Saturday, May 30, 2020

About My Blog Site

The purpose of my blog is to share information about my ancestors, which I've gathered from over 45 years of research. I have a heritage that is an American melting pot: French, English, Scottish, Greek, Irish, Dutch and several other European nationalities, plus some Native American. I'm endlessly fascinated with the combination of people who came together to make me, and I want to know as much as possible about them.

The bulk of the biographies come from four branches of my pedigree that trace back to three 17th century American colonies: New France, New England and New Netherland. These people are fairly well-documented because many colonial records have survived. And since the people lived so long ago, they have a massive amount of descendants, some of whom have done extensive research on them. My New France and New Netherland branches include some of the very first settlers there; my New England branch doesn't go back to the Mayflower, but has many people who sailed with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. With few exceptions, my blogs don’t venture back into ancestors who never came to America, because unfortunately, most of these people only exist as names with no details.

This blog also includes my ancestors who lived during the 18th century and later. These people have a smaller number of descendants because they're more recent, but at least a few people might benefit from my research. If nothing else, my blogs serve as a way to preserve the memories of these ancestors.

When I began this blog in 2012, I posted only about the people I felt had a story to tell. But after getting my first DNA test done in 2017, my knowledge exploded, so I started adding more biographies. Eventually I decided to not limit myself to people who had interesting anecdotes, but to write about at least the husband or wife of each couple on my pedigree. An amazing amount of new data available online made this possible. This effort expanded the number of biographies from 165 to 592. It made my family feel more complete.

Each blog entry features the biography of one of my ancestors; I have posted them in no particular order. I’ve also made an index to help reference them, plus written blogs describing my pedigree branches as a whole. I hope that readers will get something out of my work.

Two Big Branches From All Over French America

I’m fortunate to have a goldmine of ancestors tracing back to people who came from France to work and live in Canada. These men and women led fascinating lives, and because of how their colony was run, they left very detailed records. This allows me to connect family lines back to the first ancestors who arrived in the 17th century. So while French-Canadians only represent about 15% of my heritage, they make up over half of the biographies I’ve written.

My family of French descent breaks into two distinct branches, one on my mother’s side and one on my father’s. The branch from my mother are the ancestors of my great-great grandfather, Francis LaBree, who migrated to Minnesota in 1848. His predecessors were peasant farmers on the south coast of the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City. Many of them lived in towns that were destroyed by the English during the 1759 Siege of Quebec. Going back further, their ancestors had farms on Île d’Orleans and the Beaupré coast, with some lines tracing back to the very beginnings of the colony.

The branch on my father’s side had a very different story. My great-grandfather James Elwood grew up in Vincennes, Indiana, and three of his grandparents were of French descent. These ancestral lines were all established in Vincennes before the American Revolution, and most had a long heritage in the fur trade. They had lived in places that included the remote outposts of Detroit and Kaskaskia, and one ancestor even lived on the Gulf Coast before New Orleans was founded. Nearly all trace back to the Montreal area, with some who were among the first settlers there.

Outposts where my ancestors lived and the dates they arrived there.

New France was different than other colonies in many ways. Few of its settlers arrived as families; instead they were individuals who wanted to escape the conditions in Europe to start fresh in America. The colony was set up to make money for investors back in France, and the first Canadians were largely recruited by them. Many men came alone at first under 3-year labor contracts. Then when the authorities realized they needed to build the population, they paid women to come over as well. This effort was eventually run by the government of King Louis XIV, and the women became known as the Filles du Roi (the King’s Daughters). A third group who added to the settlers were soldiers sent to defend the colony; when their service ended, many decided to stay in Canada rather than facing civilian life in France.

The mass migration from France happened during the early years of the colony, and after the mid-1670s, the wave of newcomers ended. To grow the population without settlers coming over from France, married couples were rewarded with money to have large families. This dynamic was unique in the American colonies; it resulted in a massive family tree where most French-Canadians living today are distant cousins of each other. And more than that, they can prove it with documentation. Since New France came under the direct control of the king and the Catholic Church, careful records were made of every baptism, marriage and burial. It was important that brides and grooms showed they weren’t too closely related to each other, so the maiden names of the bride, and of the bride and groom’s mothers, were included in each record. Genealogists of the future became the beneficiaries of this, and it’s what makes French-Canadian family lines so traceable.

Example of a parish register.

Geography was another factor in my ancestors’ stories. There’s only one place where a waterway penetrates deeply into the North American continent: the St. Lawrence River. So while other Europeans settled only a few miles inland from the Atlantic, the French were living as far west as the Great Lakes. The St. Lawrence was like a highway that took them there, and the river soon became lined with farms all the way to Montreal. But not all French settlers lived on the St. Lawrence; a few chose to make their homes in Acadia, located at present-day Nova Scotia. These people had their own history, and it ended tragically in 1755 with their brutal exile at the hands of the English. I have a small amount of Acadian ancestors on each of my two French-Canadian branches, but they left Acadia well before the expulsion. (As an interesting side note, one ancestor in a New England branch was a soldier who helped kick the Acadians out.)

The colony of New France was founded for the purpose of making money, mostly by acquiring beaver pelts and shipping them back to Europe. Those doing the actual work to trade for the pelts were people who were both rugged and adventurous. Many men on my pedigree signed contracts in Montreal to paddle canoes great distances, traveling with other fur traders on long expeditions. Each generation pushed further and further west, until eventually it made more sense to just move there. These ancestors were among the first Europeans to live in the American Midwest.

Because many French-Canadian men lived in such remote places, they developed a closer relationship with the Indigenous people of America. Some of them lived for months and years in camps and villages without any women of European descent nearby, and so they had sexual relations with Native Americans. When children were produced, to some degree the French accepted them into their society, and intermarriage was allowed with them. In this way, I have three proven connections to Native Americans on my pedigree, and two of them gave me DNA segments which clearly show up in my test results.

When I first added the two big branches of French-Canadian heritage to my pedigree, I wanted to see if they connected with each other. Usually two branches like that would have many common ancestors, but because of the migration stories of my people, I found only one place where they converged in a single person. And that was Hélène Desportes, who has the claim to fame of being the very first person of European descent born in Canada. How fitting it is that my family tree ties up into such a neat little bow — I can prove that the ancestors of both of my parents founded an entire country.


