "Potato Hole" Woodson, one of my 9th Great Grandfathers and Elizabeth Ferris Woodson, one of my 9th Great Grandmothers connect me to many current well known people.
I recounted a story about Robert "Potato Hole" and his brother John "Wash Tub" during the Massacre of 1622 in the Jamestown Colony.  Go HERE to read that.

Robert Woodson, I have just found, connects me genetically to this man.........

The connection is through his mother and thus, his maternal Grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham.  Robert Woodson is also Obama's 9th Great Grandfather and Elizabeth Ferris Woodson is his 9th Great Grandmother.

After an immense amount of research I have found genetic(or genetic through marriage)links to every US president except Martin Van Buren and Donald Trump.

What famous people are you related to?

Sluggy

The Wayles/Eppes/Jefferson/Hemings Relations...Black & White Cousins

I want to talk about my connection to this group of my cousins.

I remember as a teen in the 1970's when a bombshell book came out written by the historian Fawn M. Brodie  It was called "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History".  My mother bought this book and it sat in our den on the bookshelf.  At the time I remember it caused a stir(especially since I lived in Virginia)as it included the accusation that Jefferson had children with his slave Sally Hemmings outside of his marriage to his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson.

Just about everyone at that time who knew anything about Thomas Jefferson knew these rumors were true but people didn't go around talking about it nor had anyone written a book containing this information for public consumption.  I took the book and read it when I went away to college in 1977.  This was right after Alex Haley published "Roots" in 1976 and they came out with the much touted mini-series based on his book.

As for the cousining, let's start with Henry Isham I(1627-1675).  He had two daughters, Anne Fitzhugh Isham and Mary Isham.  Anne married Col. Francis Eppes III(1659-1718).  Anne is my 2nd cousin 12 x removed.  Their son, Francis Eppes IV(1686-1734)married Sarah Kennon(1684-1748).  Their daughter, Martha Eppes(1712-1748), my 4th cousin 10 x removed)married John Wayles(1715-1773)a Welshman who immigrated to America.

Martha Eppes and John Wayles had a daughter, Martha Wayles(1748-1782).  Martha Eppes Wayles died a few days after giving birth to that daughter Martha.

John Wayles also had an older brother, Richard Wayles(1714-1765)who married Martha Cocke Bolling(1726-1758)and they had a son, Francis Eppes(1747-1808).  This Francis Eppes married Elizabeth Wayles(1752-1810).  Elizabeth Wayles was the daughter of John Wayles and his second wife, Mary Tabitha Cocke(1724-bet.1758-1760), making Francis Eppes and Elizabeth Wayles not only husband and wife but also double cousins and making Martha Wayles and Elizabeth Wayles half siblings.  Is everyone following this so far? ;-)

Not only did John Wayles have two wives, he also "took liberties" with one of his slaves, Elizabeth "Betty" Hemmings.  

Betty was the daughter of a sea captain, John Hemmings and an African slave, thus Betty was biracial or as they used the term back in the day "mulatto".  The story goes that John Hemmings plied his trade between England and the port town of Williamsburg and that is where he met and had his way with the African slave who's name is lost to history.  This slave was the property of John Wayles.  Captain Hemmings claimed paternity of the child Betty and tried to buy her from John Wayles but Wayles would not hear of it and took the slave and child into the "great house" to live to keep the child away from Hemmings if he considered kidnapping the child.  Wayles also thought her a novelty, being mulatto, and saw this as "a grand experiment" and wished to see how she would "turn out".  So John Wayles raised Betty and then once his second wife died he turned around and slept with Betty, producing six children with her.  Betty had already had 4 other children with unknown fathers-well one was a carpenter of Irish extraction who worked on building Monticello named Joseph Neilson.  Among these offspring Betty had with John Wayles(the number are still undecided)were Thenia, Cristena "Critta", Robert "Bob", James and Sally Hemings(1773-1835).

This would make Sally Hemings 3/4 European White and 1/4 African American and John Wayles' "white" daughter, Martha Wayles, with his wife Martha Eppes Wayles, Sally's half sister.  This ad mixture back in that day made Sally an "octoroon" or "almost white" in appearance.  There are no images of Sally Hemings from that era but here is one often used to "portray" her....

Compare that to a known portrait of Martha Wayles, Sally's half sister......

And a portraiture of Sally and Thomas Jefferson's only daughter Harriet, who lived to adulthood, until 1863 or 1864 *no  one is sure*.....

So why my interest in these genealogical lines?  I am a 5th cousin 9x removed to Thomas Jefferson through my maternal Great Grandmother and his mother who was a Randolph.  I am also a 5th cousin 9x removed to Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson through the same Great Grandmother and her mother who was an Eppes.  Isham, Eppes, Wayles, Jefferson are all my cousins by blood. (Also my 7th Great Grandmother married as her 4th Husband, Thomas Jefferson's uncle, Fielding Jefferson, though they had no children together.  So my direct ancestor was also for a time the Aunt of Thomas Jefferson and was the part of the first couple in English America to have a legal pre-nuptial agreement.)

