Making it back to the Mayflower?!

 I feel so lucky as a family historian to have a variety of ancestor experiences to uncover. I have German immigrants who came in the 1850’s to Germania, PA, Hungarian immigrants in the 1870’s who I have connected with the Christoff’s of western PA (Brick wall to beautiful mosaic),  I have a “mystery orphan baby” left “on the wheel” in Italy in the 1870’s, I have Scottish ancestors who settled (via Canada)  to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the 1860’s,  I have Civil War veterans (Celebrating Civil War Veterans), Revolutionary War veterans, and now possibly Mayflower passengers. 

One of my goals this year was to prove a line back to the Mayflower and join the Mayflower Society. One might ask “why?” and you can read about the benefits here, but my main reasons are the verification and documentation of my ancestors and the continuous opportunity to learn as a family historian. And in this past week, it’s getting closer to becoming a reality!

Early Research

For over 20 years, I have been gathering information and documentation on my family history and have known about the Stoddards and Tubbs families who came to the New England colonies in the 1630s. These are close but no cigar for the Mayflower!

 I’d say in the past 5 years I have seen other people’s trees on Ancestry.com that had similar ancestors to me that suggested I had at least one line to the Mayflower through my mother’s paternal grandmother (Cora Viola Orcutt–the one’s whose Irises I enjoy.) Last fall, after being accepted into DAR, I went to the DAR Library in DC (Note: you do NOT have to be a member to make use of the library!) to start really investigating for the Mayflower. 

Beginning Serious Research

Step 1: I had heard about the Silver Books but it was at the DAR Library that I first was able to explore them. The Silver Books refer to the documented, verified, and accepted collection of volumes of the first five generations (and in some cases farther) of the passengers of the Mayflower. It was truly a Herculean feat to put together these books and we can thank the Mayflower Society that continues to update them.

Step 0: Before consulting these, though, you need to know which pilgrim you are connected to. The Silver Books are organized by pilgrim into separate volumes.  It is wise to have the proposed lineage mapped out for yourself, so you can see if the first 5 generations match yours. 

I didn’t learn this until later in my journey, but there is a helpful website, called Relative Finder,  which provides possible lineages based on your Family Search tree. This obviously means that you need an account and have entered in enough of your family tree to connect with the world tree that is there. You can see that this tool searches for more than just Mayflower Relatives, but I am showing just the Mayflower Direct Connections for my family. Hopefully you have more than one line as possible, but choose one and try to prove it. I chose to work on two lines, one from Thomas Rogers and one from John Cooke. 

Just like any resource, there are bound to be errors, so you need to do your own research to confirm, but this is the place to start. There is another tool through Family Search that ties into the Mayflower Society descendancy records, but if your family is like mine and have to prove a lot of generations, it is not likely to be too helpful.

Step 2: Try to find another published family history that might start to give you ideas of what has been documented and what resources to go to for documentation. For me, the Silver Books proved through generation 6, to William Walker and the place to start was to show that George was the son of William Walker. When I went to the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) see my post, I found a book on the Walkers:  Memorial of the Walkers of the Old Plymouth Colony Embracing Genealogical and biographical sketches of James, of Taunton,... and of their descendants from 1620 to 1860 by J.B.R. Walker, AM (Member of the Old Colony Historical Society” Printed by Northhampton: Metcalf & Company, Printers. 1861). This book provided me the next several generations through to my mother’s great-grandfather, Chauncey Orcutt. Since I knew the line from there, I was OVER the MOON to find my great-great-grandfather mentioned being in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the book printed in 1861!

Step 3: Once you are confident that you have a line, you can submit a Mayflower Lineage Match (MLM). There is a fee and it may take 2-3 months to hear back, but it is an important step. Once you have submitted, the Mayflower Society will investigate other previously approved lineages and see where your line intersects previously approved. For me, I am the 13th generation and I was informed that they have proven through generation 7! Only 6 generations of birth’s, deaths, and marriages for me that needed to be proved!

Step 4: Once your MLM (from Step 3) has returned, the Mayflower Society also notifies your state’s historian for the state’s Mayflower Society. In my case, I will be joining through the PA Mayflower Society and I was connected with my awesome Co-Historian Sharyn Davis. Sharyn was an absolutely amazing resource and helped me each stage of the way from here. I learned soooo much from Sharyn, and she did so much work for me!! 

Your Historian will evaluate your line and will have you send in the documentation you have already collected and then set you on a path to collect the rest. I started with my own generation and worked backward toward the 7th generation.

