Introduction: An exceptionally American family tree

This blog is written for the grandchildren of William and Phyllis James McKim,
the children of Marilyn, Karen, Ellen, and Susan.  

 When the nation was observing the centennial of Ellis Island's 1892 opening, historians announced that 40% of all living Americans could trace their ancestry to someone who entered the United States through that door. 

You -- the grandchildren of Bill and Phyl -- are not among them (at least not through your mother). Every single family among your mother's forebears was already here when Ellis Island opened. 

Your most recent immigrant ancestors, your grandfather's maternal grandparents, arrived from Scotland and Northumberland (England) in the early 1880s. At that time, his paternal-side ancestors had already been in Pennsylvania for more than 150 years.

Your grandmother's ancestry is even more remarkable. Had immigration from Europe stopped completely in 1776, she would have been exactly the person she was. Every single one of her ancestors was already here when America declared its independence in 1776.  

 

Take a moment to appreciate that.  Before the Revolution, historians estimate that fewer than 1 million immigrants had moved to North America from Europe. Literally hundreds of your ancestors were among them. The closest thing to America's first census was created by Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame, from Virginia) when he visited Plymouth Colony in 1624, only four years after its founding. He counted 180 residents --  (Six) of whom (the Lyfords (3), the Hardings (3) were your direct ancestors.  

 

All my life, I’ve felt no ethnic identity beyond “just American.” After researching our family tree, I think I now understand why. This family tree is exceptionally American.

 

Any questions?

Question: That’s all very nice. But where are we FROM? Unless we have any indigenous ancestors (which you would have mentioned by now), none our ancestors were American before the 17^th century.

Answer: You’re right. It's a safe bet that every single one of your ancestors who was alive in 1492 was in Europe. About half lived in England; about 30% lived in Scotland; and the remainder lived in areas that are now in Germany and Switzerland.

 

When I started with this ancestry stuff in 2014, my intent was to go back in each line, find the immigrant, and stop. Probably like most Americans, I assumed that would be no more than four or five generations, except on a few lines.

 

But in line after line, I found myself going back and back and back and back and back. When one of the lines reached the Puritans, it was like hitting a genealogy gusher. I was overwhelmed with the ancestry 'hints' and links to historical websites. So I capped the well and let my Ancestry.com subscription expire.

From the top: Kate, Colin, Jim,
Ted, Ellie, Frank,
Erin and Karen
Pensacola, 1996

 

In 2018, Keith and I signed up for a cruise around Scotland, so I decided to get back on Ancestry to see if I could find any ancestral place names. Just as I did, out of the blue, Anne Simpson, a fourth cousin living in North Yorkshire, related through my dad's mom who was an immigrant from England, contacted Ellen, so I dived back in with renewed energy to find out as much as I could before we met her.  Now I’ve invested far too much effort to let this lapse. So I wrote this blog. 

 

All the generations are labeled in relation to Bill and Phyl's grandkids. That is, my parents are labeled 'grandparents'. For farther-back generations, the number of 'greats' is given as a numeral: e.g., your great-great grandparents are called "2G grandparents." 

 

Every individual is given a reference number, starting with Bill McKim (1) and Phyllis James (2).  To find anyone’s parents, double their number. Then add 1 to find the father; add 2 to find the mother. To find any father’s child, subtract 1 from his number and divide by 2. To find any mother’s child, subtract 2 and divide by 2.

      

 

 

 Organization

Each of your grandparents and great-parents (the first column in this image) has an individual page, just for them. 

Your 2G and 3G grandparents (the second and third columns) have one page for each couple. 

Information about your 4G grandparents and ancestors even farther back is on four pages, one for each of the major ethnic groups of your immigrant ancestors. Your Puritan & Pilgrim ancestors have a few additional pages about their history in general and about a few interesting historical stories.

 About the sources and limitations of this information

 

Most of the information in this blog comes through Ancestry.com. It is only a fraction of what I collected there. If you go to Ancestry.com, look for a tree named Combined Family Tree owned by the account karenmckim65. It's saved as a "public tree," which (as I write this) will remain visible to any Ancestry subscriber, forever, even after my subscription expires or I die. 

