People have always been fascinated with their family history. Even the Bible lists two genealogical lines for Jesus, one matriarchal and one patriarchal. The people of New England always have, in my experience, been particularly interested in their ancestry, many tracing their family history back to the Mayflower. The last few decades, however, have seen an explosion of renewed interest with websites such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, television programs such as “Finding Your Roots” on PBS, and with DNA testing services offered by Ancestry and 23andMe. These resources have made it much easier than it used to be to find credible information about our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and beyond. So it was not surprising that when my wife’s friend spoke to her about membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution that Laura asked me to find a Revolutionary War ancestor for her so she, too, could join the DAR.
Laura’s father, Lance Stanley, Jr., was an amateur genealogist. After retiring from a career in the Navy, Lance spent an incalculable amount of time and effort doing genealogy the old fashioned way – by physically searching records held by family members and government agencies such as town clerk offices and the like. He did most of it by what we call “snail mail” today, though some he did through what was the new technology at the time, email. Lance was meticulous and precise, and would not claim that a particular person truly was an ancestor unless he could prove it with documentation. So I knew I could trust whatever he had already determined to be true in his, and thus Laura’s ancestry. When Laura asked me to find a DAR ancestor, her Dad was no longer with us, having died of lung cancer several years earlier in 2007. But she had inherited his records. So I began my search through history with that advantage.
I was inexperienced at genealogy at the time, so I did what seemed the easiest thing, which was to purchase an account on Ancestry.com and begin populating Laura’s family tree with the information that had already been verified by her father. He had proven a few ancestral lines to as far back as the 18th century for both himself and Laura’s Mom, Jean (nee Greer) Stanley, but none indicated any ancestors who either fought on the colonial side in the Revolutionary War, or were proven to be Patriots in support of the cause. Not that she didn’t have any ancestors who fought in the war; she did, some actually being officers, but they all appeared to be Loyalists who fought for the British. Laura’s Mom was from the town of Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada, just across the border from where her Dad grew up in Houlton, Maine. Woodstock is in Carleton County, New Brunswick. Carleton County was founded by displaced Loyalists who went up to New Brunswick after the war. It was named for Guy Carleton, First Baron of Dorchester, who was the Governor of Quebec from 1768 to 1778, and Commander-in-Chief of British forces from 1782 to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. Many of the folks who founded Carleton County were people of strong convictions and fierce bravery who, because of those convictions, lost their homes, possessions and friends and became refugees in a new land after the war. Kenneth Roberts’ historical fiction novel “Oliver Wiswell” provides an account of what the Loyalists experienced in those times. As I read “Oliver Wiswell” I felt transformed into Laura’s family history, what they experienced. This was quite enlightening, but did nothing to help me find an ancestor to qualify her for the DAR. So my search continued.
As I went back in time, using information from various public sources, I realized that though I might not be able to find a verifiable Revolutionary War ancestor for Laura, her people were in the English colonies before the Revolutionary War began. They were mostly in New England, but some were in New York, and before that New Amsterdam. There were documented connections from ancestor to ancestor all the way back to 17th century New England, and potentially 16th century New Amsterdam. Using the data her father left for us, I noticed that one of Laura’s maternal great-grandmothers was shown as Ardelia Adama, with no parents listed. Again, Laura’s Dad was meticulous and detail oriented (as is she), and he took great pains to not assume anything, so he only put someone in the family tree if he had the records to back it up. But the “Adama” looked suspicious. The written documentation of her was in script; it was not typed. Besides, a quick Google search indicated that the surname “Adama” was of Hindu origin, and it is highly unlikely that Laura’s 19th century (or earlier) ancestors in New Brunswick, Canada came from India. A script “a” and a script “s” look very similar, so I changed her name to Ardelia Adams in the family tree on Ancestry.com. Suddenly a number of “hints” came up, linking me to other documents confirming that Civil War veteran Leonard Gurrier, one of Laura’s documented ancestors, was indeed married to an Ardelia Adams.
When it became clear that Ardelia Adama was actually Ardelia Adams, I used the Ancestry.com website to populate that part of Laura’s family tree. Information obtained through Ancestry.com indicated that one of Ardelia’s two paternal great-grandfathers, Issac Adams, was a Loyalist. Her other paternal great-grandfather, Christian Feero was also a Loyalist. Both had gone to New Brunswick after the Revolutionary War. Both of her maternal great-grandfathers, John Giberson and Samuel Kearney, were the sons of Loyalists. But Samuel Kearney’s wife, Ann Burrill, was from Plymouth, Massachusetts Colony. Her father was John Burrill (1717 – 1765), the son of John Burrill (1694 – 1754), who was himself the son of John Burrill (1658 – 1731). This John Burrill was married to Mercy Alden. Mercy’s father, Joseph Alden, was the second son of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, passengers on the Mayflower, and the main characters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Myles Standish.” My disappointment in not being able to find a Revolutionary War ancestor for Laura became overshadowed by the joy of finding this connection to the Mayflower.