So this whole argument that has raged for centuries about Thomas Jefferson having a "shadow family" as it was often referred to in the South with Sally Hemings, his slave and half-sister of his wife, is near to my heart.

Once the Brodie book came out the debate among the direct Jefferson ancestors as to whether to accept the Hemings ancestors "into the family" has taken center stage.  First the Jefferson Society hierarchy refused to provide DNA to confirm or deny the Hemings link and court cases ensued.  Then the sticking point became only the "white" direct ancestors of Jefferson were allowed to be buried at Monticello as is the family members' right.  Even after DNA testing has confirmed centuries of oral history there is still a segment of the "white" Jefferson's who started the ultra-conservative Thomas Jefferson  Heritage Society who still refuse to come around and deny any Jefferson-Hemings ties.  These folks keep pushing against the tide.

My thoughts?  I am all for embracing the Sally Hemings offspring descendants as Jefferson descendants.  

I grew up in the South during the Civil Rights Era.  I saw that struggle first hand from the sidelines as a child.  I have progressive relatives and I have relatives who'd prefer we all go back to the "good old days".  I've seen my share of racism.  (Let me add that having lived up North since 1984 I've seen about as much racism up here as down South where I grew up.) 

All the Hemings descendants are welcomed as my cousins and I have added them(as much information as I can find)to my personal family tree. We are ALL cousins when it comes down to it and any of them are welcomed at my table.

Sluggy

Well It Had to Happen......Another Boring Genealogy Post

Having ancestral roots going back to the very beginning of European/English occupation in America I never had a doubt I'd find some amazing people in, or associated through marriage, with my family tree.

My early emigrant ancestors, all of them on my mother's side of my heritage, run the gamut from the lowest classes to nobility.

I have ancestors who came up out of nothing, who came here as indentured servants, for the free ride to the New World.

I also have other ancestors who were offspring of notable Englishmen of the landed gentry but due to Primogeniture rules in Europe wouldn't inherit anything so they needed to start from scratch to make a life.  I guess they figured it would be easier in some ways to do in a new uncharted land.

Then there are still others who came here with wealth and prestige intact and grew that wealth and influence in a society where the sky was the limit.

If nothing else I am inclusive and diverse in so much as my Caucasian ancestry can be. ;-)

Of the ancestors I have tracked back to Europe, so far, I am a 12th generation American born and raised here on some of my family lines.  Using an average of 20 years per generation(which is a rule of thumb in genealogy) that's 240 years of living and dying on American soil.  That's a mighty long time in anyone's book.
But I've got 2 ancestors I've uncovered so far, that came here 406 years ago to plant the Garnett and Flood families in American soil.
Outside of having Indigenous North American blood 406 years in this land is a crazy long time by US standards.

Over many generations these ancestors who came before have experienced heartache and great gain and everything in between.  They have also "married up or down" as the saying goes, and had their lots in life rise and/or fall from one social sphere to another better or worse in our American community.

And all this living and dying over many generations brings me to who I am today and where I am today.

With all these humble, moderately connected, and wealthy notable ancestors, it shouldn't have been a surprise that I would find a few famous folks along the way.

My latest discovery?
You see him every day on your money.
This guy right here........

Yep, George Washington.
The fellow every American wants to be related to. lolz

My connection is through marriage but it's something, right?

Here's the trail--

John Fludd(Flood) came to Jamestown in 1610 on "The Swan", one of the 3 resupply ships owned by Thomas Gates.  This fleet came to "rescue" the Colony after the "year of the starving time" as 1609 became known in Jamestown, when most of the colonists died from disease or hunger and reduced their number from 500 to 60.

John was a mere boy of between 10 and 18 depending on which source you quote, from Kent, England.  We don't know why he got on that ship as he left no record to tell us.

The Fludd name is Welch in origin, going back to Ririd Vlaidd of Shropshire, an 12th century Earl of Penlyn.  A descendant of Ririd Vlaidd was Sir Thomas Fludd who was knighted by Elizabeth I.
Thomas Fludd had a son, John Fludd, who was the father of Richard Fludd.  This Fludd immigrated to Drogheda Ireland circa 1645 where the family name was angelicized to Flood.  So all us Flood/Fludd descendants in America are cousins to folks in Ireland named Flood.

Sir Thomas Fludd had another son, Nicholas Fludd.  Nicholas was the father of our John Fludd/Flood.  I suppose John Flood came to America for one of two reasons....
1. He was not the oldest son of his father Nicholas and thus would not inherit anything.
2. He was young and restless for adventure.
Or maybe for both reasons.

At any rate he hopped about the Swan and landed in Jamestown.
John Flood was known to be an interpreter for the local British government with the coastal Algonguin speaking Native Americans living there(mostly Powhatan tribes).  He was paid in tobacco, acquired land on the banks of the James and became a wealthy planter.