Big and Little Branches From The New England Colonies

During the 17th century, a mass of people called Puritans escaped religious persecution in England by coming to America. They landed in Massachusetts, then spread out all over the region in a network of towns where everyone followed the same beliefs. Most aspects of life were run by the Puritan authorities, not the government back in England, and included some decision-making at the town level. In a way, this fact led to the idea of independence, sparking the American Revolution in 1775, and ultimately creating the United States.

Several branches of my family were a part of this history. Most of my New England ancestors connect to me through my great-great grandmother, Nancy Sophia French, and they account for one-sixteenth of my pedigree. This was the first branch of my family that I had any knowledge of, partly because before computers, it was the easiest one to research. New Englanders during the 19th century were obsessed with tracing their heritage, and family history libraries are filled with the books they produced. In a sense, they began the genealogy craze that continues to this day.

Nancy French’s ancestors divide into four quadrants that follow a migration pattern to her birthplace of Stockton Springs, Maine. Both of her grandfather’s branches lived in the area north and west of Boston for generations, then trickled up into New Hampshire. Her mother’s mother's branch followed a path that took them up the Connecticut River, from the founding of Hartford to the towns of eastern Massachusetts, finally moving to northern Vermont. Nancy’s other grandmother wasn’t of an English heritage — her ancestors were Scottish people from Ireland, who arrived in America in the early 1700s and settled in Bedford, New Hampshire. Within a generation or two, the New England Scots-Irish were more or less assimilated into the English colonial society.

Locations of towns where Nancy French's ancestors lived.

In addition to Nancy French’s ancestors, I have a few other smaller branches trickling back to New England. In some cases, the immigrant who settled in the Massachusetts colony simply didn’t stay there. This was true for Grace Dollen of Maine, who married a man of Dutch heritage, and wound up living in Brooklyn. In a different way, Phoebe Sayles came to live in the same area after her trouble-making father got them kicked out of the English colony. And Boston-born John Franklin became a seaman who during the 1750s, signed up for a military venture in Virginia, and then never returned to his birthplace.

The 17th-century migration of my family to New England happened because of their religious beliefs. Those in England who were followers of Puritanism were at odds with the people in power; the Stuart kings had no tolerance for dissenters. By the late 1620s, persecution of Puritans was on the rise. This led to a mass exodus which began with the Winthrop Fleet of 1630. Because the motivation for leaving wasn’t about their economic status, some ancestors were fairly well-off, and left behind a comfortable life. A few even had some nobility on their family trees, something that wasn’t true for most American colonists. 

Descendants of the Puritans of New England have the advantage of an extensive amount of records. While vital records aren’t as detailed as the French-Canadian colony, there are other sources of information in New England that are unique. One example is the notes of town meetings. Here it’s possible to glimpse the day-to-day life of the settlers as they grappled with issues affecting the community. Petitions were a common means of expression, and even women sometimes used this method to voice their opinions. As for the men, many ancestors served on town councils as “selectmen,” and a few also traveled to Boston as representatives to the General Court, a sort of legislative body in the colony.

Not everything about the New England settlers was virtuous by modern standards. The accusations of witchcraft in Salem and other places were a stain on their history; today it reads as people being singled out by mobs just for being different. Another aspect of New England that seems wrong now was in how the colony dealt with indigenous people. They may have been well-intentioned at first, but as the English population grew, the tribes of the region were aggressively pushed to the west. Even though tribal land was purchased in formal arrangements, the Indigenous people had little choice but to go along with it. Tensions escalated into King Philip’s War (1675-1676), with both sides committing atrocities. Many of my ancestors served in town militias as the war played out all over Massachusetts.

17th century Puritans.

Because of the way New England was settled, it quickly became much more populated than the French colonies to the north and east. The Puritans had come over in large numbers during the 1630s, which meant the growth of their colony began much earlier than the French ones. For this reason, New England was able to dominate their rivals, and several times, tried to conquer them. An attempt was made to invade Quebec in 1690 which failed, but Acadia was successfully taken by 1710. I have a few New England ancestors who fought in conflicts against the French. My 6G grandfather Timothy Baker joined the force that rounded up Acadian settlers in 1755, sending families into exile. And my 7G grandfather Samuel Dakin was killed in action in 1758 as he led a company of men fighting the French near Lake Champlain in New York.

While the people on my pedigree weren’t central figures in the American Revolution, they are represented in the generation of young men who “answered the call” of April 1775. When word spread of the events happening at Lexington and Concord, several of my ancestors (or their sons) marched towards the action with their town militias, and some enlisted later on to serve in the Continental army. The women, too, showed support back home, and one of my female ancestors hosted a British officer who had been captured as a prisoner.

Because the majority of U.S. presidents have some New England ancestry, I can count many of them as my cousins, the closest two being Franklin Delano Roosevelt (4th cousin 4 times removed) and Franklin Pierce (2nd cousin 6 times removed). I can also prove distant cousinships to such people as Princess Diana and Winston Churchill. So although I didn’t get much DNA from the New England branch of my pedigree, it did give me a connection to a lot of history. That’s the mind-boggling aspect of tracing your genealogy.

Candle snuffer and foot warmer that belonged to my ancestors (probably from eastern Massachusetts).

A Branch From The Earliest Settlers of New York

In the 17th century, when people in Europe were staking their colonial claims on America, it was the Dutch who managed to grab what ended up being the center of everything: New York. Give Henry Hudson credit for sailing into that great harbor, which led to the eventual Dutch settlement there during the 1620s. As a hub of commerce almost from the start, it soon attracted people from all over northwestern Europe. And some of them became my ancestors.

The branch of my family that traces back to New Netherland is through one 3G grandfather, John Ross, who was born in 1829 in Somerset County, New Jersey. While his paternal grandfather was of Scotch-Irish heritage, his other three grandparents descended from the Dutch colony settlers. One grandmother, Martha Van Tuyl, left no records that connect to her parents, but the other two, Christopher Van Arsdalen and Sarah Dumont have fairly complete pedigrees going back to Europe. A distant ancestor, Sarah Rapalje, was said to be the first European child born in what is now New York, and many others have interesting stories as well.

