Grandma's Granny's Family Album

 How much do you believe genealogy can really go back?  To arrival from the Old Country?  Knights of the Middle Ages?  Charlemagne in 800 AD?  Adam and Eve? (see West and Presbury-Mayflower Pedigree Charts) Here's a fact that gives me chills every time I mention it.  My children are descended from Moses's brother Aaron on their paternal line.  Yes, that Moses.  DNA testing shows that they belong to paternal genetic haplogroup J-1.  Kohanim, members of a special hereditary priest class of Jews that is passed down from father to son, have J-1 haplotype.  (this data is constantly being refined).  Kohanim believe that they are all descendants of Aaron.   A DNA study of kohanim around the world, the US, Israel, Europe, South America, found that over 90% of kohanim Jews are descended from one man .  That man lived 3000 years ago.  Aaron. the Domesday Book Kohanim aside, genealogy is difficult if you are not of English ancestry.  The English have kept meticulous records since the Dome

Eastern Star keepsakes, 1953 If you know any Spences, (see Spence & Robertson Pedigree Charts) you know that they keep EVERYTHING, broken and whole, expired and from before expiration dates existed, ball gowns and fabric scraps, canceled checks and World War II bonds.  You never know if you are going to find cash between the china, so you have to examine        ev.  er.  y.  th.  ing.  They know what they have and where it is, which is useless to us once they have died.  My mother claimed there was a radio cabinet, now antique, in the cellar; I never saw the walls of the cellar, much less any furniture.  My grandmother periodically declared, "We have boxes we've never unpacked [in 40 years] that we brought from Valley Stream" (their previous house). When we emptied my mother's 4-bedroom house with its full basement and 2-car garage,  it contained the possessions of 6 adult lives:  besides my parents, there were Nana and PopPop and Aunt Marion and Uncle Havelock.

 Urggghhh! The assistant historian has sent all my information in to the Mayflower Society historian in Virginia, and he has determined that I do not have enough proof.  The generations without the proof, you will remember, are that Hannah Susan West Rushton is the daughter of Levi West, AND that Levi West is the son of Samuel West. (see West Pedigree Chart) Neither Susan nor Levi have any birth record, baptismal record, or marriage record, where you could expect to find parents listed.  Levi doesn't even have a death record, and Susan's does not give her parents' names. Lots 15 and 16, River Philip We still have leads, which is to look in the Township Books for where these events took place, and hope that they are mentioned.  The Township Book of River Philip is the one I really want to see - that's where Levi may have been married and had children, and where Susan was married.  The Westchester Book sounds promising also. As I said in my August 19 2020 post about the f