He survived the Jamestown massacre of 1622 and when the first muster roll was taken in 1624 he was listed living at Jordan's Journey(which was on the banks of the James River across from present day Hopewell, Virginia).  His household included a wife, Margaret Finche Fludd(who arrived with her husband, William Finche and their daughter Frances in 1620 on "The Supply").
John and Margaret had as many as 6 children(depending on which researcher you use), one of those being Mary Flood, born circa 1635.

Mary Flood was to marry 4 times before her life was over.

Mary was sent to England to be educated, as many wealthy planters' daughters were, then returned to the Virginia Colony about 1655 to marry for the first time to Richard Blunt of Isle of Wight County, Virginia. They had a son, Thomas Blunt, in 1656, before Richard died shortly after their son's birth, passing at the age of 39.

The widow Mary Flood Blunt then married Charles Ford 9 Apr 1657, and he passed away that same year, and there was no issue.

Mary thirdly married John Washington 13 Oct 1658 and they had a son Richard Washington, in 1660. John also died soon after their child was born, passing away at the age of 30.

Lastly Mary married Henry Briggs circa 1661.  We know they had at least 5 children together from Henry's will--Henry, Charles, Samuel, George and Marie(or Mary), before Mary Flood Blunt Ford Washington Briggs died in 1679 in Surry County, Virginia.

Mary Flood Blunt Ford Washington Briggs is one of my 9th Great Grandmothers through her son with Henry Briggs, also named Henry Briggs. (My previous research indicated that I was descended from Henry & Mary Brigg's son, Samuel Briggs, but that was false.  Their son Henry, who married Elizabeth Lucas, is my 8th Great Grandfather.)
Mary's son with John Washington, Richard Washington, is my 8th Great Grandfather's half brother and my 9 x Great Uncle.

My line as related to the Washington line--

Mary Flood Blunt Ford Washington Briggs and Henry Briggs
Henry and Elizabeth Lucas Briggs
James and Elizabeth Briggs Chappell
John(II)and Elizabeth Briggs Mason
John(III)and Jane Parham Mason
Joseph and Elizabeth Weatherford Mason
William and Sarah Mason Driskill
James and Mary Agnes Driskill Harper
Robert and Jennie Vie Tucker Harper
Wirt and Lillian Vassar Harper
Francis and Carole Harper Bowman
Me


John Washington, Mary Flood's 3rd husband, is the Grandson of Lawrence Washington(1565-1615)and Margaret Butler(1568-1622).  Lawrence had a son Richard(John's father)and another son, Lawrence Washington(1602-1653).  This Lawrence married Amphillis Twigden and they had a son, John Washington(1633-1677).
This John Washington immigrated to Virginia in 1656, a young man of about 23 years, aboard a merchant ship transporting tobacco between England and the Colony.  He had invested into this shipping venture.
This John Washington was George Washington's Great Grandfather.

Lawrence and Margaret Butler Washington
Lawrence and Amphillis Twigden Washington
John and Anne Pope Washington
Lawrence and Mildred Warner Washington
Augustine and Mary Ball Washington
George Washington

In other words, George Washington is the 1st Cousin 3 removed of the Husband of my 9 x Great Grandmother.

How's that for a kick in the head? 8-)

Started the Ball Rolling

Well I went and did it.
I sent an inquiry about joining one of those "Genealogical Societies".

You know what I mean.......
The DAR-Daughters of the American Revolution
The SAR-Sons of the American Revolution
The UDOTC-United Daughters of the Confederacy
The SCV-Sons of Confederate Veterans
The JS-Jamestowne Society
The PS-Pilgrim Society(both UK and USA)
The SDWAVF-Society of Descendants of Washington's Army at Valley Forge
......et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The list goes on and on.

I am not a big fan of these organizations or any big organization.  It's full a people who seem full of themselves, right?

They go to meetings, hold offices, throw parties and/or conferences and try to out snob each other as to their ancestry.
And they charge BIG $$$ to join and be members and I suppose(though I don't know for sure)they solicit you to donate $$$ to them and their causes.

And just to document your line to join said societies can cost you a lot of $$$$$ gathering legal/genealogical documents which said societies will deem acceptable.

And an aside, these types of genealogical groups started out as a way to separate the people who were here before the American Revolution from the large wave of later immigrants to American in the mid to late 1800's.
Yes, "we" are more American than you because our forebearers were before yours so "neener, neener, neener"! ;-)

But anyway, I went and started the process to join one such society......

Not the National Huguenot Society but the HUGUENOT SOCIETY  FMVC.
This is a much MORE "exclusive" club society. 8-)

The HS-FMVC is the "Huguenot Society of the Founding Members of the Virginia Colony".

Background--Way back in 1400's France there was a small faction of French who were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France and followers of John Calvin's teachings, rather than the Catholic Church.

Long story short, the crowned heads of France persecuted those Protestant French(called Huguenots)and either killed them or drove them from France into other European countries like Holland, Belgium, Germany and England which granted them refuge.