New York harbor during the 17th century.

The New Netherland colony was perhaps the most cosmopolitan settlement in America, and my ancestors came from a lot of different places. This branch of my family includes people from Norway, France, England, Belgium and Germany who mixed with those from the Netherlands. I even have a man said to be from Poland, who had the remarkable story of first settling in a Dutch colony in Brazil before bringing his family to Brooklyn in the 1650s.

Although some of my ancestors lived in New Amsterdam, they primarily settled in the towns of Long Island, places that make up modern-day Brooklyn. By 1700, many started relocating to farms in New Jersey. A few others made their homes up the Hudson River in what is now Ulster County, New York. And a couple of people on my pedigree went all the way out to Southampton, living among a settlement of New Englanders. Today, there are very little traces of the original Dutch colonists, aside from town and street names, and a few old houses.

Places in modern-day Brooklyn derived from my ancestors' names.

Even though the colony founded by the Dutch thrived, it didn’t last very long, and in 1664, England sent a force to take it over. Rather than engaging in a war they knew they would lose, the people of New Netherland surrendered without a fight. This may be the reason the Dutch were allowed to retain a certain status as they assimilated with the English. It’s noteworthy, though, that after English people moved into the former colony, the Dutch largely kept their cultural identity, and one branch of my family continued to be purely Dutch into the 19th century.

While I don’t seem to have very much DNA from my Dutch branch ancestors, I still feel strongly connected to them. This is because I spent 30 years of my adult life living in New York City, and the last 19 years of that were in Brooklyn. To know that my people planted the seed of such a city, gives me great pride — it was neat to live in the same place my ancestors had founded.

A Branch From South West England

One branch of my family comes to me through my great-great grandfather, George Hewes, who was born in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. His pedigree only traces back a generation or two in America, with his father and maternal grandparents each arriving during the first half of the 19th century. And they all came from places that were in the same region of England: the South West.

George Hewes’ father was the most recent of the migrations. Charles Hughes (as the name was originally spelled) was a soldier in the Royal Artillery who was shipped to Canada in 1837, and afterwards, decided to stay. He was born in Almondsbury, a village in South Gloucestershire. This village is just south of the Severn and the border with Wales, which is interesting since there has been a family tradition that we have some Welsh heritage. The Hughes Family of Almondsbury was very poor, often relying on charity for such things as clothing, but they were hard-working, too. Their poverty supports a narrative that Charles would have left England for a better opportunity in America.

Job Bevan, George Hewes’ maternal grandfather, came to Canada in 1817, also as a soldier. He was from the Wiltshire town of North Bradley, and his family is traceable there for three or four generations. This was near the city of Trowbridge, the heart of the woolen cloth industry, and many people in the area made a subsistent income as weavers. Some of my ancestors also may have been farmers who supplied the sheep for making the wool.

George Hewes’ maternal grandmother, Rebecca Pepperell, came to Prince Edward Island with her parents and siblings in about 1808. Their place of origin was in a different part of Wiltshire, the town of Durnford. The Pepperell family can’t be traced any further than Rebecca’s parents, but since people rarely ventured too far from where they were born, it’s likely they at least came from the surrounding area. Durnford is located just three miles from Stonehenge, and is near other sites of ancient rock monuments. It’s fun to speculate that my ancestors were in the area when they were built, but of course there’s no way to prove that.

Map of where my ancestors lived.

My South West England ancestors' decision to make a life in Canada was motivated almost entirely by economic conditions in England at the time. Unlike my ancestors who migrated in the 17th century, they moved to a place in America that wasn’t raw wilderness, so perhaps they weren’t as adventurous (or desperate). Starting fresh in the maritime provinces of Canada gave them a chance to get out of an endless cycle of poverty — something they did achieve.

The ancestors who settled in Prince Edward Island didn’t stay there very long, and by 1860, the family moved to the U.S. Eventually, George Hewes ended up in Los Angeles where he maintained a strong English identity. My great aunt told me that she remembered he had a Union Jack displayed proudly on a wall in his home. I was puzzled by this story, but after learning about his pure English heritage from South West England, it all makes sense.

English/Scots-Irish Branches From Mid-Atlantic Colonies

A large portion of Americans can trace their ancestors back to the earliest years of colonial settlement. Unfortunately, for many, the details are lacking. This was true for several branches of my family, all on my father’s side. Each goes back to places like Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina before the paper trail vanishes. Most lines peter out in the 18th century, and some don’t even make it that far. The reason is an absence of record-keeping that’s tied to the history of these people as a whole, plus a loss of records due to 19th-century courthouse fires. But in some cases, there is hope in DNA testing, and I have a few genetic leads into who my ancestors were. 

A large branch of my family traces back to Rowan and Iredell counties in North Carolina, and these are the ancestors of my great-great grandmother, Mary Edith Luckey. Mary Edith’s maternal grandfather, Samuel Davis, pushes back a couple generations before the records give us no more, and his ancestors from Europe are unknown. More information is known of Mary Edith’s maternal grandmother, Mary Clifford, with her paternal line going back to her grandfather, Michael Clifford, a Scottish man born in Ireland. And Mary Edith’s other grandmother, Esther Tucker, had a heritage from early Maryland settlers who lived near present-day Washington D.C.

As for Mary Edith Luckey’s paternal grandfather, Joseph Luckey, there is no paper trail evidence identifying his parents. By virtue of knowing his surname, it would seem that his line traces back to a Scots-Irish man, Robert Luckey, who migrated to Pennsylvania in the early 18th century, and left many descendants in Rowan County, North Carolina. But a segment of my DNA offers a clue to another possible ancestor: it clusters Joseph Luckey descendants with descendants of a man named William Bennett (1717-~1795). Perhaps the line goes through Joseph Luckey’s unknown mother, although the link that connects to his family may be lost to history.

