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All Blog Posts Tagged 'Massachusetts' (56)

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 5

The Wreck of the "Angel Gabriel"

The Great migration was an exodus of Puritans from England to New England between 1620 and 1640. During this time John Winthrop sailed on the “Arabella” and wrote his famous sermon about the “City on a Hill” during the voyage. Most of my ancestors arrived in this period, on many ships, mostly unrecorded by passenger lists. One ship carried the most ancestors (besides the Mayflower), and that was the… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 23, 2009 at 9:41am — No Comments

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 4

The Hessian Soldier who stayed in the New World

Part four in my Thanksgiving series about ancestors who DIDN’T arrive in the New World on the Mayflower. My 4x great grandfather Johann Daniel Bollman was a surgeon from Hammersleben in Saxony, Germany. He came to North America with Baron de Riedesel’s Brunswick Regiment of Hessian Soldiers in 1776. The Duke of Brunswick had contracted with England to send 3,964 foot soldiers and cavalry to America.… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 19, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 3

Prisoner of War aboard the ship “John and Sara”

From Scotland to Boston, 1651

This is part three of my miniseries of Thanksgiving blogs on the immigration of certain ancestors to America, during the week when our thoughts usually rest with our Mayflower passenger ancestors. My 7x great grandfather William Munroe arrived in Massachusetts a little more than thirty years after the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth. His immigration was forced as a prisoner of war and indentured servant,… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 18, 2009 at 9:30pm — No Comments

The Ballad of Cassandra Southwick

“Ballad of Cassandra Southwick”

For Bill West's Great American Local Poem Genealogy Challenge

There are lots of interesting characters in New England, like Cassandra, and many have had their stories made into poems. Longfellow tangled the story of another ancestor, Myles Standish, in his famous courtship poem, and the story of Paul Revere was one of his most famous, and most inaccurate, poems. In this poem, John Greenleaf Whittier got… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 9, 2009 at 8:00am — No Comments

Gates family of Groton CT and then Leyden,MA Peter Gates who was his father?

Looking for the Father of Peter Gates from Groton, New London, Connecticut. Peter was born 26 Feb 1750. An ancestry tree puts Peter as the son on Zebadiah Gates and Sarah Woodmansey but the Book (found on Google Books) Stephen Gates of Hingham and Landcaster, Massachusetts and his descendants by Charles Otis Gates does not support this. It has a completely different list for children of Zebadiah Gates which does not include children: Mary, John, David (brother of Peter who owned land with him… Continue

Added by Gwynn Socolich on November 6, 2009 at 2:18pm — No Comments

Google Your way to a Quilt

Google your way to a Quilt

Sometimes after I’ve tried the library, the archives, ancestry.com and NEHGS- I next resort to finding genealogy information is just Googling names to see what comes up. Now, with the addition of Google Books, I’m often surprised at what happens. And sometimes names that didn’t draw any hits six months ago suddenly have interesting results. This is what happened to me last week.

My Munroe lineage… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 6, 2009 at 11:37am — No Comments

Mill Girls from Derry and Londonderry

Country Girls in the Big City

Years ago I took my Londonderry Girl Scout troop to Lowell National Park, to see how the mill girls lived and worked. The girls were about twelve years old, not much younger than some of the mill workers in the 1830s and 40s. We took a canal boat ride, and toured the noisy Boot Mill (a big hit for kids) and finally went into the boarding house. We earned a merit badge with some of our activities in… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 2, 2009 at 8:28pm — No Comments

The Spanish Flu of 1918 and Family History

Spanish ‘Flu of 1918

Years ago I heard the story of a family member who died during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. It was interesting to me at the time, but even more interesting now and worth revisiting and re-investigating the story.

Between 1918 and 1919, an estimated 21/5 million people died of the “Spanish Flu” worldwide. However, the exact numbers are unknown. It is thought that about 675,000 Americans died, more than the… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on October 6, 2009 at 8:07am — 1 Comment

Buried at a Mall?