With the opening up of exploration to the New World with the founding of Jamestowne in 1607,  many of these Huguenots hoped they would be free to practice their faith peacefully across the sea in this new land.

In the 1630's a few intrepid Huguenot souls made the journey to the Virginia Colony on their own in small groups.  Two of my ancestors, my 11th Great Grandparents, Gyles Taverner, a Huguenot, and his wife, Elizabeth Payne, made the trip around 1635 and they eventually settled in York Co., Virginia where their three sons were born.  Gyles is said to have gone to England and returned at least once with Nicholas Martiau(who claimed Gyles as one of his headrights on that trip).  Nicholas Martiau had come to Jamestowne in 1620 for the first time and was to become the 3x great grandfather of George Washington(Nicholas Martiau, Elizabeth Martiau, Mildred Reade, Mildred Warner, Augustine Washington, George Washington).

Then there is another Huguenot ancestor, John VASSAR(9x GG), who came on his own to the Virginia Colony in July 1635 on a barque "The Alice" with his wife, Elizabeth Dowe/Dewe and their infant daughter, Ann, and an indentured servant, William Baker.

Anyway, Gyles and John, though my earliest Huguenot ancestors to settle in the New World, weren't founders of Manakintown, the first Huguenot settlement in the Virginia Colony.

That honor would fall to Abraham SOBLETor SUBLETT(8 x GG)and his wife, Suzanne BRIANT and their son,  Pierre Louis SOBLET/Peter Lewis SUBLETT(7 x GG).

In 1700 5 ships were contracted to transport between 700-800 French Huguenot refugees from their embarking point at Gravesend, London, England to the new Virginia Colony.

In April of 1700 the first of these ships, "The Mary & Ann" with over 200 French and Swiss passengers headed for Virginia, among them Abraham SOBLET and 2 of his older children. 

The Governor of VA and the wealthy planters already there by then were eager for new settlers.  Dr. Daniel Coxe, a favorite at the court of King William III(of William & Mary fame), held massive tracts of land in the new Colony, and the Crown agreed that these immigrants could settle on his Norfolk County lands(encompassing present day Norfolk/Virginia Beach Counties of VA).  The English Crown, having religious/political upheavals of it's own in England, was anxious to help these Huguenots leave England and monies were raised for the transport and supplies.

Upon landing at the mouth of the James River the ship was met by Virginia Colony Lt. Gov. Francis Nicholson.  Other wealthy planters in the Colony had other plans for these Huguenots.  They redirected that the immigrants should settle on William Byrd's vacant lands instead.  This 25 mile tract was the site of an abandoned Monacan Indian village and was a sort of no man's land that stood between the confederated Algonquin native tribes in the area and the English settlement at Jamestowne.  These wealthy planters wanted somebody between them and the Indians to bear the brunt of an attacks and raids by said natives.

In Oct 1700, the second of five ships arrived in Virginia, "The Peter & Anthony".  On board were Abraham's wife, Suzanne BRIANT SOBLET, and their three remaining children.

So even though the land around the abandoned Monacan village was fertile it was cut off from Jamestowne and any services they needed.  Plus many of these Huguenot immigrants were tradesmen and not farmers.  Between a hard winter in inadequate housing, having to learn to work the land and a lack of supplies and sickness(malaria in the Summer and other deadly diseases in the Winter) these hardy souls set to building a town, named Manakintown, built and founded a church(King William Parish) and a community.

After many hardships over the first few years in Manakintown, most of these settlers moved out into adjacent lands and new towns sprung up around the area.
Manakintown, though no longer a town, is located in what is present day Powhatan County, Virginia.

My Sublett ancestors on two different family lines moved, over successive generations, west and slightly south of the Manakintown area until my mother's parents moved back East from Charlotte/Campbell Counties area, to South Norfolk, VA in the late 1930's.

So to bring this to an end(thanks for reading it all!), I've started the process to join the Huguenot Society FMVC and we'll see how/where this goes.

Sluggy




 

Boring Genealogy Stuff.....Not Real Long Tho

I've been spending quite a bit of time with my genealogist's hat on lately.

*  I am sad that this season of TLC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" will be over in only 2 more episodes.

Last Wednesday evening's episode was neat because the first ancestor of guest Valerie Bertinelli had lived near were I am living now. 
Her great grandfather Gregorio Mancia tried to kill her great grandmother, Mary Possio Crosa Mancia, and then turned the gun on himself in a little town outside of Scranton, PA back in 1931.  Before removing to Lackawanna County, PA, Gregorio and Mary had lived in western VA, near Wytheville as his draft card noted.  He was a coal miner so both areas make sense for them to be living in during those times.

Anyway, after her paternal ancestor search, they moved on to her maternal ancestors and soon were revealing how one of her lines stretches back to Edward I of England and beyond to William the Conqueror.
Edward Longshanks happens to be my 23 x Great Grandfather too.
Thus Ms. Bertinelli and I are some sort of cousins.
Imagine that!