Another large branch which largely traces back to North Carolina and Virginia comes to me from my great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Sutherlin. Neither of her parents have any documentation tying them to their parents, but her father Jackson Sutherlin’s tree has been revealed with the use of my DNA (see his biography). The Sutherlin (or Sutherland) line goes back to original ancestor George Sutherland, who lived in Virginia during the 1650s. Because records are scarce, most of the wives of Sutherland men are hard to prove, but one of them was a descendant of Walter Chiles (1608-1653), who lived in Jamestown for a time. 

Typical home of a Mid-Atlantic colonial pioneer.

As for Elizabeth Sutherlin’s mother, Mary Fleming, we know that she was born in Ohio, plus the 1880 census shows that her father was born in Virginia and her mother was born in New Jersey. Using these facts along with my own DNA, I’ve determined that Mary’s mother was part of the Hand Family of Scotch Plains, New Jersey, with the maternal half tracing back to the colony of New Sweden. The Fleming side of her heritage tracks into Kentucky via Virginia, and there’s a suggestion that this branch includes some very elite Virginians going back to John Rolfe and Pocahontas. It’s important to note that there isn't any DNA or other evidence to prove that.

The other untraceable branch of my family who partly originated in the Mid-Atlantic colonies were the ancestors of Isabelle Hunter. She was said to be born in Vincennes, Indiana in 1803, and married into a French Creole family. Her father was a Scots-Irish immigrant, and her mother was from Delaware, of an English heritage. Because we don't know Isabelle's mother's maiden name, the Delaware line stops there.

The reason many of these ancestors can’t be connected to the original people from Europe is that their colonies had a different history than the ones to the north. These settlers had less of a central authority overseeing their lives, such as in New England and New France, so no one kept tabs on individuals. It was a society where people survived more on their own, rather than working as a community. Births, deaths and most marriages went unrecorded except for in perhaps a family Bible, and often such documents didn’t get handed down. Generally speaking, formalized records were only kept for the transfer of land in wills and property sales, and not enough vital data is in these records to piece families together.

It’s too bad because these colonial ancestors had life stories just as rich as the traceable ones. Often the reason a man migrated from England was that he committed a crime, although many were just poor people looking for opportunity in America. There was money to be made in growing tobacco, and the Maryland-Virginia area was ideally suited for that. All a person needed was ship’s passage and a small land grant, and within a few years, they would be much better off than they had been in their home country. The colonies became patchworks of small tobacco farms, and some very large ones operated by much wealthier men from England, some of whom are among my ancestors.

Not everyone in these colonies settled in the tobacco region, and another group who were primarily from present-day Northern Ireland migrated into eastern Pennsylvania. Since the land nearest to the coast had already been claimed by others, the newcomers moved inland, and then made their way down the Shenandoah River Valley. By the mid-18th century, many were living in the Piedmont of North Carolina, and eventually were led by men like Daniel Boone into Kentucky and Tennessee. Other settlers in Pennsylvania went a more northerly route into Ohio, and eventually further west.

Migration of ancestors from Pennsylvania to Rowan County, North Carolina.

One major reason for the the westward movement of these people is tied to the end of the American Revolution. A generation of young men served in militias and the Continental Army, and deserved compensation for their sacrifice. But the newly-created federal government had no money to pay them. They did have an abundance of land out west, so this was offered to veterans instead of cash. Thus began an exodus of migration, and a culture of living off the land on the American frontier.

The thing that these lines of my family all seem to have in common was that they were hardy individuals who had no fear of picking up and moving. Perhaps that’s another thing that makes them all hard to trace, but it also paints them (in my mind at least) as having an independent spirit. And having moved entirely on my own from coast to coast, not once, but twice in my life, I feel their presence in myself. After all, I do know that I inherited a substantial amount of DNA from my Mid-Atlantic & South colony ancestors.

Four Branches From the Corners of Ireland

Something happened in 1922 that caused genealogists of Irish descent to forever lose knowledge of their families: a fire in Dublin burned an archive of records. It was a senseless act carried out by anarchists who probably didn’t give a thought to all the history that would be erased with their burst of rebellion. Every parish record in the country had been gathered up to be stored in one building, and suddenly it was gone.

The 1922 Dublin fire that burned most of Ireland's genealogical records.

The fire left my own pedigree nearly blank in four branches: the ancestors of my great-great grandparents Simon Carey, Eliza Furlong, Patrick McGuire, and Mary Toole. I do know some information about their heritage, more so with Eliza Furlong than the others; her family came from County Wexford, and miraculously, there are a few baptisms and marriages where the records survived locally. But the other three branches offer no specific place names, only that Simon Carey was from County Clare, and Patrick McGuire’s mother was from County Mayo. It’s almost certain his father was also from County Mayo, and Mary Toole’s family may have been from there as well.

In a general way, these blank pedigrees had a common history: they lived for many generations as peasant farmers under British rule, barely making a living. They were devoted to the Catholic Church, untouched by the protestant conversion happening in other parts of Europe. Typically, these people lived in rough cottages, paying annual rent to a landlord, and growing potatoes, oats or flax on plots of land as small as an acre and a half. All of the Irish peasants were affected by the Great Famine of the 1840s, and this directly led to at least three of the four branches giving up and moving to America (only Simon Carey may have left for other reasons).

There were a few differences in each of the branches. The Furlongs of County Wexford were from the extreme southeast corner of the island, and because of that, they were slightly better off. Their DNA was also likely to be less pure Gaelic than the branches from the west coast; this is because Vikings and other invaders landed there centuries earlier, mixing in with the local population. County Wexford was where John F. Kennedy’s paternal line originated (our families probably connect at some point, but it’s impossible to prove). Overall, the Furlongs found more success in America than my other Ireland branches. One of my immigrant ancestors from County Wexford, Mary Butler Furlong, was shown to be literate, which wasn’t true for most of the potato famine immigrants.

