17 Years as Massachusetts Selectman — Robert Burnap

B. 28 Nov 1627 in Hoddesdon Chapel, Hertfordshire, England¹
M. (1) before 6 Nov1653 in (probably) Reading, Massachusetts^2,3
Wife: Ann _____
M. (2) 28 May 1662 in Reading, Massachusetts⁴
Wife: Sarah Brown
D. 18 Oct 1695 in Reading, Massachusetts⁵

During his life, Robert Burnap served his town of Reading, Massachusetts in several roles. He was born on November 28, 1627 to Robert Burnap and Ann Miller, their third child.¹ The family lived in Hoddesdon Chapel, England, a village that today is within the metropolitan area of London, just to the north. It’s also a very short distance to the west of the Prime Meridian.

Robert was still a boy when his family relocated to New England as a part of the Great Migration of Puritans. They settled at first in Roxbury before moving to Reading by 1654.⁶ Robert came of age and at some point he married a woman named Ann,^2,3 with whom he had five children. The youngest was born June 17, 1661, and this must have taken a toll on Ann, because she died just eight days later. Robert remarried to Sarah Brown on May 18, 1662,⁴ and they had six children together.

Robert’s name appears numerous times in records of Reading’s town meetings. Starting in 1654, he became a selectman, and continued in this role through 1672, with just three years when he didn’t serve.⁶ Selectmen were a form of local government officers unique to New England which sprung up out of Puritanism. The men of the community would typically meet once a month, with four of five chosen to function as a council. Someone who held the job for 17 years is an indicator that they were a respected man, which must have been the case for Robert.

Two other positions Robert held were as a keeper of the pound in 1655 (handling animals in the town who had gotten loose), and Sealer of Weights and Measures in 1665.⁶ The sealer was someone who supervised the weighing and measuring of goods traded within the town. Both of these duties gave Robert a certain role of authority as he kept tabs on the members of his community.

Robert made out his will on October 4, 1695,⁸ and he passed away on October 18th.⁵ He signed the will with an X, which is usually means that a person was illiterate, but in his case he may have simply been too weak to hold a pen; his probate inventory does include some books. Also in in the inventory was 120 acres of land, and 12 barrels of cider, which seems like an unusual amount. Robert’s widow Sarah survived him for many years, and died in 1713.⁹

Transcript of part of Robert’s will.

Children by Ann ______:
1. Sarah Burnap — B. 6 Nov 1653, Reading, Massachusetts;² D. 5 Apr 1696, Reading, Massachusetts;¹⁰ M. Abraham Roberts (1654-1731), 1680, Reading, Massachusetts¹¹

2. John Burnap — B. 16 May 1655, Reading, Massachusetts;¹² D. Sep 1725, Windham, Connecticut;¹³ M. Mary Royce (1661-1741), 7 Apr 1684, Connecticut¹⁴

3. Robert Burnap — B. 28 Feb 1657, Reading, Massachusetts;¹⁵ D. 1 Nov 1674, Reading, Massachusetts¹⁶


4. Hannah Burnap — B. (possibly) 2 Mar 1660, Reading, Massachusetts;¹⁷ D. 12 Jan 1722, Newbury, Massachusetts;¹⁸ M. Joshua Boynton (1646-1736), 9 Apr 1678, Newbury, Massachusetts¹⁹

5. Mary Burnap — B. 17 Jun 1661, Reading Massachusetts;⁷ D. 30 Jan 1680, Reading, Massachusetts²⁰

Children by Sarah Brown:
1. Joseph Burnap — B. 24 Mar 1663, Reading, Massachusetts;²¹ D. 19 Aug 1744, Reading, Massachusetts;²² M. Tabitha Eaton (1674-1734), 31 Jan 1690, Reading, Massachusetts²³

2. Elizabeth Burnap — B. 21 Feb 1664, Reading, Massachusetts;²⁴ D. 7 Oct 1688, Reading, Massachusetts;²⁵ M. Jonathan Eaton (1655-1743), 15 Aug 1683, Reading, Massachusetts²⁶

3. Lydia Burnap — B. 8 Apr 1667, Reading, Massachusetts;²⁷ D. 9 Jun 1699, Reading, Massachusetts;²⁸ M. John Dix (1654-1731), 30 Jun 1692, Reading, Massachusetts²⁹