*  Then later in the week I was doing some deep ancestor hunting on my PARHAM line.  On my maternal grandfather's line I have Thomas Parham Sr. and Susannah Hunt as my 9 x GGrands.  I discovered that it appears that Susannah married twice, with Roger TILGHMAN being her second husband.
I know a fellow blogger who has talked about her TILGHMAN(later changed to TILLMAN) connection over the years so I wrote to her to let her know that we may be related through allied families(related by marriage of one line to another, but not directly by blood).  My blood relation ancestor, Susannah's son Thomas PARHAM, is not a TILGHMAN.
So we hashed it out and my 9 x Great Grandmother married the brother of my friend's 8 x Great Grandfather.
Are you confused yet? lol

I had seen that TILGHMAN name on my tree yet had never thought that it would be connected to fellow bloggers TILGHMANS, because mine came to/were based in Virginia and she kept mentioning Maryland in connection to her TILGHMANS.

But on further investigation her TILGHMANS were part of the Virginia branch of that family that ended up heading into Maryland early on after their immigrating to the New World in VA.
There are 2 different TILGHMAN lines in Maryland it seems--The piece of the Christopher TILGHMAN line that removed to Maryland and a line sprouting from a Dr. Richard TILGHMAN, for which TILGHMANS ISLAND and other areas in Maryland on the Eastern Shore are named.
And this is more than anyone reading this ever wanted to know about the Tilghman family I am sure. lolz

Having found that connection by marriage she led me to some more family Tighlman ancestry information going further back on the TILGHMAN line showing that Christopher/Gideon/Roger/et all descend from the Plantagenet line of the kings of England.
And this line is the same line that I and Valerie Bertinelli's have on our trees.

So fellow blogger and I DO share bloodlines after all, just further back in our respective ancestry.
Our most recent shared common ancestors are Ralph de NEVILLE and Joan de BEAUFORT as we are each descended from a child of this couple.  My 19th x Great Grands are also fellow bloggers 17th x Great Grands.  I guess my family is a bit sooner to jump into bed than hers.  ;-)

*  Then I got bored last week....after all, all the college prep was finished......so I started doing a family tree on the next TLC "Who Do You Think You Are?" guest, Kelsey Grammer.
I have never really been a fan of his but what the hey!  I am always up for a genealogy challenge.

I wanted to see if I could do this(without cheating and googling his line, other than his parents names and dates to get me started), tracing his ancestors back before the show aired on tv.
And I think I did fairly well.
I got back into the late 1600's on 2 of his paternal lines and 2 of his maternal lines, as well as back to late 1500's on 1 of his mother's lines.  I am not saying that there might not be errors in the information because, after all, I haven't documented all this information, but it's fairly accurate.
I found lots of English, some French, some German, even some Nova Scotian Canadian ancestors.

And the tv promos sound like the show will be investigated a "patriot" on one side and a "pioneer" on the other side of his family during his episode.

And I know EXACTLY which ancestors they will talk about now, since I found them too.  8-)
So stop reading this and don't scroll down to the end of my post if you don't want to spoil the surprise when you watch the show, ok?
Because I am gonna end this with the names but I won't give any other clues or information about them.  I just want a record of me having found this myself.  8-)))

*  Then late last week, I got an email from someone asking about a certain line of my ancestors.  This person manages DNA accounts at FamilyTreeDNA for, I am assuming, are other family members who have had their DNA tested.  She let me know that one of her subjects/members matched me in the autosomal testing they had done(about 50cms)and we also have one surname in common on our respective family surnames lists, DUDLEY.

It didn't take long to track down our common ancestor--Edward DUDLEY, my 10th x Great Grandfather.  Their ancestor William, and my ancestor Richard were the sons of Edward DUDLEY and Elizabeth PRITCHARD.
While it's not common to match DNA with someone when your shared ancestor is so many generations far removed, it IS possible and highly likely if the ancestors are affected by "Founder's Effect", and if you have ancestors who were very early (usually English)settlers to America and intermarried within their social circles.  You may be able to match DNA on those lines of your ancestry going further back than the standard 6 or 7 generations.

Keep scrolling for the Spoiler--

































SPOILER ALERT--
The patriot ancestor for Kelsey Grammer is probably Jacob Grammer, a First Lieutenant in the Maryland Militia/Revolutionary War, and the pioneer ancestors are probably Joseph Dimmick and his wife Mary Frances Kriechbaum, in 1852.  You figure out what state they removed to...it's out west and has a shoreline.  ;-)

Sluggy



 

Long Boring Genealogy Stuff...But with Pictures!

Ok, not so long really....but still boring. lol

There are two genealogy areas I work on.

First there is the "near" ancestors....the ones I remember being alive and the 6 or so generations before them.  These 6 immediately previous generations are the ancestors that I hope to be able to link up to genetically when the results come back from my DNA samples I sent off recently into the bowels of a Texas lab.
I got confirmation that they received my "material" last week.
So now I wait, if not very patiently, for the results.