This last step began June 16th and the next several weeks were a whirlwind of document gathering and submitting. Each day, I would send Sharyn an email with information or documentation and she would respond back usually providing more guidance and instruction. County Clerks offices, cemeteries, county historians, town clerks, and town historians were contacted both in New York and Michigan. Censuses, property records, newspapers, and lots of websites were scoured! It was a fun and fulfilling process, but is not for the faint of heart! I can’t even count the number of hours spent trying to gather the information!

We *think* we have provided enough documentation to “prove” my line, but it needs to go through final evaluation in Plymouth. I should know sometime this fall.

Meanwhile, I’m off to work on Jim’s Mayflower line….

Our Genealogy Angels

Helen Gould Tubbs Judson
(Aug 1947)

For anyone interested in family history, we all have genealogy angels. One type of genealogy angel were the people from counties all across the United States who created compendia of town histories that include biographical sketches. Most counties in Michigan have at least one of these thousand-page books and most include images of some of the most prominent people of the time. Just do a google search of “History and biographical record of” and you will see what I mean. They were sort of the “Who’s Who’s” books, where publishing companies were appealing to people’s desires to see themselves in print and knew that many of those included would buy the books, and I am so glad that they did!

 If you are lucky, you might have family members who stayed put long enough, were prominent enough, and of the right age to be included in one of these 1880 through 1910s books. Since I love photos, I am especially excited to find a family member with an image. In my husband’s family, we have two such examples. The first one I found was in the 1903 book Illustrated History and Biographical Record of Lenawee County, Michigan by John I. Knapp and R. I. Bonner. This is Jim’s maternal great-great grandfather, George Howell (1836-1909) who lived in Macon, Michigan. The second example is of George’s father-in-law, Jim’s great-great-great-grandfather, James Leonard Remington (1814-1894). I love that this second one is a pencil drawing and it includes his signature. (I’ve started collecting signatures in addition to photos of people because it seems to provide just a little more insight into their personality.) This came from an 1884 Atlas of Lenawee County. This is one of four drawings of men on the page called "Representative Men from Lenawee County Group No. 9".

My personal genealogy angel

We also have another type of genealogy angel. These were the individuals researching their families and who did the Herculean effort to write to towns, counties, and states for records
and waited weeks or months for a response to sometimes find nothing.

I have one of these in my family. She wasn’t just a family historian, she was truly a genealogist. This is my grandfather’s sister, my great-aunt Helen Gould Tubbs Judson (1904-1991). When I was growing up, I knew my aunt Helen, but never her genealogy work!!

Once I started doing family history seriously about 20 years ago, I learned that my aunt Helen was well-known in genealogy circles. She had written a book about the Tubbs genealogy and her book about the Orcutts is one of the seminal works that everyone cites. She was a librarian by training, so it was not surprising that she did excellent research that others depend on to this day, over 60 years later.

A page in the Orcutt Book!

It was really wild for me to go to Salt Lake City and to request from their vault her Tubbs book. I was both impressed and proud to be associated so closely with Aunt Helen. Last month, I contacted Aunt Helen’s granddaughter who has been the current keeper of her work to ask if this summer I might be able to visit the box of her things. This 2nd cousin did one better, she SENT ME HER original work on the Orcutts!! (Thanks Carol!) I am now the very proud (and nervous) owner of Aunt Helen’s work and hope to continue her work.

Bentley Library 

This brings me to today! I learned a few weeks ago that Aunt Helen made a donation to the Bentley Library at the University of Michigan about another line of my family tree. As a side note, I have heard back from the Mayflower Society and of the 30 documents I need to produce to prove my lineage, I already have 24 of them! In my search for the remaining 6, several are for Susan Ann Bailey. So off to the Bentley Library I went today to look at Aunt Helen’s book about the George Dolan Bailey’s (1805-1849) descendants in America (Call Number 88484 AA).

Aunt Helen wrote in her introduction:

“Rather then (sic) let my research notes lay unorganized and collecting dust in some dark corner of an attic with their final resting place being the nearest trash can (not that they won’t end there anyway) I have written this manuscript of the genealogy of George D. Bailey Family in America. It is my hope that some future generation may find it useful. The material in the following pages is as authentic as it is humanly possible to ascertain and if errors do exist they are of the mind and not of the heart. An old Chinese philosopher once said, ‘To know ones ancestors is to know oneself.’ ”

I’m not sure why this struck me so, but I sat staring at this first page. In this quiet beautiful space, my brain was yelling…”Yes, I agree and I appreciate you, Aunt Helen, and your work! Thank you!” This book is amazing! It was a beautiful collection of documentation AND photographs! I didn’t fill any blank photos on my wall, but I did get a much better and beautiful photograph of my great-great-great grandmother, Mary Ann Moshier (1810-1887), the wife of George Dolan Bailey.

