Cousins to the Rescue!

A cousin of my mother-in-law contacted me this morning and filled me in on some information that I did not know. In the letters I published from Carrie to Maude last Friday 4/20/2012 I did not list her married name. To be honest, I didn't know it. Now I do!

Here is what was sent to me this morning:

"Just checked to see the latest on your genealogy blog and read the letters from Carrie to Maude. Carrie's married name was Bradford. She married Horace Bradford, born in 1841 (and so quite a bit older than she). He was supposedly a descendant of William Bradford of Plymouth Colony. His parents were Alexander and Charlotte Bradford. Carrie's middle name was Philena (after her grandmother, I suppose) and she was a chiropractor in the Concord, New Hampshire, area."

Carrie's maternal grandparents were Philena Brown and James Cunningham from Waldo County, Maine.  He was a ship captain who was given his first schooner by his uncle (a Nickerson from Chatham, Mass) and was sailing around the world by the time he was 18.

*Image: Linda Cronin via photo pin cc

Letter From Philip Greeley 1941

Letter from Phillip Greeley MD
to Frances Maude Greeley Crabb

Photocopy kept by my mother-in-law

Jan 19, 1941

517 Columbia Drive
Davis Island
Tampa Florida

Dear Niece,

I was very much please to get letter in spite of the fact that traveled a lot it did not seem to detract from its value.  We were at Ocean Grove a few week and decided to go to Ocean City about ten miles below Atlantic City.  I went to P.O. before left my forwarding address and for a few weeks we got our mail all right and then the little mail that came by way of Ocean City began to get into the dead letter office.  Naturally I have a lot of mail from Portsmouth N.H. and always keep that office informed of my whereabouts and they never have failed to do their duty by me yet so if anyone is not sure of my location I usually tell them to address me at Portsmouth N.H.

I guess I feel about the same [unknown word] be the new deal as you do.  I hard know what I am.  If I can find the name of an intelligent man on the ticket he might get my vote whether he belongs to a party or not. There are some good men in office I am thankful to [unknown] and plenty that are too cheap to mention.

Maine and Vermont are the only States that are still on the gold standard.  You might mention to your children that their Grand-father was born in Maine.

I met a man who had been to Wash. and western Canada.  I said I had relatives in Wash.  He learned what place and at once was enthusiastic.  “I went there to an apple festival once” said he “and it is the great apple county in the world”.  I think your father made no mistake when he picked out that county in which to settle.  There seems to be no ideal place in the U.S.A. to live the whole but I have often wondered if in Wash., Oregon, and Vancouver Canada did not come the nearest to it.  Fruit and vegetables are fast coming to the front as food and people are just beginning to find out there value as life savers and health promoters.  Improvement in the process of canning had helped as you know. 

I think I shall have to confine my writing to your fathers ancestors until I get more data on the Bartlett and Walls .On mother’s side the Cunninghams, Browns, and Nickersons are in the picture.  Sometime the latter part of the 18^th century John Cunningham went from Edgartown Martha’s Vinyard to Cape Cod and married the daughter of Slathiel Nickerson.

Two sons were all that resulted from this marriage.  William who lived in Belfast Maine.  The two brothers married sisters.  I think they were Scotch and belonged to that gang that England induced to go to Northern Ireland and made great promises for their prosperity and never kept them.  It is said that they stayed in Ireland long enough to learn the art of making corn liquer otherwise known  as moonshine or kill me quick.  It was very populare during prohibition days.  They settled in the Appalation system which extends from Canada to Fla.

In northern states a law was passed fifty years ago more or less obliging them to send their children to school.  Consequently the mountains are about uninhabited except for people who go there to visit during the summer.  This applies to Maine, NH, Vermont, Mass, Conn, NY, NJ, and part of Penn. I think they have no such law (if they do they don’t enforce) in Maryland, Vir, W. Vir., the Carolinas, Knetucky, Tennessee, and Georgia.  There is a school in Berea Kentucky for Mountaineers.  Supported by northern Money.  The president is brohter to the president of Chicago University who a few years ago was in the lime light.