 

The information I saved to our tree is as reliable and credible as I could manage, but inevitably as you go back in time, particularly for the Pennsylvania pioneers, the records get sketchier. People on the frontier were busy staying alive and creating a nation, not keeping records for posterity. 

 

In addition to the information I got from Ancestry.com or Newspapers.com, for more recent ancestors I used from notes and photos my parents left for me and my sisters.

 

Ancestry.com provides links to three types of information: 

1. Information from contemporary documents, such as census reports, civil documents, wills, church records and the like. For the 19th and 20th century ancestors, newspaper archives are very helpful. But even primary sources can be tricky. For example, census takers might record daughter Amelia one year and daughter Melly ten years later, and names are often repeated both within families and within local communities, so it can be dicey to sort out father Jacob Miller from son Jacob Miller and neighbor Jacob Miller. I was surprised at how fluid the spellings of surnames remained even into the 18th century-- e.g., Crow, Crowe, Croe, Crowell.
   
   
2. Genealogical accounts written many years after their subjects had died, such as applications for DAR membership submitted in the early 20th century for 18th century soldiers, or histories of 18th century towns written in the 19th. These are pretty impressive; the authors usually made clear the sources of their information and were willing to note at least some information as unclear or uncertain.
   
   
3. Personal information shared by other Ancestry.com members, which I assume is from family Bibles and other personal records. 

Whenever possible, I relied upon the contemporary documents. Sometimes I accepted information from later sources if it was consistent with reliable information and with the broader history of the time. I ignored much material that had nothing to vouch for it except some other Ancestry member’s claims. I did the best I could and as I wrote it up tried to indicate when I wasn't sure how solid the information was.

 

If anyone wants to dig deeper or fill in holes...

 

You can read more stories of our ancestors and their neighbors. 

Most of the stories I got for this blog came from late-19th century family histories and town histories. Many of those are online, full text, for free. I find both the stories and the quaint writing style interesting.  Among the online books that tell stories about our ancestors are: 

1. Lyon Memorial: Families of Connecticut and New Jersey  All Lyons are related, but apparently three brothers came to America around the time of England's Civil War. Follow the information for "Henry Lyon of Newark".
   
2. A History of Deerfield Massachusetts and the People by whom it was settled, unsettled, and resettled  This book has lots of nice description of everyday life, and lots of detailed accounts of harrowing Indian wars. Look for the names Hoyt, Sheldon, Wells, Graves, Strong.
3. A History of Williamsburg in Massachusetts has one of the more detailed personality portraits I've encountered in these books: check out page 20 for a not-wholly-flattering commentary on the marriage of your 5G grandparents Jonathan Warner and Eliza Sheldon.   
4. A History of Plymouth County in Massachusetts 
   
5.  Genealogy of the Graves Family in America  Despite the title, this book starts with a review of our Graves ancestors in Europe. But when it gets to America (on page #1, the book's first Arabic-numbered page that follows two dozen Roman-numbered pages), it dives right into the story of the lives of your 9G grandfather Thomas Graves and his son, your 8G grandfather Isaac Graves, with photos. Your 7G grandfather John's story is on page 14 and your 6G grandfather Elnathan's is on page 20.
   
6. The Leading Citizens of Hampshire County  Look for the names Allen, Bartlett, Clapp, Hobart,...
7. The King Family of Southold, Suffolk County, New York  Look for King, Tuthill, Brown

Additional local and family histories are online, but not for free. If you get an Ancestry.com subscription, you can see them saved them to each individual on the tree I created.

You could fill in some holes.

On a few branches, I hit a dead end before I reached the immigrant. If someone else gets on Ancestry.com (which I've exhausted as of May 2024) or better yet, uses some other ancestry research source (which might have some links that Ancestry does not), you could look for:

• The original McKim immigrant. How frustrating is it that one of the few lines on which I cannot identify the immigrant is that for my own name? Robert McKim, your 6G grandfather, was born in 1740 in Cumberland County, in the colony of Pennsylvania, and he wasn't Native American. I don't know his parents' names or when they came to America or even if it was his grandparents who were the first McKim on this side of the ocean. (Historically, it's a safe bet they came from Scotland through Ulster.)
  