The McGuires of County Mayo had a much rougher existence. Coming from the northwest corner of the island, the climate and geography was more harsh. In addition, with invaders entering Ireland from the other side of the country, these people had very little mixture with non-Gaelics. This branch likely lived for centuries scraping out a living on their tiny farms, and never traveling very far from the place they were born. Alcohol took a toll on some of the people, and Patrick McGuire’s father and maternal grandfather are known to have been heavy drinkers. Since I can identify some DNA from the parents of Patrick McGuire, Ancestry.com offers a map that suggests where the family was from; this is a region on an inlet that includes the towns of Westport, Killawalla, Castlebar, Ballyhean and Newport.

The place in Ireland where the McGuires were from. (Source: Ancestry.com) 

The ancestors of Mary Toole are much harder to trace. Although she and both of her parents died in Minnesota, no record identifies their place of origin other than “Ireland.” A close relative was named Dominick Toole, though, and the name has ties to County Mayo. Perhaps the most significant thing about the Toole ancestors comes from a family story that claims they were scavengers who liked to find items to resell for profit. While the story took place in late-19th-century Minnesota, it’s easy to imagine they brought this trait over from Ireland.

The fourth Ireland branch of my family is perhaps the most sketchy of all. Simon Carey was a young man who came to America and joined the army during the Civil War; his military enlistment identified his place of origin as County Clare. But the names of the exact town, as well as his parents’ names are mysteries. Sadly, this information may never be known.

All totaled, my untraceable Irish branches represent a full quarter of my family. While it’s frustrating that I will never know many details of their lives, at least I can see the corners of the island that they were from, and consider it a strong part of my heritage. These people who led such hard lives were survivors, and their strength made my existence possible.

A Branch From the Peloponnesian Hills of Greece

Although I know a massive amount about my ancestors, one quarter of my pedigree is entirely blank: the Greek branch. My grandfather, James John Bolheres, came to America through Ellis Island during the first decade of the 20th century. It would be wonderful to write biographies of his predecessors, even sketchy ones, but unfortunately my efforts to trace them has not seen any success.

I know little about my great-grandparents besides their first names, but in a more general way, there’s a wealth of information on my Greek family. The name James Bolheres was an Americanized version of his Greek name, Demitrios Bouloucheris. He came from a village called Apidia (sometimes spelled Apidea or Apedia), which was located on the Peloponnese peninsula near Sparta. It’s interesting that the grandparents of David and Amy Sedaris were from the very same village, and in fact one of their great uncles was married to one of my great aunts. Apidia is one of many tiny communities tucked into the foothills of the southern Parnon mountains; before 1900, such places were only accessible by foot or by donkey. The men of the villages were primarily shepherds, goatherds, and farmers. Life centered around the church and the town square, where people engaged in many cultural traditions, including celebrations of holidays on the religious calendar.

Families were very important to the people in the Sparta region, and it’s easy to get a sense that in the network of villages, everybody knew each other. Marriages were arranged between the father of a bride and the father of a groom, and often spouses had to be found in neighboring towns. My closest Greek DNA matches seem to prove this since they rarely have Apidia as a place of origin on their family trees. Instead they show ancestors from towns such as Geraki, Gouves and Richea. My closest DNA match is a man born in a village near Apidia called Alepochori.

Map showing villages where my ancestors lived.

My Greek ancestors had a substantially harder existence than the ones who were living in America. Ancient rivalries with the Turks caused never-ending conflicts, and the people always had to be on guard. Being in the hills made their homes easier to protect, but sometimes it made little difference. Perhaps the most important event in modern Greek history happened during the time of my 3G grandparents — the Greek War of Independence. Turks had ruled over the people of the Greece for most of the years since the 15th century, and several other attempts had been made to oust them, but in March of 1821, an organized effort began that was ultimately successful.

The war itself was brutal, and it took almost nine years to play out. After some initial victories won by the Greeks, Turkish forces terrorized the whole country. In September 1825, an Egyptian named Ibrahim Pasha waged a campaign in the Peloponnese that targeted the south Parnon mountains, and villages were attacked and burned. The enemy forces slaughtered men, women and children without inhibition. They also captured people, hauling them off into slavery in Egypt, never to be heard from again. No doubt some of these victims were my blood relatives, and the people on my pedigree must have experienced the horror of this time.

Fighting the Turks in the Greek War of Independence.

While there are some records of people in the Sparta region who lived through the war and beyond, there aren’t enough details to find the lines of my family. Women were rarely mentioned on documents except for their own marriages, and identifying parent-child relationships is nearly impossible. Also, record-keeping was sloppy, and many parish register books didn’t survive. The only records of my family I’ve found are my grandfather’s name on a list of boys born in Apidia, the marriage license of a great-aunt, and an 1868 list of voters which shows two men who have the same name as my great-grandfather.

The reality is that the Greek branch of my pedigree will likely never be filled in. I must accept that fact, and take heart that they add variety to my heritage and had a very ancient history. My Greek ancestors are special to me even if I will never know them by name.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Ancestor Biography Index — A to C