Buried at a Mall?

Robert Wilson, 3rd died in 1797 in what was then part of Danvers, Massachusetts, at a farm which no longer exists, and the family plot is now located in Peabody, behind the Kappy’s Liquor Store. The Wilson family wouldn’t recognize this land. Where the farm stood is now the cloverleaf intersection of routes 114 and 128, and the North Shore Mall.

Robert Wilson served in the Revolutionary War as… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on September 23, 2009 at 6:07pm — No Comments

Puriatan Leader and Gov of Mass, John Winthorp 1588-1649

Last night while research one of my branche's discovered someone of importance in my tree. Now, he is not a close realitive, but still. Below is a story that I found about him on Ancestory.com

The Puritan leader and governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, was born in Edwardston, Suffolk, on the 12th of January (old style) 1588, the son of Adam Winthrop of Groton Manor, and Anne (Browne) Winthrop. In December 1602 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, but he did… Continue

Added by Robin R. Cordell-Inge on September 11, 2009 at 5:38am — No Comments

George Emerson, Forty Niner

A photo, early 1950's, of Carrie (Batchelder) Allen wearing the gold nugget, surrounded by her descendants

George Emerson’s parents were from New Hampshire, raised in Milford and removing to South Boston, Massachusetts sometime soon after their marriage in 1810. George was born in 1817, and married Mary Esther Younger in 1845. He was listed as a “boot and shoe worker.” This young family had two babies by the time gold was found in… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on September 2, 2009 at 10:56am — No Comments

1790 Census: Slave Holders, Other Free Persons and Slaves

Have set up a website with information relating to the 1790 Census: Slave Holders, Other Free Persons and Slaves.

The 1790 census consists of Connecticut, Maine (part of Massachusetts in 1790), Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont.

Right now the site is for the state of New Hampshire and lists Slave… Continue

Added by Toni Feeney on July 24, 2009 at 5:03pm — No Comments

"No MAN Shall Build a Meeting House at Chebacco (now Essex, Massachusetts)"

I love this story. "Just regular folks" in the family tree. Thomas Varney was born about 1630 in the Barbados and removed to Massachusetts to settle at the Chebacco section of the town of Ipswich before 1650. His first wife was Abigail Proctor, who was also just a "regular folk" except that her brother John was hung as a witch in 1692. Perhaps being a bit different from all the other puritans in town ran in the family.

Uusally all the women in the family tree have blank spaces next… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on July 24, 2009 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

Cool facts from my tree

* Dr. Daniel Wills sailed with William Penn and received from him 600 acres along the Rancocas River in Burlington County, NJ. He was among the Quakers imprisoned and persecuted in England.

* Richard Lippincott and family were among the Quakers persecuted in England. He was released from prison and given land grants in America with the understanding he would not come back to England. He did, though, more than once.

* Charles Wesley Wiley was in the Civil War

* James Ayres Dare… Continue

Added by Eileen Cogan on July 22, 2009 at 11:52am — No Comments

My Favorite Ancestor

I was recently asked by another genealogy addict..."Out of all your ancestors, who would you want to be like and why?"

As soon as I heard the question, my mind was racing. No, I haven't found anyone incredibly famous along the lines of my family tree that I wish my genes were traced from. But these ancestors that I've found...oh the stories they could tell of their own lives.

There's my 9th great-grandfather, William Hulbert. I can't imagine being a young man of only… Continue

Added by Candy Hulbert Ditkowski on July 10, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

The Other Mayflowers, Voyage 3

Prisoner of War aboard the ship “John and Sara” From Scotland to Boston, 1651

This is part three of my miniseries of Thanksgiving blogs on the immigration of certain ancestors to America, during the week when our thoughts usually rest with our Mayflower passenger ancestors. My 7x great grandfather William Munroe arrived in Massachusetts a little more than thirty years after the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth. His immigration was forced as a… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on November 30, 1999 at 12:00pm — No Comments