• The unknown parents of #53, your 4G grandmother Mary Sanford, create the largest missing branch of your family tree. She was born in 1816 on Long Island--a time and place when genealogical records are typically complete and easy to find. But we know nothing of her parents--not their names, nothing. Without her parents' names, that line of the family tree remains a mystery beyond Mary. 

 You could fill out their stories.

 I blew past a few intriguing angles on our ancestors' stories. For example, the churches they attended. When I started this, I assumed that Dad's paternal ancestors were all Presbyterian and Mom's were either Lutheran or whatever church the Puritans created. But as I collected marriage and baptism records, I noticed a whole bunch of different denominations--Church of Christ, Unitarian, Congregationalist, Quaker, and more. (And what is Antinomian?) Some of Mom's paternal ancestors, whom I thought were all solidly English, got married in Presbyterian churches. It would be interesting to collect that information and see if it tells any stories.

Looking carefully at their locations and movements might also reveal some interesting stories, but it's more tangled than you might think. Many continued to wander after they came to America, and sometimes you can see the reason--Indians destroyed their town (not just Deerfield; we had other ancestors move for the same reason) or they had a fight in their church and the congregation split off to form not just a new church but a new town. On the other hand, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the colonies and young states were frequently reorganizing themselves, so you might see someone being born in Centre County and dying in Adams County (one example) and they didn't really move--the county lines just changed.

You could follow the threads back into Europe.  

The task I set for myself was "Find the immigrant," and I usually stuck with that, regardless of any signs indicating interesting information such as a noble connection, a Jacobite leader, etc. among the ancestors who stayed in Europe. If anyone wants to look for high-born or significant English or Scottish ancestors:

• Many, perhaps most, of those late 19th-century family history books (linked above) open with a chapter about the family's ancestors in England, inevitably focusing on the impressive ones. I don't know how much you can trust these. One, for example, traces our ancestry back to King Arthur's niece and a knight of the Round Table. But much of it is probably true and can likely be verified. Your 9G grandmother #1634 Abigail Downing is alleged to be descended from William the Conqueror and several later English kings. That's the sort of claim that could be proven, if true.
  
• Access the "Combined Family Tree" I saved on Ancestry.com and start looking at the individual pages for some of the immigrants. They often have a parental hint: "We found a possible father for Jane!" and the name they suggest sometimes has a title: Lord, Lady, Viscount, Sir, whatever. I did not routinely save those names to our tree, but the hint that points to the European should still be there. There's also a good chance you'll find some "significant people" if you look back from the Graham (#257), Lyon (#443), and Semple (#484) families. (Interestingly, both Bill and Phyl have branches on their family trees that reach back to the Semple family in 16th and 17th century Scotland--that is, those two were likely distant cousins.)
  

Karen McKim, January 2020

You have an ancestor who sat at King Arthur's Round Table,
at least according to our distant cousin, Selah Youngs, Jr.

Highlights and Overview

McKim:

I did not find our original McKim immigrant ancestor (who was an ancestor of Robert McKim, born in Pennsylvania in 1740), but the origin of the name is well-established.  

It is Scottish, deriving from the Gaelic name Mac Shimidh, meaning "son of Simon." The name is historically associated with the Highlands of Scotland, particularly the region of Inverness-shire, where the Clan Fraser of Lovat was prominent. McKim is considered a variation of the name MacKimmie, which itself is linked to the Frasers of Lovat.

This area, located in the northeastern part of Scotland, played a significant role in Scottish clan history. The McKim or MacKimmie families were often connected to the Fraser clan as septs (smaller family groups or supporters).

James:

The English village of Hingham still prides itself on
being the origin of so many Puritans (although they left).

Our original James immigrant ancestor was #1535 Philip James, who was born in 1599 in Hingham, England and immigrated in 1638 with his wife, #1536 Jane Russell, four children and two servants. They likely set foot in America at Plymouth, MA, but shortly after that founded a new settlement at Hingham, MA.

