This is part one of a two-part blog outlining my ancestors. In this one
I will write about the part of my family tree that can be traced to those
individuals who came to America as part of the Great Migration. In the second
part I will discuss those family lines that came either from other places or at
other times.
The Great Migration
The Great Migration is a descriptive term for the period from 1620 to
1640 where the New England states (colonies at the time) were populated by
people coming from England (*1). These people, generally in family groups, were
primarily English Puritans who were motivated by a quest for freedom to
practice their Puritan religion.
The first of these groups settled in Plymouth, MA, in 1620 and are often
referred to as the Pilgrims. Beginning around 1630, the Massachusetts Bay
Colony began in the area around what is now Boston, MA. Some of these
individuals moved on to other parts of New England over the following decade.
Some went overland to establish such places as Hartford, CT (1635) and
Providence, RI (1636). Others began settlements in the many coastal areas along
the Long Island Sound (i.e. what became later known as Connecticut) in
communities such as Fairfield (1635), New Haven (1638), Guilford (1639), and
others. In the latter part of this period some ships went directly to these
other port cities.
Roughly 20,000 people came to New England during this period. With the
beginning of the English Civil War in 1641, the number of people emigrating
from England dropped sharply and the Great Migration ended.
My Ancestral Roots
I was born in Connecticut in 1948. Most of the branches of my family
tree can be traced back to individuals/families who came as part of the Great
Migration. With over 300 years between that period and my birth, and allowing
an average of 25-30 years between generations, that means that there are some
ten to twelve generations that have elapsed in that period. With the number of
branches in a family tree doubling with each generation, that means that I
could have as many of 1000-4000 ancestors at the ends of each of the branches
in my tree!
Fortunately, there are a number of reasons why my family tree is not
quite that large. Some of my ancestors came to the US at later date so I do not
have to go back quite so many generations. These are the subject of part-2 of
this blog. In other cases, two people who were relatives of each other married
and so their branches converge. I have discussed some of these in (*2, *3, *4,
*5, *6). In yet other situations, one or more siblings married other
individuals in my tree and there is further convergence. But still the number
of branches in my tree is significant.
I could probably work full-time just building out and documenting all
the connections and levels in my family tree. So even though I have been
working on it several years, I am not close to being finished. There are a
number of reasons that complicate this work. Here are a few:
·
Insufficient documentation – the focus of living
is on the living part and not documenting it for future generations. Especially
with the hardships of living in a new land, many events such as births,
marriages, and deaths, were not recorded. The records in New England are
actually quite good compared to other parts of the country, but they are not
perfect and so there is often a great amount of uncertainty or just total lack
of information in trying to trace some family lines. The US census is a great
source of information, but it didn’t begin until the late 1700s and until the
mid-1800s it only listed the name of the head of house (generally the father)
with simple tic-marks for each family member in categories by gender and age.
·
Repeating names – families often reused the same
names over and over again. Sometimes this was because they wanted to pass on
the father’s name. I have documented one such instance where this practice
carried on for 12 generations over 400 years (*7). If this was the only
situation then we could differentiate between two individuals by their being a
generation apart. But sometimes (using a generic name as an example), John
Smith might have two sons, John and Robert. But John (the younger) might have a
son also named John and Robert might also have a son whom he named John in
honor of the first John. Then there are multiple Johns in the third generation.
Also, with infant mortality being much higher back in the 1600s and 1700s, a
family might have a child who passed away at a young age and then they would
“reuse” that name with a later child. Coupled with a lack of adequate
documentation, this only adds confusion.
·
Multiple marriages – when one spouse passed away
at a young age (not uncommon, and often happening when the wife passes away due
to complications of childbirth), the remaining spouse might remarry. I have one
documented situation in my family tree where an individual had four children
with his first wife and an additional six with a second wife. With limited
documentation on the death of the first wife and/or the re-marriage, it’s easy
to assign the wrong parent to the subsequent children. See (*8) for a few
examples in my family tree.
·
Undocumented adoptions and name changes – in
some situations both parents might pass away or the mother might pass away and
the father feel unable to care for his young children. The young children would
then be adopted by other family members or friends. The new family might even
choose to rename the child that they adopted. Such events were not documented
like they are now, so this discontinuity in the name of the child can cause
difficulty in trying to build out a family tree. See (*9) for one instance in
my family tree.
I don’t think I will ever be done building out my family tree. In the
early stages of working on one branch, I will often take “short cuts” in rely
on the research of others to get a basic outline of that branch, then go back
later and do the research to thoroughly document the connections. But such
short cuts sometimes mean that I will find that others have mistakes and I have
to undo some of the connections. But I try to learn from these mistakes and I
even document them (*10, *11).
Consequences of Great
Migration Ancestral Lines
Even though my research is far from complete, I have a great many relatively
well-documented family lines in New England, and especially in Connecticut. And
that’s just in the backward-looking ancestral research. When you combine that
with any forward-looking research you can find that you have some sort of
connection to nearly anyone with ancestral roots in colonial Connecticut.
For example, a few friends recently posted in Facebook about a house
that is perched atop a hill in Palmerton, PA, not too many miles from here.
I’ve seen that house myself every time I am driving south on I-476 and wondered
about it. They posted a link to a story about the house (*12), and in it I
noticed that the man who built it had roots in Connecticut and I thought that
the name of his mother had some familiarity to me. I was able to do some quick
research on her ancestral line and then to document a few minutes later about
the connection to me.
When I saw that
Elisha Marshall’s parents were from Connecticut, I did some quick checking. I
have found that Elisha is my 5th cousin (several times removed). His
mother was Mary Hotchkiss Ward and her mother was Abigail Wilcox. His great*4
grandfather was William Wilcoxson and William is also my great*10 grandfather.
In another bit of research I was doing for a close friend at church
(*13), when I noticed that one of his ancestral lines went back to Connecticut
I was able to document that he was my cousin in at least three ways!
Finding these types of connections is always a bit interesting and
keeps me going through the sometimes tedious task of trying to find that next
link that takes a particular branch of the family back just one more
generation.
Notes:
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