While it didn’t provide the documentation within the manuscript, she did provide a few hints to where I might find the documents I need about Susan Ann Bailey. We’ll see if I can follow the breadcrumb trail.

Example pages from book

Thank you, Aunt Helen, you ARE my genealogy angel and I am the future generation that finds your work useful and inspirational. (As a side note, Aunt Helen did find her connection to join the DAR but I think she had no idea that she might be a Mayflower descendant. I hope I can make her proud and prove this line!)

Helen Gould Tubbs Judson
(Aug 1947)

I hope if you are interested in family history, that you find your genealogy angel!

Gem in Indiana...The Allen County Public Library

 The ACPL Library

Last week I spent two incredible days at the Allen County Public Library and when I say two days, I mean two FULL days! Over the 2 days, I was in the library and researching a total of 21.5 hours! The resources available there are incredible and could be a bit overwhelming. On the first day, I chose not to take a break to eat, I just didn’t think I would have enough time. I was famished by the time I returned  to my hotel room and couldn’t make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich fast enough! I learned something. Tuesday, I chose to break for lunch, a great pizza place where I could eat a pizza by the slice, and felt much better late afternoon and early evening. This was a GREAT practice for my weekly long visit in the Salt Lake City Family Search Center, starting Tuesday!!

The true treasure though are the research librarians!! They were amazing and everything is FREE. If you ever go, I highly recommend that you make an appointment ahead of time for a consultation and share with them ahead of time your research question and goals. I started my first day at 10am with a meeting with Sarah. Sarah was assigned to me because she specializes in the midwest. She had done lots of research ahead of time and provided me with a printed list of suggestions specific to me and we went over it together. She acknowledged that my brick wall of Henry Edward Leach was truly a brick wall and I felt a little bit better that a professional acknowledged that this was a hard one. She then gave me a tour of the library and set me up with my first task of searching the microfilm for the death records for Henry. 

You can have your own book cart!! That was so cool and I really learned how to best use my brand new scanner.

My First Brick Wall

I didn’t end up finding out much about Henry, although I chased down a lead given to me by Sarah that  might end up netting something in the future. Sarah reminded me about the FAN Club Principle in Genealogy. This concept was developed by Elizabeth Shown Mills, a guru in genealogy, and it’s simple but very effective. FAN stands for family/friends, associates, and neighbors. If you are ever stuck, you might find leads in the FAN Club. 

Sarah suggested that I look to the people who hosted the Boarding House that Henry Edward Leach was living at in the 1880 census, since it was reported that he was from England and so were the owners of the boarding house and one of its other boarders. She reminded me that it is possible that there was a connection among them or that they knew each other in England or knew people who knew them. It was a great thought and although I don’t think there was a connection, it heightened my awareness of the boarding house owners for later reading! I came across a photo and some background of the couple and gave me a better understanding of where Henry was living in 1880.

Other Cool Stuff

After those first 4 hours, I chose to turn my attention to other parts of Jim and my family trees. I found several plat maps that show various family members' farms...like the Tubbs farms in Washtenaw County (my side) or another the plat map that identifies where Jim's great-grandparents had a farm in Crystal, Michigan. It's always cool to see the relatives' names on these maps. (Peter Monroe Baucher is my my husband's great-grandfather and his property is in the right side of the NW corner of section 7, just above and to the left of Crystal Lake.)

I also found a not so old...1986..Sesquicentenniel Celebration book of Three Rivers, Michigan complete with a Prophecy for 2011. What was amazing is that one of the students who was making the prophecies is a woman that Jim and I met while studying abroad at the University of Aberdeen (she was another American!!). We don't think of ourselves making history, but we are! Makes you wonder what remnants we will each leave behind for future generations to find.

The Mayflower Society

Another goal I have during this year is to solidify the connections to hopefully submit an application to the Mayflower Society. I’m doing this as a genealogical challenge. 

If you think you have a line that goes back to one of the original 26 families of passengers on the Mayflower, I suggest starting with the Silver Books. They provide all of the proof for the first 5 generations of descendants from the original 26 families with descendants. (There were actually 106 passengers on the Mayflower, but over 50% died in the first winter and only 26 families had descendants that lived on.)  I had used the Silver Books at the DAR Library in DC (anyone can use the library, you don’t have to be a member) to investigate the two lines that I think I descend from. 

The Book that provided the connection
between the Walkers and Orcutts.

The ACPL has an amazing collection of Family Histories and I was able to find a book that provided to me the confirmation and link I needed! Now I “just” have to find copies of all of the birth, death, and marriage records. That’s part of what I am doing at the Family Search Center now!

Highly recommend the ACPL and I definitely think I will be back!