Your most famous blood relative (at least that I found): Your 10G grandfather Samuel Lincoln #1545, was also among the Hingham group. He was a weaver who was born in 1622 who emigrated in 1637 to the Plymouth Colony, and then to Hingham, MA, where he met and married Martha Lyford #1546. 

President Abraham Lincoln was one of their 3G grandchildren and you are one of their 9G grandchildren, so it is possible you share a bit of DNA with Abe. In other words, your mom is Abraham Lincoln's 4th cousin, 5 times removed and you are his 4th cousin, 6 times removed.

 

You're related in a similar way to the Presidents Bush. They and we are descendants of #773 and 774  Samuel and Hannah Gill Clapp, both born in the 1640s in Scituate, Massachusetts. I know less about this connection because the Clapp family history available through Ancestry.com was not as specific as the Lincoln family history.  

The Deerfield Raid   This is the story I cannot believe my mother's family did not pass down to her.  Sarah Taylor Bream's Gettysburg farm story is a good side-story connected to a historic battle, but the Deerfield Raid was the historic battle itself. You have six direct ancestors and even more sibling/in-law ancestors who were caught up in this key incident in 1704, which was one of the earliest outbreaks in what came to be known as the French and Indian Wars. 

In the list of ancestors, I've marked each person who was
killed or who lost someone close with this icon.

Entire books have been written, but in brief:  Deerfield was a Massachusetts village that was then on the northwestern frontier of English settlement, in the Connecticut River Valley. At the dawn of the 18th century, France wanted to expand its colonial reach south from Canada; the natives just wanted their land back. Everyone knew tensions between France and England were rising and that Deerfield was in danger if war broke out. 

The village built a stockade and gathered a small militia, led by your 7-G grandfather Jonathan Wells. But one night in February 1704, the snow was piled up high enough so that the leader of the French troops saw an opportunity to get a lot of his Indian allies over the top, which he did, in a pre-dawn raid. 

After an hours-long battle of house-to-house fighting within the stockade, followed by one on a field nearby, most of the houses had been burned to the ground. Forty-seven villagers were dead, including your 7G grandfather, David Hoyt, Jr. Your 8G grandmother Hannah Atkinson Stebbins survived the harrowing battle along with her daughter, your 7G grandmother Mary Edwards Hoyt and Mary's infant daughter (your 6G grandmother Mary Hoyt) but she lost her second husband, Benoni Stebbins and many cousins, nieces, and nephews. Jonathon Wells survived, but the raiders captured 112 villagers and started them on a 300-mile foot march in the snow to Montreal. Your 8G grandfather, David Hoyt, Sr., was among the captives and died of starvation en route.  (His infant granddaughter, Mary Hoyt, grew up to marry the son of Jonathan Wells.)

Roughly 60 colonists were later ransomed by negotiators who were led by your 6G granduncle John Sheldon (son of your 9G grandparents, Isaac and Mary Sheldon). John Sheldon had survived the raid, but lost his wife and youngest daughter. Three of his children and a daughter-in-law were among the captives. Other captives, primarily children, remained with French families or were adopted by Mohawk families.

This link is a wonderful explanation of the tragedy.  

The highlighted people below are your direct ancestors; the stories of the other Hoyt children illustrate the nature of the disaster:

 Puritans Your relationship to the New England Pilgrims is more than a highlight of your family tree in America; it's the bedrock foundation. You can read their individual stories, in reference number order, in the post called "Your New England colonial roots (individuals)", and I put the Puritans' general history in "Your Puritan roots (history)" Please do read the history post; everything else will mean more and make more sense in context.

You have at least XXX direct ancestors who arrived in Puritan New England before 1640, when emigration from England stopped during its civil war. Your ancestors were among the earliest to settle the Plymouth Colony, with the first I could document coming in July 1623 (the Mayflower landed in November 1620). Your ancestors were also among the earliest to settle Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Clapp, Bartlett, Hull, and Phelps families and others all arrived in 1630); and the earliest to head out to western Massachusetts and Connecticut (which is how they got in the way of things like the Deerfield Massacre).  

