Your most famous blood relative (at least that I found): Your 10G grandfather Samuel Lincoln #1545, was a weaver who was born in 1622 in Hingham, England who in 1637 emigrated to Hingham, a village in the Plymouth Colony, where he met and married Martha Lyford #1546.
President Abraham Lincoln was one of their 3G grandchildren. You are one of their 9G grandchildren.
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.
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| 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 Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, or other settlements 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 #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 the Mayflower Puritans in the Netherlands, before any came to America. Your 10G grandfather, Jacob Hurst #3085, married a Dutch girl, Gartend Bennister #3086 while the band was in Leiden, but they did not jump on the first boat out.
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.
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.
- #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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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
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
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.
- 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: Phyllis James, and back to your 3G grandparents
Chart: Robert Alexander McKim (15) and 3 previous ...
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...
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