[UNKNOWN], Elinor (~1613-1698)
Baker, William (~1658-1702)
Baldwin, Joseph (~1610-1684)
Bartlett, Robert (?-1676)
Bartlett, Samuel (~1639-1712)
Baugis, Marie-Madeleine (1662-1743)
Beauvais, Jacques (1623-1691)
Beauvais, Marie-Charlotte (1667-1700)
Bell, John (~1696-1763)
Benoit, Marie (~1653-1733)
Bergen, Hans Hansen (~1610-1654)
Bergen, Hans Jorise (1684-1726)
Bergen, Joris Hansen (~1649-1731)
Bevan, Job (~1766-1833)
Bevan, Job (1793-1862)
Bevan, Maria (1820-1888)
Bigot, Françoise (1631-1706)
Bigras dit Fauvel, François (1665-1731)
Bigras dit Fauvel, Jacques (1696-1751)
Binet, René (1638-1699)
Bishop, Edward (~1620-?)
Blanchard, Marie (1647-1722)
Blanchon, Étienne (~1632-1712)
Blanquet dit Lafougère, Adrien (~1604-?) 
Blott, Robert (~1584-?)
Bogaert, Teunis Gysbertse (1625-1699)
Bolheres, James John (1886-1941)
Bolheres, Margaret Elizabeth (1922-2016)
Bordeleau, Antoine (1633-1717)
Bordeleau, Antoine (1673-1758)
Bordeleau, Antoine (1701-1735)
Bordeleau, Antoine (1730-1793)
Bordeleau, Marie-Madeleine (1761-1819)
Boucher, François (1617-?)
Boucher, Marin (~1589-1671)
Boucher dit Desroches, François (1684-1760)
Boucher dit Desroches, Pierre (1648-1702)
Boucher dit Pitoche, Pierre (1639-1707)
Bourassa, Jean (1634-1718)
Bourg dit Lachapelle, Antoine (~1662-1729)
Bourgeois, Catherine (1633-1702)
Bourgoin, Jean (~1590-?)
Bourgoin, Marie-Marthe (~1638-1682)
Bouron, Antoine-Joseph (1696-?)
Bouron, Jean (1642-1712) 
Boutillet, Jacques (1668-1749)
Bouvier, Pierre (~1631-1690)
Boyer, Antoine (1671-1747)
Boyer, Charles (~1631-?)
Boyer, Charles (1673-1727)
Boyer dit Lafontaine, Étienne (~1636-1700)
Boynton, Joshua (1646-1736)
Boynton, Phebe (1750-1847)
Boynton, William (~1606-1686)
Boynton, Zachariah (~1690-1750)
Brackett, Richard (1610-1690)
Braconnier, Jeanne (~1651-1711)
Briere, Denis (~1631-1711)
Briere, Marie (~1645-?)
Brokaw, Jan (~1680-1740)
Brokaw, John (1709-1804)
Brooks, Mary (1623-1693)
Brooks, Thomas (~1595-1667)
Broucard, Bourgon (~1645-1720)
Bruneau dit Jolicoeur, René (1641-?)
Brunet, Catherine (1681-?)
Brunet, Marie (1677-1756)
Brunet dit LeTang, Mathieu (~1646-1708)
Bryan, John (~1730-1800)
Bulkeley, Edward (~1540-1621)
Burrage, John (1616-1685)
Bushnell, Francis (~1580-1646)
Bushnell, Francis (~1609-1681)
Butler, Lydia (1629-1667)
Butler, Mary (1807-1898)
Butler, Nicholas (~1595-1671)
Carey, Simon C. (~1844-~1865)
Carey, Thomas Michael (1864-1937)
Caron, Claude (~1641-1708)
Caron, Marie-Catherine (1738-~1793)
Caron, Vital (1673-1745)
Caron, Vital (1700-1747)
Carpenter, Amos (1693-1792)
Carpenter, Benjamin (1663-1738)
Carpenter, Rachel (1729-1816)
Carpenter, William (1605-1659)
Carpenter, William (1631-1703)
Carrier, Jean (1638-?)
Cassé, Antoine (1641-1709)
Chalifour, Paul (1612-1680)
Chansy, Marie (1657-1689) 
Chapacou, Simon (~1626-1690)
Chastel, Thomine (~1600-?)
Chauvin de La Frèniére, Hypolite (1718-~1758)
Chauvin de La Frèniére, Nicolas (1676-1749)
Chauvin, Pierre (~1631-1699)
Cheever, Ezekiel (1614-1708)
Cheever, Mary (1640-1728)
Chester, Leonard (1610-1648)
Chevalier, Charlotte (~1600-~1683)
Chiasson, Françoise (~1668-?)
Chiasson dit Lavallee, Guyon (~1638-~1693)
Chouinard, Jacques (1663-1721)
Chouinard, Jean-François (1732-1807)
Chouinard, Marguerite (~1758-1828)
Chouinard, Pierre (1695-1767)
Clap, Roger (1609-1691)
Clapp, Anne (1773-1802)
Clapp, Benjamin (1738-1815)
Clapp, Jonathan (1713-1782)
Clapp, Preserved (1643-1720)
Clapp, Roger (1684-1762) 
Clement, Angélique (1705-1784)
Clement dit la Rivière, Pierre (~1670-1725)
Clermond Dubord, Louis (~1715-~1793)
Clifford , John (?-1826)
Clifford, Mary (1798-1876)
Clifford, Michael (?-1785)
Coburn, Ebenezer (~1710-?)
Coburn, Joseph (1681-?)
Colburn, Edward (1618-1700)
Colburn, Robert (~1647-1701)
Cole, Elizabeth (~1619-1688)
Cole, Ryse (~1589-1646)
Coleman, Hanora (1825-1890)
Crosby, Joseph (1669-?)
Crosby, Sarah (1694-?)
Crosby, Simon (1608-1639)
Crosby, Simon (1637-1725)
Crosby, Thomas (~1575-1661)
Crosnier, Martine (~1645-?)
Custeau, Jean (~1699-1769)
Custeau, Pierre-Jacques (~1663-1711)