Because the Puritans placed high value on learning and education, their communities maintained literacy rates among both men and women that would be the envy of many nations today, never mind in the 16th century.  Consequence: They left behind lots of records, both official and personal. I could collect on this blog only a fraction of the information that is now online. A few highlights:

• A London street urchin: Your 10G grandfather #3327 John Bellows, at age 12, was scraped up from the streets of London and loaded with other unwanted free-range children onto a a ship called the Hopewell bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It appears to have been a 17th-century version of an orphan train.
•  A long-running debate: Who is the villain?  The story of Rev. John Lyford and his wife, Sarah Oakley, your 10G grandparents, (#3093, 3094) has fascinating things to say, I believe, about the Pilgrims, their financiers, sociopaths, and the biases of historians and church fathers that endure to this day.
• The better part of the population of Hingham, a village in Norfolk (eastern England), who relocated en masse to a new Hingham, a village they created in 1633.  The parishioners who left Hingham had been so industrious that after they left, the town petitioned Parliament for relief, writing that "most of the able inhabitants have forsaken their dwellings and have gone aways and the town is now left in the misery by reason of the meanness of the [remaining]inhabitants."  Your 11G grandfather, #6209, Edmund Hobart, is credited/blamed for leading the exodus that emptied Hingham, England of all its worthy citizens.
  
• Two slave holders: See #385 Joseph Bates and #879 Hugh Roberts;
  
• Witchcraft: See #793 Samuel Bartlett and especially #3281 & 3282 Samuel Stratton and Alice Beebe.
  
• and a modern-day ghost: See #1551 Jeremiah Beal.
  

Are we descended from anyone who was on the Mayflower? Not that I can see, although you do have some ancestors who were with that band of Puritans while they were in the Netherlands before coming to America. Our guys didn't jump on the first boat out.  Your 10G grandfather, Jacob Hurst #3085, married a Dutch girl, Gartend Bennister #3086 while the band was in Leiden. 

If anyone can ever identify the ancestors of Mary Sanford #52, they will surely find many more inspiring stories of New England's founding generations and might find a Mayflower ancestor. Her unknown forebears are huge hole in what we know of our Puritan ancestry.  

We do have a few ancestors who came with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, which was to Massachusetts Bay Colony as the Mayflower was to Plymouth. 

Educated people  You missed being the first in your family to graduate from college by at least 400 years. Your Puritan immigrant ancestors include several of Oxford and Cambridge graduates, and they left behind additional highly educated ancestors in England. They also worked to make sure others would be well-educated. The Widener Library at Harvard University sits on the site of the first homestead of your 8G grandfather John White, #1627, and your 7G grandfather John Strong #801 was among Harvard's original 'patrons' who pledged a certain amount each month or year to get the young institution up and going.

Pre-revolution minutemen, etc.  I'm not sure of the differences between minutemen, the militia, and people (both men and women) who were simply fighting to protect their homes. 

You have dozens of New England ancestors who fought in armed conflict before the American Revolution. The earliest I found was #1569, John Plumb, your 9G grandfather, who played a pivotal role in the Pequot War of 1637. Your 9G Grandfather Lt. Roger Clap #1584) was appointed in 1646 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony's General Court (its colonial legislature) to serve in the Artillery Company of Massachusetts, which was the company charged with training the officers of all the local militia across Massachusetts. Several others carried titles such as captain or lieutenant in this or that colonial militia. 

 

As I understand it, minutemen were organized in "alarms" so that they could be easily raised when danger--typically Native or French attacks--was imminent. We associate them with the American revolution, but they were relied upon earlier, during the French and Indian Wars and earlier conflicts, such as King Phillip's War. Only a few, whose names are below, show up on official records of any group of minutemen.

• #101 Jonathan Warner, a member of the Lexington Alarm--you know, the one roused by Paul Revere on the night of the 18th of April in '75.
• # 97 Elias Lyman (1710-1790) was with the Bennington Alarm, in Northampton, Massachusetts. (note to self: see the family history saved to Malachi James);
• #193 Adam Beal (#193), who was recorded on the minuteman roll of Goshen, Massachusetts;  
• add more as I find them.
  