6 generations before my time takes me back to the late 1700's.
In some of my family blood lines, that is far enough removed to transport my ancestral lines to the far off continent of Europe.  In other of my blood lines(mostly on my mother's side), the late 1700's finds these 6 generations already removed to the New World.  Some of that number having been removed to the Americas more than 100 years before that time!

One of my earliest ancestors that has been traced arrived in the Virginia Colony in 1635 with his wife and 1 servant.  So as some of my ancestors were making their way across the sea from Europe, I had 2 blood lines already here for about 160 years.
It boggles the mind sometimes.

And then there are the "far" ancestors.
The ones many MANY generations removed from me and known, stretching back into the Middle Ages in some cases.  I can't possibly live long enough at this point in my life, to research every last person others have "put" into my lines.  I hope that whoever added these folks had some source material to back up their claims but I don't have the time, funds or resources to prove every leaf on the tree of our family.  So I add ancestors who other's claim to be legit to our tree for now.

While the paper trail and quality of research can be spotty at best in this very long chain of ancestors, I take it at it's face value and work to substantiate the claims when I can.  There are many questions and holes but I keep them on the tree until I find enough evidence to counter the claim that their branch belongs on my tree.  Once it's clear the facts don't fit and the blood doesn't match, I perform some pruning and cut them loose.

Which brings me to my Vassar ancestors.
A couple of years ago, at the beginning of my "where did I come from?" quest I found a relative I never knew existed by the name of Reginald Vassar.  He is my 2nd cousin and was, at that time, 90+ years old.  He had been doing Vassar genealogy for many years and had amassed a great file on many generations of our Vassar ancestors.

John Little Vassar and his wife, Lucy Ellen Baker Vassar were my great grandparents on my mother's side.
Reginald Vassar and I share Hugh Wiley & Sarah Anne "Sally" Smith Vassar (my 3 x GGs)as common ancestors. 

Hugh & Sally had a son, John Alfred "Jack" Vassar.  Hugh & Sally had another son, Richard Levi Douglas Vassar.  John is my 2 x GG and Richard is Reggie's GG.

And this is our most "famous" current relative......

I'm not sure exactly how we are related(I need to do the research on that)but we are cousins (X number of times removed), of some kind.  My brother has told me that my mother's cousin Dean has partied with Phil on occasion.
The fact that she is related to Phil Vassar has pleased my daughter to no end, as she is a BIG country music fan. 8-)

And no, we are not related to the folks who founded this......

Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY

But then again, Matthew Vassar's line came over from England in 1796, so we might be connected back in the Old Country. ;-)

But I digress......

Through the work of Reginald, another ancestor Lyndal G. Vessar(who wrote one of the comprehensive books on Vassar genealogy many years ago)and countless others through the years, I have my Vassar line nailed down back to 1595 for specific individuals.  There is general Vassar/Vessar family genealogy going back further to France in the 12 century. 

The surname springs from the Lorraine region of France and came from a landed ranking-Feudal Vassals(one level below a Baron or Viscount).  Variations of the name include VaVassour, LaVasseur, Vossier, etc.
Here is how James Vassar, a poster on an Ancestry dotcom message board, explains the origin of the surname better than myself.....
""Vassar" is a derivative of an Old French military title and an old ancient roman military legionary title. The old french title is "vavassour", which translates as "Vassal of Vassals", comparable to the phrase "king of kings". The ancient roman word is "vavasorrium" (or something like that), roughly equivalent to a captain or a lieutenant, maybe. The vavassour is equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon military-political position of "thane," that is why Vassar is sometimes spelled "Vassal." Essentially and for all intents and purposes a vavassour is a landed feudal knight, or a knight that had land granted to him by his feudal lord. All landed knights were vassals or military servants to their feudal lord, but they were not peasants as some snobs have told me. So, a vavassour is a "knight of knights." I have read a few references were he is referred to as the old wise and senior knight that is in semi-retirement and still gives advise to the younger knights."


Everything was going well for us until 1599, when the Reformed Protestant church, of which these ancestors were supporters, was founded in France. These French Protestants became known as Huguenots.

  Painting,  " An Eyewitness Account of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" by Francois Dubois


Long story short, this led to the "War of the Three Henrys" and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in which Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris and massacres of Protestants swept across France after that, which led to a massive exodus of Protestants out of France into neighboring countries like Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Prussia and England.  Though no one knows the true number, I've read the extermination of French Protestants amounted to half a million souls.  That's a whole lot of people by 1572 standards.

Eventually, the Huguenots who remained were forced to convert to Catholicism but about 200,000 chose instead to leave France.


My direct line of ancestors chose to emigrate to England during the reign of Elizabeth I.  Elizabeth, being Henry VIII's daughter(Henry who had founded the Anglican/Protestant Church in England and driven out or killed Catholics and burned and looted their monasteries) was a Protestant herself and welcomed these religious refugees into her kingdom.  She was generous with financial help throughout her reign. 
My direct ancestor was one John Vassar/Vesser.  His parents had fled France after the St. Bartholomew's massacre for England though we have no record of their names as of yet. John was born in Gravesend, England in 1595.  He married an English bred woman named Elizabeth Dowe/Dew.