4. Isaac Burnap — B. 29 Apr 1671, Reading, Massachusetts;³⁰ D. 19 Jan 1675, Reading, Massachusetts³¹

5. Sarah Burnap — B. 4 Apr 1672, Reading, Massachusetts;³² D. 25 Dec 1736, Reading, Massachusetts³³

6. Samuel Burnap — B. 15 Sep 1675, Reading, Massachusetts;³⁴ D. 2 Mar 1676, Reading, Massachusetts³⁵

7. Benjamin Burnap — B. 8 Jun 1677, Reading, Massachusetts;³⁶ D. after 1740, Massachusetts;³⁷ M. Elizabeth Newhall (1678-?), 18 Jun 1700, Reading, Massachusetts³⁸

8. Dorcas Burnap — B. 22 Jun 1679, Reading Massachusetts;³⁹ D. about 1760, Reading, Massachusetts;⁴⁰ M. William Sawyer (~1674-~1770), 30 Apr 1700, Reading, Massachusetts⁴¹

Sources:
1    Baptismal record of Robert Burnap, Hertfordshire, England, Extracted Church of England Parish Records, Ancestry.com
2    Birth record of Sarah Burnap, 6 Nov 1653, Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915, FamilySearch.org
3    Death record of Ann Burnap, wife of Robert, Reading Birth Records, Marriage Records, Death Records, FamilySearch.org  
4    Marriage record of Robert Burnap and Sarah Brown, Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001, FamilySearch.org  
5    Death record of Robert Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R. 
6    Genealogical history of the town of Reading, Massachusetts, Lilley Eaton, 1874
7    Birth record of Mary Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.  
8    Probate record of Robert Burnap, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Probate Index 1648-1870, FamilySearch.org  
9    Find-a-Grave listing of Sarah (Brown) Burnap 
10  Death record of Sarah Roberts, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
11  Birth record of Mary Roberts (firstborn of Sarah), M., T. C., V. & T. R.
12  Birth record of John Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
13  WikiTree listing of John Burnap  
14  Marriage record of John Burnap and Mary Royce, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
15  Birth record of Robert Burnap (son), M. B. & C.
16  Death record of Robert Burnap (son), M., T. C., V. & T. R.
17  Birth record of Hannah Burnap, M. B. & C.
18  Find-a-Grave listing of Hannah Boynton 
19  Marriage record of Joshua Boynton and Hannah Barnet, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
20  Death record of Mary Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
21  Birth record of Joseph Burnap, M. B. & C.
22  Death record of Joseph Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
23  Marriage record of Joseph Burnap and Tabitha Young, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
24  Birth record of Elizabeth Burnap, M. B. & C.
25  Death record of Elizabeth Eaton, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
26  Marriage record of Jonathan Eaton and Elizabeth Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
27  Birth record of Lydia Burnap, M. B. & C.
28  Death record of Lydia Dix, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
29  Marriage record of John Dix and Lydia Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
30  Birth record of Isaac Burnap, M. B. & C.
31  Death record of Isaac Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
32  Birth record of Sarah Burnap, M. B. & C.
33  Death record of Sarah Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
34  Birth record of Samuel Burnap, M. B. & C.
35  Death record of Samuel Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
36  Birth record of Benjamin Burnap, M. B. & C.
37  WikiTree listing of Benjamin Burnap  
38  Marriage record of Benjamin Burnap and Elizabeth Newhall, M., T. C., V. & T. R.
39  Birth record of Dorcas Burnap, M. B. & C.
40  WikiTree listing of Dorcas (Burnap) Sawyer  
41  Marriage record of William Sawyer and Dorcas Burnap, M., T. C., V. & T. R.

Letters to Son and Daughter-in-Law — Arrold Dunnington

B. before 21 Sep 1587 in Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England¹
M. 7 Jun 1612 in Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England¹
Husband: Ryse Cole
D. after 20 Dec 1661 in Charlestown, Massachusetts²

It’s rare to find personal letters written by Puritan men in 17th-century New England, and it’s even rarer to find them from females. But a woman named Arrold Dunnington wrote two letters which have survived at least into the mid-20th century.