American Revolution Soldiers are noted (AR) on the pages with individual ancestors. These men tend to have good documentation on Ancestry.com as a result of all the uploaded applications for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). 

• # 95 John James
  
• # 97 Elias Lyman (Battles of Ticonderoga and Saratoga)
  
• #101 Jonathan Warner (Battle of Saratoga)
  
• #193 Adam Beal 
• #197 Jonathan Clapp
• #202 Israel Sheldon
• #207 John Bellows
  
• #209 Daniel Youngs 
• #221 Ebenezer Lyon 
• #439 Moses Roberts
  
• #445 John Willcocks (died in the fighting during Washington's retreat through New Jersey)
  
• Add more as I find them
  

Inventor One of your 6G grandmothers, #202 Martha Dickinson Graves, invented the covered button (that is, a shell button covered in fabric to match the garment) and a circular chisel for efficiently cutting the fabric for the buttons. Her cottage industry supplied the New York market with covered buttons. How I wish your grandmother Phyllis had known of her--she would have loved that story!

Attacked by Union soldiers  Your 3-G grandfather Robert Sloss, #17, was a shopkeeper in Pennsylvania and a 'Copperhead' (a person loyal to the United States, but opposed to the war). A group of Union soldiers didn't like this, and so they ransacked his store and attacked him, his son, and two of their neighbors. The account is in Robert's post.

The Gettysburg story You can find the story of what happened when soldiers (both sides!) came marching through your 3G grandparents' Adams County farm in #14 Sarah Taylor Bream's post. 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

of this blog

 Immigrants are shaded. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 YOUR GRANDPARENTS

1 - William Hollis McKim (1926 - 2001)
2 - Phyllis James (1926-2011) 

YOUR GREAT GRANDPARENTS
3 - Hollis McKim ("Grandad") 1891-1971

4 - Jean Abercrombie ("Gram")  1900 – 1976 (technically an immigrant, but she did not identify herself as one, so I'll skip it.)

5 - Donald Mortimer James ("Pop-pop")    1899 – 1972

6 - Esta Bream (Betty; "Mom-mom") — 1897- 1983              

YOUR 2G GRANDPARENTS 

7 & 8 -  John William McKim (1862-1938) and Amanda Pamela Sloss (1859-1927)

9 & 10 -  Isaac Wilson Abercrombie 1868-1956) and Susanna Orkney  (1867 – 1951)     Isaac immigrated from Scotland as a teen; Susanna from England as a teen. They met and married in Pennsylvania.)8 

11 & 12 - William H. H. James  (1841-1917) and Julia Edith Bellows (1860-1954) 

13 & 14 - Joseph William Bream (1856-1931) and Sarah Catherine Taylor (1860-1951)

YOUR 3G GRANDPARENTS
Western Pennsylvania families:

15 & 16 - Robert Alexander McKim  (1838-1906) and Elvira Eleanor Gould (1836-1866)  

17 & 18 - Robert Sloss (1816-1892) and Jane Semple (1816-1880) from Ulster

Great Britain families:

19 & 20 - John Abercrombie (1841-1875) and Susan Wilson (1839-1920) immigrated from Scotland

21 &22 - Alexander Orkney (1823–1900) and Hannah Richardson (1827–1910) remained in England, though they visited.

Early New England families:

23 & 24 - Lewis Lyman James (1805-1880) and Cerintha Wells (1807-1865)

25 & 26 - Henry Sanford Bellows (1834-1897) and Harriet Amelia Tichenor (1838-1933)

Southern Pennsylvania families:

27 & 28 - Andrew Bream (1821-1892) and Rebecca Plank (1822-1905)
29 & 30 - Levi Taylor (1826-1913) and Catherine R. Hoffman (1827-1912) 

Farther back in Western Pennsylvania - Individuals from Scotland and Northern Ireland and their descendants

This page contains what I was able to discover about the Pennsylvania McKim and Sloss families from your 4G grandparents going back to the first immigrants. 