The other son of John Cunningham was James who was you great grandfather. His home was in Belfast Maine.  [unknown] he reached the age of 10 yr when he went to sea with his mother’s brother, a Nickerson of course.  I have been told that it is an abbreviation for son of old nick. Nixon is an abbreviation for Nickerson.

Aforesaid James went around the world twice before he was 12 and continued to sail the seven seas till his death aged 40.  When he was 18 an uncle fitted out a schooner for him after which time he was Capt. Cunningham.  When about 40 he made a trip to Havana Cuba where he contracted yellow fever recovered started for N.Y. had a relapse died buried at sea.

This was near 1840.  As near as can size him up he was very decent man.  No he was “hard boiled” but if he was a pirate or shipped slaves or shanghaied his crew if he had done these things is come afters would have had happy time bragging about him.  As it was all they could say was that any man who had ever sailed with him once was delighted to go again if they got the chance.  We have no record that he was ever wrecked.

I am sure this will be all you will care translate for a while.  The psot office in Ocean Grove Is think was a little careless.  The above address will be my abode for the next three months.

Your Uncle Phillip

Image: mikebaird via photopin cc

A Mayflower Family or Not

There was a sense of awe in me as a child when I thought about the Pilgrims; with their bonnets and starched white collars sharing a meal with the friendly Indians.  Yes, as an adult I know how unrealistic this was, but as a child it was the image of the Pilgrims and their friends that permeated all you saw, and knew, about those historic events.  Imagine my glee when I was told by my Grandmother how our family was related to people who sailed on that ship!  She read to me the poem by HenryWadsworth Longfellow, TheCourtship of Miles Standish,   and seared into my memory the line “speak for thyself John.”  My world was crushed when I learned it was a fictional account.

According to the article Mayflower Descendants by Jim Faber, 25% of Americans think they are descended from the 26 surviving Mayflower passengers.  Best guess is that actually only 35 million people worldwide have a Mayflower ancestor; much less that the 25%, or 70 million who think they do.   The odds looked like they would not be in my favor from the outset, but that is no reason to quit!

One of the first long-lost-cousins I connected with online had grown up with the same story about John and Priscilla, which made me think that there had to be something to the story.  She also had a clue, which family line the connection was to be through!  That was something I could work with.  According to her family source (which I later found out was the same source my grandmother had, Aunt Eliza Jane) the connection was through our 3^rd great-grandmother Mary Jane Hayden. 

 Thanks to many different societies, organizations, and published works on the subject many of the lines are well documented and proven.  My task was to connect my line into the ones already proven.  Easier said than done I have to admit.  Almost a year later I think I am pretty sure of my research, but not completely.  I think it will take a trip to New England, or a really good genealogy library, to make me feel 100% confident in my work.  I found this website just a few days ago, and it helped me confirm my line past Mary Jane. 

The working hypothesis for my family line is:

1.       John Alden and Priscilla Mullins
2.       Ruth Alden
3.       Ruth Bass
4.       Priscilla Webb
5.       William Hayden - Revolutionary War Soldier
6.       Noah Hayden
7.       Noah Gilpin Hayden
8.       Mary Jane Hayden
9.       Franklin Willis Combs
10.   Everett Combs
11.   Paul Combs
12.   My Dad
13.   Me

Of course, this little endeavor left me looking  sideways at my Texan husband; the one with deep roots in New England.  He had to have someone in that web of New England genealogy that could trace a possible lineage back to a Mayflower passenger.  My bloodhound instincts have been working on this for well over 6 months.  Finally I had a break through, and I am a little more confident in his line than mine.