But there was religious unrest in England after the death of Elizabeth in 1603.   John applied for permission to sail to the New World and signed an oath of allegiance to the Crown & the Anglican Church. The Church of England was the official religion of the Virginia Colony and anyone sailing there to settle had to be certified and promise to conform to the Church's doctrine and practices.  Even Quakers who removed to Virginia from England had to have their children baptized and recorded in the CofE.

According to the ship's manifest, in the spring of 1635, John Vasser, his wife Elizabeth, and their
indentured servant, Wm. Baker, sailed aboard the barque "Alice" with Richard Blake as Master of
the Ship. They departed from Gravesend, County Kent, England. This port was the embarking point
of the London Company émigrés headed to the Va. Colony at Jamestown. (Though the London Company had been disbanded in 1624 and Virginia became a royal province, ships bound for Virginia still embarked at Gravesend.)

While much of my time had been devoted to double checking the facts I could on the Vassar line, recently my attention turned to the line of John Vassar's wife, Elizabeth of the Dowe or Dew family.
I began to trace back the path that has been laid out for Elizabeth's ancestors and it led me into the realm of English royalty.
Now any time I find my ancestors hooked up to famous or infamous characters in history I become suspicious of the motives.

Many amateur genealogists do genealogy to connect to their actual roots.
And then there are the others, who only do this to find famous relations, so they can show off to their friends and somehow feel important since they can claim a link to somebody "Fabulous".

One of my earliest friends in life recently told me she is descended from Lady Godiva.  Of course I didn't ask her for proof or shake my head at her claim but I do wonder where she got this information and if her assertion is valid.

When a fellow Ancestry user who shares ancestors with me, notified me recently about some information that has just come to light about our Baker line, I used this occasion to reach out to a number of other Baker researchers/members on Ancestry to let them know and to invite them to be guests on my family tree and perhaps share information.

Only 1 of these fellow genealogists replied to me so far.
His response.......I will copy it in it's entirety....

"Hi, my Bakers go way back to Sir John "Bloody" Baker who I believe was first Chancellor of the Exchequer for UK. See Bramhall Castle."

Now a person really interested in history and genealogy would have replied either "Yes, let's get together and work on this stuff." or "No thanks....I don't care to communicate with you."

But I got someone who used this opening to brag about his infamous ancestor who did some really dastardly and horrid things.
Add in that this person claims kinship through a supposed Christopher Baker, a son of Sir John Baker.  John Baker and his wives had 2 sons, neither of which was named Christopher.  Perhaps he has information I don't but I am skeptical about his claim, especially in light of the context in which he shared it.

I just get the feeling that this guy does genealogy for all the wrong reasons.

And the rest, they say, is history.
And "it" can wait to be explored another day.





Sluggy


 

The Mystery of Mary Creef's Child

Genealogy is like the world's biggest and hardest brain teaser puzzle.  You have some puzzle pieces but nothing fits until you get that one piece that makes them fall into place.  Sometimes you think you are working on a part of the sky but no, the puzzle is upside down and you are really working on a lagoon or a pot with 300 marbles in it.  Or is it Lincoln's nose on Mt. Rushmore?  You are always doubling back and re-evaluating what you know. You need to jump back and forth and work on this part of the puzzle here or that one over there.  Eventually you have enough filled in to make some educated guesses and figure out the big picture.

So I was talking about my sister in-laws ancestors, Manliff Twiford & his son, Fowler, in my last genealogy post HERE.
Fowler was the gentleman who was tried for "seduction under promise of marriage" to one Miss Mary Creef.
Given the testimony, lack of financial resources by Miss Creef to afford an adequate team of attorneys and that DNA testing wouldn't be available for about 80 years past the time of the trial, Master Twiford was acquitted.  His getting off caused quite the uproar in their small community.

I got curious about Mary and her soon-to-be blessed event.  What happened to them?  So I went looking to uncover the rest of the story. 
I searched on her maiden name and her name came up on 3 censuses--1900, 1910 and 1920.

In 1900, Mary is found living with her cousin's family in East Lake, NC at 2+ yrs. old.
In 1910, Mary is found living with her father and 3 brothers in East Lake, NC.  Mary is listed as 13 yrs. old.  This would put her birth date sometime in 1897. The father, James Washington Creef is listed as married, though there is no wife listed living at that address.
Further investigation turned up that James was widowed at that time, as his wife, Civility had died in Dec. of 1898(from her headstone dates).  The married designation was just clerical error.

In the 1920 census, Mary is living with one of her cousins whom she had lived with as a toddler(from the 1900 census records).  Mary, now 23, is living with her grown cousin, her husband and their children up in the big city of Norfolk, VA.

My theory is that given Mary was under a year old when her mother died, and the only daughter, and the only child of the family under 6 years old, she was sent off to be cared for by relatives nearby.
In the same 1900 census, James and 7 of 8 of his male children are living with him in East Lake, NC, only Mary is not.(From what I can gather James and Civility had 9 children together.  Further information indicated that the second oldest son had died in 1900 at age 23.)