Ancestor Biography Index — D to J

Dakin, Joseph (1669-1744)
Dakin, Mary (1741-?)
Dakin, Samuel (1700-1758)
Dakin, Thomas (1624-1708)
Damise, Claude (~1643-1705)
Danforth, Jonathan (1628-1712)
Danforth, Nicholas (~1590-1638)
Daniau dit Laprise, Jacques (1672-1751)
Daniau dit Laprise, Jean (~1638-1709)
Danis, Honoré (1669-1722)
Danis dit Tourangeau, Honoré (1624-1690)
Daudelin, Nicolas (~1635-1699)
Dauphin, Étienne (~1637-1694)
Davis, John (?-1821)
Davis, Mary Jane (1834-1927)
Davis, Samuel (1798-1888)
De Liercourt, Anne-Antoinette (~1632-1707)
Derehaugh, Anne (~1584-?)
Desnauguets, Catherine-Françoise (~1621-?)
Desportes, Hélène (1620-1675)
Desportes, Pierre (~1594-~1634)
Destroismaisons, Louise (1680-1755)
Destroismaisons, Philippe (1637-?)
Diel, Charles (~1652-?)
Diel, Charles (1688-1734)
Diel, Charles (1722-~1756)
Diel, Charles (1746-1813)
Dixey, William (~1607-1690)
Dollen, Grace (1659-1734)
Dollen, John (~1626-?)
Drousson dit Lafleur, Robert (~1656-1730)
Drousson, Marie-Madeleine (1689-1747) 
Dubois, François (1668-1714)
Dubois, Jacques (1640-1675)
Dubois, Jacques (1697-1781)
Dubois, Jacques (1746-1827)
Dubois, Madeleine (~1640-1721)
Dubois, Marie-Charlotte (1797-?)
Dubord dit Clermond, Charles (1681-1749)
Dubord dit LaFontaine, Julien (~1636-1705)
Ducorp dite Leduc, Jeanne (~1649-1727)
Dumont, Abraham (1706-1787)
Dumont, Peter (1679-1744)
Dumont, Peter Abraham (1734-1818)
Dumont, Sarah (1764-1846)
Dumont, Wallerand (?-1713)
Durand, Catherine (~1649-1732)
Dussault, Jean-François (1668-?)
Dussault, Jean-Joseph (1711-1781)
Dussault dit Lafleur, Elie (1635-?)
Dutton, Thomas (1621-1687)
Edeline, Charles (~1641-1711)
Edeline, Jean Baptiste (1802-1849)
Edeline, Joseph Marion (1774-1819)
Edeline, Louis Antoine (1690-1758)
Edeline, Louis Victor (1730-1799)
Edeline, William L. (1848-1876)
Elwood, Hazel Laura (1901-1964)
Elwood, James William (1869-1925)
Emery dit Coderre, Antoine (1643-1716)
Émond, René (~1640-?)
Émond, Suzanne (1668-~1715)
Faure, Louise (~1642-1714)
Favreau dit Deslauriers, Pierre (~1636-1708)
Fish, Lydia (?-1712)
Fish, Nathaniel (1619-1694)
Fleming, Mary (1819-1907)
Fletcher, Robert (~1592-1677)
Fletcher, William (1622-1677)
Fletcher, William (1657-1712)
Ford, Thomas (~1590-1676)
Fournier, Alexandre (1735-1826)
Fournier, Guillaume (~1620-1699)
Fournier, Jacques (1684-1767)
Fournier, Jacquette (1659-1736)
Fournier, Marie-Joseph (1777-1856)
Fournier, Nicolas-Michel (~1642-1687)
French, James Riddle (1809-1857)
French, John (1635-1712)
French, Nancy Sophia (1856-1916)
French, Stephen (~1749-1832)
French, William (~1604-1681)
French, William (1687-1746)
French, William (1713-?)
French, William (1781-1847)
Frost, Alice (1594-?)
Furlong, Eliza (1830-1912)
Furlong, Martin (1797-1889)
Gagné, Pierre (~1647-1714)
Gaile, Joseph (1788-1835)
Gaile, Susanne (1827-1869)
Gareman, Florence (~1628-?)
Gareman, Pierre (1604-1653)
Gasnier, Louis (1612-1661)
Gaudry dit Bourbonnière, Nicolas (~1620-1669)
Girard, Anne (~1630-1710)
Giroux, Toussaint (~1633-1715)
Giroux, Toussaint (1672-1750)
Glover, Henry (~1616-1689)
Godard, Marie (?-1684) 
Godbout, Nicolas (1635-1674)
Godere, François (~1700-?)
Godere, Françoise-Agnes (1766-~1835)
Godere, Louis (1739-1794)
Guay, Jean (1643-1679)
Guérard, Catherine (~1649-1727)
Guertin, Catherine (1664-1730)
Guertin dit Sobotier, Louis (~1625-1687)
Hale, Robert (?-1659)
Hallé, Barbe (~1646-1696)
Hallé, Jean-Baptiste (~1607-1672)
Hallier, Pérette (~1651-?)
Hardy, Marie-Anne (1633-1726)
Hébert, Guillaume (~1614-1639)
Hébert, Louis, (~1575-1627)
Hébert, Marie-Françoise (1638-1716)
Hébert, Nicolas (1547-~1600)
Hegeman, Adrian (~1624-1672)
Hegeman, Adrian (~1683-1762)
Hegeman, Adrian (1719-?)
Hegeman, Denys (1658-~1702)
Hegeman, Sarah (1744-1820)
Hendricks, Grietje (~1638-1728)
Hendricks, Magdalena (~1649-?)
Hewes, Eleanor Mabel (1880-1942)
Hewes, George Henry (1853-1923)
Hill, Ralph (?-1663)
Holton, William (1610-1691)
Hooker, Dorothy (~1590-1662)
Hubert, Marie (~1655-?)
Hughes, Charles (1819-?)
Hunt, Samuel (~1633-bef 1707)
Hunt, Samuel (1657-1743)
Hunter, Isabelle (~1803-1872)
Jean, Louise (1678-1750)
Jean, Pierre (~1645-~1626)
Jefts, Henry (~1605-1700)
Jeppes, Jentie (~1633-?)
Jolivet, Marie-Charlotte (~1648-?)