Ancestry.com provided the information connecting Laura to the Mayflower, but to be able to say, definitively, that someone has an ancestor that came over on the Mayflower requires documentation that has been verified by a historian or a certified genealogist. We were living in South Carolina at the time, so I gathered the paperwork together and submitted it to Nick Maher, State Historian for the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of South Carolina. Nick looked it over and agreed that the line from Laura to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins appeared to be genuine, but there were a few loose ends that needed to be tied up in order for it to be able to be certified. Many of the records I had were considered to be “secondary” records (census reports, primarily) and “primary” records such as birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, etc. A good deal of time and energy was spent contacting various town clerks asking for primary source documents; some were found, others were not. Documentation of the first families to broadly populate New Brunswick, Canada is thin. But the New Brunswick Genealogical Society has several resources, one of which is the First Families project, which provides a great deal of documentation of the family histories of people who began populating the province in the late 18th century. I was able to gather enough documentation through that source, and through the General Society of Mayflower Descendants’ “Silver Book” series to satisfy the rigorous standards of proof of lineage to a Mayflower passenger. After several submissions, and revisions, the documentation packet (about ¾ inch thick) was finally blessed by Nick Maher and sent forward with the required fees to Plymouth for final approval. Laura received her certificate of membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants dated 24 March 2017, stating that her member number is 91,271 – meaning that she is the 91,271st documented Mayflower descendant.
When I searched my own ancestry, I found that my first Bowles ancestor to come to America was Joseph Bolles, who came from Nottinghamshire, England to Plymouth Colony, and from there to what is now York, Maine, in 1640. So I had ancestors in New England very early on as well. Ancestry.com helped me determine that I also have at least one ancestor who came over on the Mayflower; Richard More, who was one of four children who were sent over with the Winslow and Brewster families as indentured servants. From Wikipedia:
Richard More (1614 – c. 1694/1696) was born in Corvedale, Shropshire, England, and was baptised at St James parish church in Shipton, Shropshire, on 13 November 1614.[1] Richard and his three siblings were at the centre of a mystery in early-17th-century England that caused early genealogists to wonder why the More children’s father, believed to be Samuel More, would send his very young children away to the New World on the Mayflower in the care of others. It was in 1959 that the mystery was explained. Jasper More, a descendant of Samuel More, prompted by his genealogist friend, Sir Anthony Wagner, searched and found in his attic a 1622 document that detailed the legal disputes between Katherine More and Samuel More and what actually happened to the More children. It is clear from these events that Samuel did not believe the children to be his offspring.[2] To rid himself of the children, he arranged for them to be sent to the Colony of Virginia.[3] Due to bad weather, the Mayflower finally anchored in Cape Cod Harbor in November 1620, where one of the More children died soon after; another died in early December and yet another died later in the first winter. Only Richard survived, and even thrived, in the perilous environment of early colonial America, going on to lead a very full life.[4]
Richard became a well-known sea captain who helped to deliver to various colonies the supplies that were vital to their survival, travelled over Atlantic and West Indies trade routes and fought in various early naval sea battles. He and other Mayflower survivors were referred to in their time as “First Comers”, who lived in the perilous times of what was called “The Ancient Beginnings” of the New World adventure.[5]
Richard’s story is a heartbreaking one. Born in Shropshire to Katharine More, Richard and his siblings were literally taken from their mother’s arms by agents of their father, Samuel More, and sent to the New World as indentured servants. Samuel noticed that the children did not look like him, but they did seem to look a lot like a man named Jacob Blakeway who lived nearby. It seems that Jacob and Katharine knew each other – some accounts even say they were betrothed to each other – prior to the arranged marriage of Samuel and Katharine. As English nobility, with ancestry back to the Plantagenets, the More family was wealthy and owned a large estate. Samuel and Katharine were second cousins, and their marriage was arranged as a way of keeping the More estate in the family. When it became clear to Samuel that the children were very likely not biologically his, he had them forcibly removed from their mother’s care and placed with families destined for America. Thus Richard More, my 10th great grandfather, was the only Mayflower passenger with documented ancestry back to English royalty – specifically, to Edward III.
Richard More is my 10th great grandfather through one of my great-great grandfathers, Enoch Davis Stiles.