Arrold (also spelled Harrald and many other variations) was from Great Bowden in Leicestershire, England. She was baptized there on September 21, 1587 before her parents Edward Dunnington and Margaret Cox,¹ and she was one of their five known children, all girls. Great Bowden is said to be one of the oldest villages in the area, dating back to the Anglo-Saxons; perhaps this is what accounts for Arrold’s unusual first name. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother remarried.¹

On June 7, 1612, Arrold got married to Ryse Cole,¹ and over the next dozen or so years, she had five children. Arrold and Ryse were followers of Puritanism, so much so that in 1630, when John Winthrop sailed with 700 people to found the colony of Massachusetts, the Coles were among the passengers.^2,3 Although we don’t know which ship they were on, they were in a group who landed at the site of Charlestown.² Most of the settlers moved across the river to establish the town of Boston, but Arrold’s family stayed put. Both were listed as members of the Boston church until being “dismissed” in the fall of 1632 so they could join the new congregation at Charlestown. 

The Winthrop Fleet in Boston Harbor in 1630.

It wasn’t long after arriving at Charlestown that Ryse and Arrold made a decision to “send out” two of their children. This was a Puritan practice where parents gave up their children to the household of another so that they could learn skills and information that they wouldn’t receive at home.⁴ It has to be assumed that as their mother, Arrold supported the arrangement even if it were her husband’s idea. So youngsters Elizabeth and John were sent to live with Samuel Fuller of Plymouth, who was a doctor and former Mayflower passenger. It wasn’t until 1633 that they came home.²

After writing a will dated May 1646, Ryse passed away;² his instructions were that Arrold would maintain their house and farm until she died, then he specified which of their children got what. For this reason, probate on the estate wasn’t done immediately. Arrold didn’t remarry, so in her widowhood, she managed the family’s holdings. By the mid-1650s, her youngest son James had moved back to England, and in about 1655, he got married. Back in Charlestown, Arrold took a pen and paper to send a congratulations to her son and new daughter-in-law, Ruth. In her letter, she wrote that her siblings and their spouses “remember their loves unto you and your wife, though unknown.”⁵ That last bit was a reference to the fact the family never met Ruth, who presumably had never been to America.

Then in 1661, Arrold wrote a second letter just to Ruth because it seemed that James had died and Ruth had remarried. Perhaps this was another congratulations for getting married; she referred to the young widow as “loving daughter Ruth Mood.”⁵ Did Arrold ever meet Ruth? This isn’t evident in the excerpts found in a book written by a researcher who saw the two letters. Unfortunately, the original letters aren’t readily accessible; we just know that they were in a file somewhere in the Middlesex County court records.

On December 20, 1661, Arrold wrote a will of her own.² Her orders to each child or grandchild were quite specific: “my daughter [Elizabeth] is to have the bed on which I lie, and my grandchild John [Cole] an iron pot and his father is not to dispose of it from him [and] I give to my grandchild John Lowden a pair of sheets & to my grandchild Mary Lowden one box and one scarf & to my grandchild James Lowden a pint pot & more to my grandchild Mary Cole a brass kettle.” She also asked that her husband 1646 will be honored, and all of these things were done after she passed away within the week (the exact death date is unknown, but it was before December 26th). Arrold left many descendants, including Franklin Pierce, George W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Jeb Bush and James Spader.⁶

Children:
1. Robert Cole — B. about 1616, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;² D. before 23 Nov 1655;² M. Phillip ______²

2. Elizabeth Cole — B. about 1619, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;² D. 5 Mar 1688, Woburn, Massachusetts;⁷ M. Thomas Peirce (~1608-1681), before 1639, Charlestown, Massachusetts²

3. Mary Cole — B. about 1621, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;² D. 7 Oct 1683, Charlestown, Massachusetts;⁸ M. Richard Lowden (~1612-1700), about 1640, Charlestown, Massachusetts²

4. John Cole — B. about 1623, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;² M. Ursula ______, before 28 Aug 1655⁵

5. James Cole — B. about 1625, (probably) Great Bowden, Leicestershire, England;² D. before 1661, (probably) England;² M. Ruth _______, before 28 Aug 1655, England⁵

Sources:
1    “Colonists from Great Bowden, Leicestershire — Rice Cole of Charlestown, Massachusetts,” Leslie Mahler, The American Genealogist, Vol. 78, July 2003
2    Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Vols. I-III, Robert Charles Anderson
3    John Winthrop (Wikipedia article)  
4    Albion’s Seed, David Hackett Fischer, 1988
5    The New England Ancestry of Dana Converse Backus, Mary Elizabeth Neilson Backus, 1949
6    FamousKin.com listing for Rice Cole  
7    Find-a-Grave listing for Elizabeth (Cole) Pierce 
8    Find-a-Grave listing for Mary Lowden 

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.