Grandma's Granny's Family Album

 Unbelievably, things seem to be progressing. For the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's arrival, the Society has put its members' applications online, so if you want to apply, you should first look to see if anyone in your family already has.  Then, say, if someone has already proved descent down to, say, your great-grandmother, all you have to do is prove your descent from your great-grandmother. (see West and Presbury-Mayflower Pedigree charts)  Plimoth Patuxet Museum, 2019 The Mayflower Descendants Through Five Generations , known as the Silver Books, document from passenger Richard Warren to his great-great-granddaughter Mary Presbury and her husband Thomas West.  Since they lived in the early 1700s, surely some of their descendants have applied.  Their oldest child, William West, is well-documented in many records, from his birth on Martha's Vineyard to his immigration to Nova Scotia to being a founding father in Kings County.  Since William and his...

 Two years ago, when we could all still travel, I went to Kings County Nova Scotia very excited.   I intended to find a treasure chest of genealogical info, fairly quickly and easily.  For 20 years, we had all been wondering if Hannah Susan West Rushton had been born in Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island, and if in Nova Scotia, where? and if in PEI, why? (see West Pedigree chart)  The West name and the Scholfield (Susan's mother) name were very popular in Kings County.  I had previously found online a wonderful book called A History of King's County, Nova Scotia, Heart of the Acadian Land, Giving... the title is so long that no one even knows the whole thing.  It was written by A. W. H. Eaton in 1910, in that romantic scholarly language of noble souls and stout hearts that historians used 100 years ago.  I have ordered it and it is currently en route to my house for some indulgent Christmas reading. So I happily entered the Kings County Museum i...

 Desperate times call for desperate measures...... We don't have any proof that Levi West is the father of Hannah Susan West Rushton, so we have to get creative.  But will all that creativity pass the proof test? (see West Pedigree chart) Levi and the woman who I creatively believe is his wife, Pheby Scholfield West, do have a lot of kids, and all those kids have better records than Susan does.  (except Aaron, his are worse). I started off thinking that Susan only has 2 siblings, Aaron and Harding, who are 6 and 23 years younger than she is.  Very odd.  Odd for a family to only have 3 kids.  A 23-year spread between oldest and youngest is pretty wide, but not that unusual for the time.  What is strange is if Harding is 17 years younger than the second-youngest child.   Harding West, born in Pugwash, father Levi West born in Pugwash, mother unknown I feel better when I find Levi West living with Nathan West, who is most likely -No Proof!- his ...

  Where is the proof??? Remember that I sent in to the historian Generation 10 - Hannah Susan West Rushton.   (see Rushton and West Pedigree charts) The problem with Susan is that we don't have a contemporaneous birth record, like a baptism record or a government birth record.   The Bible record that we have for her birth seems to have been written by her husband Thomas after they got married.  Even worse, he wrote the wrong year, 1838, and later had to go back with a pencil and change the 8 into a 2! I can't figure out how to put it right side up, sorry. So, the historian is not too happy about that. Every record that we do have, 5 censuses and a death record, give a different year for her birth, and different places of birth too.  Neither is any more specific than the province, Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia.  I don't think that is such a big deal, but apparently the historian does. A bigger problem is that we have absolutely no proof that ...

 For Generation 10, I sent the Historian these pages of the Rushton Family Bible.   Generation 10 is Phoebe Esther Rushton Spence's parents, Hannah Susan West Rushton and Thomas R. Rushton. (see Spence, Rushton, and West Pedigree charts) I wrote:   Are they legible enough?  I am not sure what to try if they are not.  I am afraid to take the plastic off them, and I am afraid to scan them, but I can give either one a try. Hannah Susan West Rushton's birthdate is written in pen as 1838.  Then someone drew a 2 over the 8 in pencil.  It is hard to see. The Bible was the most exciting find ever, and my mother and I pored over the pages for days.  When we started, we didn't know who anybody was, just about, making it so mysterious and frustrating.  What good is a family Bible if you don't know who the people are???  My grandmother Bessie didn't know that her grandmother Susan's first name was Hannah, so that was confusing at first....

 Next step!    I sent in my documentation for Generations 14 through 11, since I have those documents pretty readily available.  (see Sulzbach and Spence Pedigree charts) I have now heard back from the Mayflower Society's Assistant Historian with her evaluation.   Any records newer than 1900 have very strict guidelines.  Each person has to have birth, marriage, and death certificates, and their spouse does too.   And the records have to give their parents' names.  Urggh.   Generation 13 - Anne Augusta Robertson Sulzbach & Spouse No good!   No parents' names, even tho their parents' names are clearly listed on all their other documents.  Doesn't the Mayflower Society know how pathetically sparse New York City documents are? Now I have to send for a New York City marriage certificate with parents' names, if there even is one.  How long do you think that will take, with the Health Dept overcome with COVID? All the fo...

A baby named Johann Georg Richters was baptized on 10 August 1759, in Wechmar, a town in what is today Thuringia, Germany, but then was part of the German staat Sachsen (Saxony).  He was only one day old.  His parents were Johann Gottfried Richters and Barbara Christina Hanwin Richters.  I think this baby is our Original Rector Ancestor in North America, Franz Georg Richter. (for Part 1,  see The First Rector - The Search Begins at https://grandmasgrannysfamilyalbum.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-first-rector-search-begins.html) (for Part 2, see The First Rector Land Grant - Part 2 at https://grandmasgrannysfamilyalbum.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-first-rector-land-grant-part-2.html) Six years later, he had a sister named Catharina Eleonora. This sister may have been the first Ellen/Ellenor/Ella in our family, and she is why I really like this family to be ours.  I have never seen another German with the name Eleonora.  (see Spence Pedigree Chart).  the vil...

Remember from Part 1, we are looking for the First Rector in Nova Scotia, or the father of my foremother Ellenor Rector Spence, who I hope is the same person (see Spence Pedigree Chart).  As we left our last episode, https://grandmasgrannysfamilyalbum.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-first-rector-search-begins.html, we had just hit the jackpot! Crown Land Grant Map If all those Samuels are named after the first Spence man I can find, and all the Roberts are named after Ellenor's possible brother, and all the Reubens are named after the "ugliest, meanest, bad-tempered man that God ever gave breath to," then who are all the George Francises named after?  Surely, the First Rector in Nova Scotia - the Original - the Founding Father? So I was not at all surprised when the jackpot, a land grant petition, was signed by the mark of George Rector. The petition is made to His Excellency Sir George Prevost Baronet, Lieutenant Governor and Commander in chief in and over His Majestys Province...