The working Hypothesis for his family line is:

1.       Stephen Hopkins
2.       Giles Hopkins
3.       Mary Hopkins
4.       Mary Smith
5.       Mary Hamilton
6.       Elizabeth Mayo
7.       Slathiel Nickerson -Revolutionary War Soldier
8.       Polly Nickerson
9.       James Cunningham
10.   Eliza Cunningham
11.   Charles Greeley
12.   Frances Maude Greely
13.   Elsie Crabb
14.   His Mother
15.   Him

Our families appear to have come over on the same boat!  My oldest child can't wait to get to school on Monday and tell everyone.  Especially the story of dear Stephen Hopkins, a Mayflower Compat signer and a Jamestown Settler.  Thankfully his teachers humor his history obsession and just go with it.

Well, there it is.  Anyone have any ideas, suggestions, or comments for me about how to completely prove this lineage?  I have twiddled with the idea of actually going on and submitting both of us to one of the many lineage societies for the Mayflower, like the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

*wikimedia commons:   Sculpture of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins: "Why Don't You Speak for Yourself, John?"

*Photograph taken by me at Jamestown archeology site, Jamestown, Virginia.

A treasure trove of letters

Late last week I received 13 letters from a cousin of my Mother in Law.  They are from 1902-1941 and were correspondence between her grandmother in Washington State and members of the family back in Maine.  Over the next few weeks I am going to transcribe these for the family and see what I can glean of the family history from them.

Last Spring I received 5 letters from my mother in law, which were written to her grandmother.  2 were from her grandmothers, and one from her father’s brother.  These letters proved very useful as they were full of names, dates and places that lead me to find 4 more generations of the family. 

Without these letters I would have been unable to make the leap into the prior generations as I had no idea how/where to look.  I knew Frances Maude Greeley’s grandmothers had the first names of Eliza (Elizabeth?) and Julia, but who were they?  Marriage records didn’t appear; birth records listed no maiden names.  I was stuck.  Then I read, and re-read the letters.  Finally I typed them out, and here are some of the things I found:

Letter from Grandma Greeley Smart to Frances Maude Greeley Crabb; Swanville Maine February 20, 1897:
 “But I know you will have charity for your grandmother when I tell you my Father died when I was a little girl, in Havana Cuba leaving my mother with four little girls and we did not have many school privileges.” 

 Letter from Julia Bartlett to Frances Maude Greeley Crabb; Swanville Maine April 1906:

 “I think of all my brothers and sisters.  They are all gone.  One brother only left there were 10 of us.  5 girls and 5 boys.  9 of us lived to have families of our own.”

Letter from Philip H. Greeley to Frances Maude Greeley Crabb; December 13, 1937:

“The Bartlett family were a strong NE race that were English stock and among the early settlers.  One was once governor of NH many of the them have information psrtim (?) like chaplain Bartlett of the Pearry polar expedition.” 

Letter from Phillip Greeley to Frances Maude Greeley Crabb; Tampa Florida January 19, 1941:

“On mother’s side the Cunninghams, Browns, and Nickersons are in the picture.  Sometime the latter part of the 18^th century John Cunningham went from Edgartown Martha’s Vinyard to Cape Cod and married the daughter of Slathiel Nickerson.  Two sons were all that resulted from this marriage.  William who lived in Belfast Maine.  The two brothers married sisters.  I think they were Scotch and belonged to that gang that England induced to go to Northern Ireland and made great promises for their prosperity and never kept them”

“The other son of John Cunningham was James who was you great grandfather. His home was in Belfast Maine.  [unknown] he reached the age of 10 yr when he went to sea with his mother’s brother, a Nickerson of course.”…“ Aforesaid James went around the world twice before he was 12 and continued to sail the seven seas till his death aged 40.  When he was 18 an uncle fitted out a schooner for him after which time he was Capt. Cunningham.  When about 40 he made a trip to Havana Cuba where he contracted yellow fever recovered started for N.Y. had a relapse died buried at sea.”

I have 13 more letters to read, and I can’t wait to see if they have any more confirmation on what my research has dug up!  Stay tuned…

*The image of Maine is from Classroom Clipart