 

I was unable to discover the first McKim immigrant, who was living in Pennsylvania sometime before 1740. Many others in this part of your family tree arrived from Ulster (they are known in the US as Scots Irish) in the late 1700s.

 

Farther back in England -Individuals in, or from, northern England

This page contains what I was able to discover about the Abercrombie and Orkney families, the branch of your family tree that remained in England until the late 19th century. 

 

Much of the family is still there. Anne Simpson of North Yorkshire and I are proud that the Orkney clan has stayed in touch all these years. I can put you in touch, if you're interested. Truly delightful people!

 

Farther back in New England: Your Puritan roots -Individuals who came to America during the 17th-century 'Great Migration' from the British Isles and their descendants

 

This HUGE page contains what I was able to discover about the James and Bellows families, from your 4G grandparents going back to the first immigrants. They have been here since the Puritan "Great Migration" (1620-1640) that preceded the English Civil War; they kept a lot of records; and their descendants preserved those records. As a result, there are just piles and piles of information to discover. As much as I collected and shared here, I made only a big dent in what I'm sure could be discovered.  

This page contains a brief overview of historical context for your Puritan ancestors--not your individual ancestors, but their remarkable collective story. 

 

Finally, this page contains the scandalous story of one of your ancestors, Rev. John Lyford, who as it turned out, was only pretending to be Puritan.

 

Farther back in southern Pennsylvania  - Individuals known as the 'Pennsylvania Dutch' (plus a few Ulstermen)

This page contains what I was able to discover about the Bream and Taylor families from your 4G grandparents going back to the first immigrants. They have been in southern Pennsylvania since the early-to-mid-1700s. Mostly they came originally from Germany but one branch came from Ulster (that is, they were what is known now as Scots Irish).

 

___________________________________________________________

CHARTS (Going back six generations)

 

My working documents were some charts, which I did not complete, but thought I'd save them here.

 

The first one is my parents and three generations before that. Then, each of the 3G‑grandparents has a separate page, going back to the 6G‑Grandparents. In the charts in the first section, the place names for each person are their birthplaces. Underlined names are the immigrants. “Undiscovered” means I could not find any useful hints on Ancestry, or I didn’t try. “Unclear” means that the Ancestry.com information I could find was too confusing or conflicting to preserve in this document.
The first two charts cover my parents and three generations before that. Then, each 3G grandparent has a separate chart, going back to the 6G Grandparents.  

In the charts, the place names for each person are their birthplaces.

• Underlined names are the immigrants.

•  “Undiscovered” means I could not find any useful hints on Ancestry, or I didn’t try. In most lines, I quit when I found the immigrant. You’re welcome to pick up that ball if you wish! 

•  “Unclear” means that the Ancestry.com information I could find was too confusing or conflicting to preserve in this document.

• Soldiers who served during the American Revolution are noted with (AR). They tend to have good documentation on Ancestry.com as a result of all the uploaded applications for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).

Chart: William McKim, and back to your 3G grandparents
Chart: Phyllis James, and back to your 3G grandparents
Chart: Robert Alexander McKim (15) and 3 previous ...

Chart: Elvira Eleanor Gould (16) and 3 previous ge...

Chart: Robert Sloss (17) and 3 previous generation...

Chart: Jane Semple (18) and 3 previous generations...

Chart: John Abercrombie (19) and 3 previous genera...

Chart: Susan Wilson (20) and 3 previous generation...

Chart: Alexander Orkney (21) and 3 previous genera...
Chart: Hannah Richardson (22) and 3 previous gener...
Chart: Lewis Lyman James (23) and 3 previous gener...
Chart: Cerintha Wells (24) and 3 previous generati...
Chart: Henry Sanford Bellows (25) and 3 previous g...
Chart: Harriet Amelia Tichenor (26) and 3 previou...
Chart: Andrew Bream (27) and 3 previous generation...
Chart: Rebecca Plank (28) and 3 previous generatio...
Chart: Levi Taylor (27) and 3 previous generations...
Chart: Catherine R. Hoffman (30) and 3 previous ge...