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.