From this point I uncovered a death certificate for a Mary Elliot Creef Muse.  Everything points to this being our Mary.  She passed away in 1972, in her home in Elizabeth City, MD.
Someone named Wally Creef, living at the same address is listed as the informant on the death certificate.
Now having her married surname, Muse, I was able to find the man she eventually did marry-Charles Mac Chestnut Muse.  Their marriage record lists his name as Charley Mack Muse (FindAGrave gives his dates as Sept. 1881-June 1963), and they were wed  in 1930.
However in the 1910 census, Charlie is found living in Beaufort, NC, married to a woman named Elizabeth. They state they have been married for 12 years in that census, so they would have married around 1898.  I found them again as a family unit living in Beaufort, NC in the 1920 census.
Charles and Elizabeth had 7 living children in 1910.  Their children would have been grown by 1930, except for the 2 youngest, who would have been 17 and 18 in that's year's census.  But I don't find these children living with either their father as a widower or their father and his new bride, Mary in 1930.

In the 1940 census we find the Mary(Creef)& Charlie Muse family living in Elizabeth City, NC.
After 10 years of marriage, there are 3 children listed--Wiley L. Muse at 16 years, Margaret Muse at 11 years and Harold D Muse at 8 years.
Hmmmm.....this would put Wiley's birth at around 1923/1924.....the same time frame of Mary's "delicate condition".  The newspaper article about the trial was dated June 1923 and noted that Mary was going to be a mother in a short time.

Further research uncovered Wiley's obituary from June of 2004, which listed his birth date as 3 Nov. 1923.  Counting backwards, that would have put Mary at 4 months pregnant when the trial ended.
Given that there is no indication that Mary knew Charles Muse before Wiley's birth, it's pretty clear that Wiley Muse was a Muse in name only.  In fact, indications are that Charles never adopted Wiley, nor did any of the Twiford men claim him, as his obituary gives his name as Wiley Lee Creef and lists his mother, Mary as his only parent.
I suspect Wiley was the person living with Mary Creef when she expired and the informant was listed incorrectly as Wally, not Wiley.
Wiley Lee Creef, worked for 31 years for the Elizabeth City fire dept. served in the Army during WWII and retired to SC after his mother died.  He never married and had no children.

So we know that Wiley was born in 1923 and his mother married in 1930,
but where was Wiley during the 1930 Census?  He would have been about 6-7 years old then. 
Searching under the name Wiley Creef I found him listed in the 1930 census living in the Pasquotank County Children's Home(an orphanage) in NC.
But by 1940's census Wiley was living with his mother and stepfather and 2 new siblings.
In this census Wiley's state of birth is given as Virginia, not North Carolina.

My theory is that Mary had been living at age 23 with her cousin's family in Norfolk, VA.(This is less than 2 hours away from Elizabeth City, NC.)  When she wound up pregnant she was probably told or sent to stay with her cousin or other relatives out of state in VA, where she eventually had the child.
This explains Wiley as listed as being born in VA, while the Creef family were all from NC.

 Back then, being pregnant was socially unacceptable and something families hid from their community.  Girls would often go away "to school" or go "help out a family member who needed a "mother's helper"in the home if they turned up pregnant.  They would then come home after giving birth.  If the baby wasn't placed for adoption  or given to extended family to raise, it was eventually brought home.
Sometimes the grandmother/grandfather would adopt the baby and pretend that they were the parents and the real mother was an older sibling(like Jack Nicholson's grandmother did), or the mother would go on an extended trip with the secretly pregnant daughter and come home with a baby that she claimed to have given birth to sparing the daughter the social disgrace of being an unmarried mother.

Having an out of wedlock child was a stigma on a single woman.  How did you earn a living to support you and your child when there was no one to support or take care of your child so you could work?  How did you find a good upstanding man to marry you with that scarlet A on your back?
The best that Mary could do was probably to place him in that orphanage at some point, unless the authorities were involved and she had no choice in the matter but to relinquish him.  To be 6 or 7 years old and living alone without family in a state orphanage.  The poor little guy!

It is safe to say that eventually, Wiley's situation improved and he had a fulfilling life as an adult and what seems like a close relationship with his mother.

And that is how this story ends.

Except for my ironic twist on things.......you know I have to have some kind of "life is funny" conclusion.

Remember that this whole thing started with a trial against the alleged father of Mary Creef's baby, Fowler Twiford. 
Even if paternity was denied by Mr. Twiford, Wiley Creef was related to the Twiford line via his mother Mary Creef. 
Wiley's 2 x Great Grandmother on his mother's side is Clarissa Twiford, born in 1800.
Clarissa is also the Great Aunt of Fowler Twiford(She is the sister of Manliff's father, Cornwallis Twiford.   Manliff is Fowler's father).

Aren't small towns and close-knit communities great for tangled up ancestral roots?

Sluggy