Ancestor Biography Index — K to P

Kendall, Thomas (~1617-1681)
Kimball, Henry (1615-1676)
Kimball, Richard (1595-1675)
King, John (1628-1703)
Kittredge, Abel (1798-1882)
Kittredge, James (1668-1739)
Kittredge, Jane (1703-1779)
Kittredge, John (1630-1676)
Kittredge, John (1666-1714)
Kittredge, Joshua (1761-1834)
Kittredge, Sophia Newell (1824-1900)
Kittredge, Thomas (1708-1794)
Kittredge, Thomas (1731-1806)
LaBrie, Louis Martin (1868-1911)
LaBrie, Minnie Louise (1893-1950)
LaBree, Francis (1828-1909)
LaFaye, Marie (~1638-1708)
Lane, Mary (1620-1671)
Langlois, Françoise (~1599-1632)
Langlois, Marguerite (~1599-1665)
Lapierre, Perrine (~1643-1712)
Larkin, Edward (?-1652)
Larkin, John (1640-1678)
Lecamus, Élisabeth (~1644-1680)
Leclerc, Jean (1635-~1680)
Leclerc, Pierre (1659-1736)
Lefebvre, Pierre (1623-~1668)
Lemaître, Marie-Denise (~1635-1691)
LeMarié, Jacques (~1630-1708)
LeMarié, Michel (~1654-1727)
Levron, Barbe-Elizabeth (1748-1798)
Levron dit Metayer, Joseph (~1691-~1758)
Levron dit Metayer, Joseph (1728-1771)
Levron dit Nantais, François (~1651-1714)
Lewis, Nathaniel (1676-1752)
Lewis, William (1594-1683)
Lewis, William (~1620-1690)
Littlefield, Edmund (1592-1661)
Littlefield, Francis (~1565-1618)
Littlefield, Francis (1619-1712)
Littlefield, Mary (1646-1719)
Long, Joseph (~1600-~1650)
Long, Joseph (1668-?)
Long, Thomas (1644-1711)
Lothrop, John (~1584-1653)
Lothrop, Mary (1640-?)
Lothrop, Thomas (1612-1707)
Luckey, Ellen Ann (1829-1882)
Luckey, Joseph (~1795-~1842)
Luckey, Mary Edith (1854-1899)
Luckey, Samuel (1830-1884)
Lyman, Benjamin (1674-1723)
Lyman, Gad (1713-1791)
Lyman, John (1623-1690)
Lyman, John (1660-1740)
Lyman, Joseph (1699-1763)
Lyman, Medad (1770-1813)
Lyman, Oliver (1739-1799)
Lyman, Richard (1580-1640)
Lyman, Sophia (1800-1838)
Maillot, Guillaume (1680-1718)
Maillot dit Laviolette, René (?-?)
Mallet, Antoine (1706-?)
Mallet, Pierre (1629-?) 
Mallet, Pierre (1676-~1738)
Marchesseau, Marie (1638-?)
Margetts, Catharina (~1625-1690)
Margetts, Joseph (~1593-1675)
Martin, Abraham (~1589-1664)
Martin, Anne (1645-1717)
Martin, Joachim (~1636-1690)
Martin, Louis (1671-1749)
Martin, Marie-Madeleine (~1642-1714)
Martin, Pierre (~1601-aft 1679)
Massé, Martin (1646-1714)
McGuire, Julia A. (1871-1922)
McGuire, Lawrence (~1810-?)
McGuire, Patrick (1834-1882)
Menard, Pierre (1691-1766)
Menard dit Deslauriers, Jacques (~1644-1716)
Meunier, Antoinette (~1636-1697)
Michaud, Marie-Louise (1645-?)
Michel, Jean (~1640-1689)
Michel, Marie-Madeleine (~1619-1687)
Michel, Marie-Renée (1677-1750)
Mignault dit LaBrie, François-Joseph (1743-1805)
Mignault dit LaBrie, Jean (~1665-1735)
Mignault dit LaBrie, Joseph (~1783-1846) 
Mignault dit LaBrie, Michel (1697-~1756)
Miller, John (1604-1663)
Mingou, Jean (~1666-~1697)
Mingou, Marie-Madeleine (1691-1764)
Minot, George (1594-1671)
Minot, James (1653-1735)
Minot, John (~1626-1669)
Minot, Mercy (1702-1793)
Mitchell, Thomas Michael (1893-1980)
Mitchell, Thomas Milton (1922-2007)
Morgan, Robert (~1601-1672)
Morgan, Samuel (1638-1698)
Morin, Agnes (~1641-1687)
Morin, Antoine (1704-1776)
Morin, Marie-Charlotte (~1646-1729)
Morin, Noël (~1609-1680)
Morin, Pierre (~1662-1741)
Morin dit Boucher, Pierre (~1634-~1690)
Newberry, Benjamin (~1624-1689)
Newberry, Thomas (~1594-~1636)
Nicolet, Jean (1598-1642)
Nicolet, Madeleine-Euphrosine (~1628-1689)
Norman, Richard (?-aft 1653)
Northend, Elizabeth (1618-1694)
Nyssen, Teunis (~1615-~1663)
Ober, Hezekiah (1681-1739)
Ober, Richard (1641-1716)
Pacaud, Marie-Vincente (~1624-?)
Palgrave, Anna (1626-1701)
Parker, Jacob (1626-1669) 
Parrat, Elizabeth (1640-1690)
Parrat, Francis (~1615-1656) 
Patch, James (1626-1658)
Patch, Mary (1649-1716)
Patch, Nicholas (~1597-1673)
Patten, Thomas (1636-1690)
Patten, William (?-1668)
Peirce, Stephen (1651-1733)
Peirce, Stephen (1679-1749)
Peirce, Thomas (~1584-1666)
Peirce, Thomas (~1615-1683)
Pepperell, Rebecca (1798-1868)
Pepperell, William (1764-1841)
Perras, Pierre (1616-1684)
Perthuis, Marie (1678-1766)
Perthuis dit Lalime, Pierre (1645-1708) 
Petit, Anne-Charlotte (~1652-1736)
Petit, Pierre (~1621-?)
Picard, Marie-Anne (1663-1697)
Picard dit Lafortune, Hugues (1627-1707)
Piché dit Lamusette, Pierre (1632-1713)
Pietersen, Louwerens (?-~1664)
Pilois, Françoise (~1635-1713)
Pimpare, Marie-Therese (1725-?)
Pimparé dit Tourangeau, Charles (1696-1777)
Plichon dit St-Louis, Louis (1719-?)
Pluchon, Pierre (~1617-1699)
Plumb, John (1594-1648)
Poitreau, Anne-Jeanne (~1652-?)
Pomeroy, Ebenezer (1669-1754)
Pomeroy, Eltweed (1585-1673)
Pomeroy, Medad (1638-1716)
Prezeau, Marie-Catherine (1679-1763)
Prezeau, Michel (1649-1689)
Probasco, Christoffel (~1649-?)
Probasco, Jurien (?-~1664)
Proulx, Denis (1676-1749)
Proulx, Jean (1646-1703)
Provost, René (~1652-1735)
Pruneau, Marie-Madeleine (1708-?)