Since
my ancestral lines on my mother’s side, with only a few isolated exceptions,
all can be traced back to individuals who came to New England during the period
of the Great Migration in 1620-1650, it is surprising to me that NONE of them were
among the individuals who were on the Mayflower when it landed in Plymouth, MA,
in 1620. All of my Mayflower ancestors are on my father’s side of the family,
despite many of them coming to America at different times and/or places.
Perhaps most surprising is that many of my Mayflower ancestors were ancestors
of my grandmother whose maiden name was Vera Levy and who grew up in a Jewish
household in Brooklyn, NY. This blog is about those ancestors.
Thomas
Rogers (1572-1621) is my great*10 grandfather. He and his son Joseph (1602-1696),
my great*9 grandfather and a then young lad of just 18, were among the
passengers of the Mayflower in 1620 (*1). Thomas died during that first harsh
winter of 1620-1621.
Joseph
remained in the Plymouth/Duxbury area where he married a few years later. He
and his wife Hannah had several children, including Thomas (1638-1678) and John
(1642-1713). The number of families living in the area were relatively small
and those of marriable age even fewer, so there were a number of intermarriages
between these families in the next few generations. This resulted in a number
of the Mayflower families becoming part of my overall family tree.
One
of my family lines came through John who passed down the Rogers family name.
Another was through Thomas who married Elizabeth Snow, the daughter of Mayflower
passenger Constance Hopkins (1606-1677). A final line came through one of Thomas’
daughters, Hannah Rogers (1669-1733), who married Amaziah Harding, a descendant
of Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke (1583-1663), and whose daughter Phebe
Harding married back into the Rogers family when she married Benjamin Rogers
(1704-1747).
Thus,
through much endogamy and close consanguinity (*2), by the time my great*5
grandfather, Benjamin Rogers (1738-1824), was born, he had bloodlines from
three different Mayflower families.
After
the Rogers family had been in eastern Massachusetts for over 130 years, and
following his marriage in 1763, Benjamin moved to Ashfield in western
Massachusetts where his children were born and where he lived out the remaining
50+ years of his life. His son, Joseph (1772-1837) moved even further west to the
Berkshires in Lenox, MA. It was there that my great*4 grandfather, Benjamin
Judd Rogers (1814-1875) was born.
I’ve
recounted the story of Benjamin Judd earlier (*3), so I’ll not repeat it here,
but to summarize, when Benjamin’s wife, Lois, died he gave up his children. His
youngest daughter, Lois Irene Rogers, was adopted and her name changed to Mary
Lois Drake. Lois Irene/Mary Lois was my great*3 grandmother. She married
Lawrence Northrop and their daughter, Caroline Northrop married Maurice Levy
who had a daughter, Vera Levy, my grandmother.
It
was this last marriage into the Levy family that resulted in a Jewish family
passing along to me the bloodlines of three different families who had come to
this country on the Mayflower.
Family
history can get complicated. But that’s part of what makes genealogy research
so interesting!
Notes:
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