Unexpected Southern Ancestors | Our Prairie Nest

by Wendy, November 13, 2020

As one works their way up my family tree, they will mostly find New England ancestors. I grew up on the south shore of Massachusetts in Plymouth County, and so did the majority of my ancestors. Though some of them were scattered throughout Massachusetts and other New England states, all lines converged in Plymouth County, where all 8 of my great-grandparents lived out their lives.

Many found their way to and from Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. There were a few in New Hampshire. Some inevitably worked their way down from Nova Scotia into Maine and Massachusetts. Even my recent Irish and Italian immigrant ancestors chose Plymouth County, Massachusetts for their home.

So you can imagine me as a 12-year-old first piecing together the family tree, under the assumption that everyone in my family had always resided in New England (or Italy, Ireland or Nova Scotia), then having those assumptions blown away when I discovered one line had not.

In my 20s, I was intrigued by my great-great grandmother, Georgianna Winsor. She was born 6 February 1851 in Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, daughter of William W. Winsor, who was one of the founders of Port Angeles, Washington. While what I dug up about William and his time in Washington was fascinating, but it still did not astound me as much as great-great grandma Georgianna’s ancestry through William’s mother, Martha Howett.

I never located a death certificate for William and have not found anything on him beyond 1866. Therefore, I had no idea his mother was not from Massachusetts. His birth record in Duxbury did not indicate as much.

It was more than 20 years ago when a generous Winsor cousin sent me a photocopy of pages 340 to 345 out of the History of the Town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, and a death certificate for Martha (Howett) Winsor that I realized my ancestry had an unexpected deviation from the mostly-New England history I knew so well.

Martha Howett, along with her sisters Charlotte, Elizabeth, and Lydia each married a Winsor from Duxbury, and came to live in Massachusetts. The girls’ parents were Richard Howett and Lydia Sanderson of Tyrrell County, North Carolina.

Working my way back along the Howett and Sanderson families also brought me into Lower Norfolk County, Virginia, and Perquimans County, North Carolina – all very unexpected ancestral homes!

Often we think of New Englanders migrating out from the area, into New York state, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and beyond. We see patterns of westward expansion from New England. We don’t usually think about folks coming north to the area from the south!

Southern research is quite different than New England research. There aren’t vital records going back 300+ years. Most of what I’ve discovered has been through land and probate records. For example, I was able to learn that my southern ancestors owned slaves. Furthermore, those slaves were left in my 5th great-grandfather’s Will to his wife and children!

It’s been a learning experience, finding that I need to look at completely different set of records when researching my southern ancestors and reconciling myself to the fact that they were slave-owners (though the north was not perfect; for example, the slave trade thrived in Rhode Island well into the 1800s).

So if, like me, you discover your roots in some place unexpected, take a deep breath and get ready to learn. The records, culture, and so much more could change what you know about genealogical research and your family history.

My Ancestor, the Lighthouse Keeper

by Wendy, October 30, 2020

My great-great-great grandfather, William W. Winsor, has been a bit of a mystery. He was the son of a Duxbury, Massachusetts inn-keeper, John Winsor (who shared grog with the likes of Daniel Webster and Henry Thoreau). William’s birth and marriage are documented in Duxbury, however he disappeared not longer after the 1860 census.

William Winsor is found in the 1860 census of Tatooch (Tatoosh) Island, Clallam County, Washington. The history that the Clal l am County Historical Society and others have on William state that he, as well as Rufus Holmes, the first settler of Port Angeles (a name my fellow Twi-Hards will recognize) was a bachelor. The kind and helpful research librarians could not find any information on William’s death, or anything beyond the histories I had located online already.

Rufus Holmes, William Winsor and Alexander Sampson, all of Duxbury, Massachusetts, were married with children. So this was simply an error on the part of the people writing a history for Clallam County. Rufus Holmes left Duxbury to go to Port Angeles, purchased a schooner to begin shipping fresh halibut to San Francisco, and brought in his childhood friend, William W. Winsor, a first cousin to Rufus’s wife, Clara. The other Duxbury native they invited into their business venture was Captain Alexander Sampson. Captain Sampson kept a diary of his time in Port Angeles.

Most notably, William is mentioned in the diaries of James G. Swan, as well as his book Almost Out of the World: Scenes from Washington Territory on pages 23 – 29, 70, 74, 91, 100, 117, 118 and 121. He is further mentioned in Swan among the Indians: Life of James G. Swan, 1818-1900 by Lucile Sanders McDonald on pages 40, 87, 88, and 96.

The diaries of James Swan cover William Winsor quite a bit, as do court records in the area. By 1862, he was selling whiskey to the local Native Americans. He was prosecuted for it in Olympia sometime in September of 1862, and then he was seen in Victoria, British Columbia in November 1862.

He ran the Rough and Ready Saloon in Port Angeles, which was destroyed by the flooding in 1863.

In May 1864 he was in Victoria (British Columbia), and had refused to pay for a boat he had ordered from the Native Americans. In 1867, W. W. Winsor is mentioned in a court case for debt collection by Alonzo Davis against him in Jefferson County, Washington, which is next to Clallam County. This is the last record found of William at this point and it is not known what became of him after 1867.

This remains an ongoing research project for me and I hope someday to uncover what became of William Winsor.

Blackden Blagdon and Blagden | Our Prairie Nest

Blackden, Blagdon & Blagden: Name Variations

by Wendy, October 9, 2020

Sometimes putting families together is a pain. Particularly when you get back into the 1700’s and the men in every generation were named, as one of my correspondents put it, “John, Charles or William”!

Meet the Blackden, Blagdon and Blagden family (families?) that settled in Massachusetts and Maine in the early to mid-1700’s. And, yes, their sons were often named John, Charles, or William.

I have plenty of documentation on my ex-husband’s Blackden ancestors going about 6 or 7 generations back. But from that 7th generation, and on back, things get cloudy. This is the problem that my email correspondent has, as well. Her female ancestor is a Blagdon, and everything from her marriage through the present day has been figured out.

But the Blagdon’s parents? She has not a clue. So I tried pulling together every little snippet of Blackden, Blagdon, and Blagden (sometimes even Bragdon and Bragden!) information to try to help this potential cousin to my ex-husband. DNA may, of course, be part of the answer.

My ex-husband’s Blackden ancestors are:

Laura Irene Blackden (his great-grandmother), b. 30 Jul 1899 in Mars Hill, Aroostook, Maine; d. 29 Aug 1953 in Oxford, Worcester, Massachusetts
Fred Allen Blackden, b. 13 Dec 1868 in Etna, Penobscot, Maine; d. 6 Feb 1961 in Portland, Cumberland, Maine
Napoleon Bonaparte Blackden, b. 5 Mar 1823 in Madison, Somerset, Maine; d. 4 Jul 1897, Dexter, Penobscot, Maine
John Blackden, b. abt. 1795, Anson, Somerset, Maine; d. 1882, Carmel, Penobscot, Maine
William Blackden, b. abt 1746, England; d. bet Jan 1813 and Jul 1814, Anson, Somerset, Maine
Samuel Blackden, b. abt 1690, England; d. 18 Jul 1768, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts

Samuel has an interesting story. He was a brewer in Boston and then Nova Scotia, where a certain Captain Gambier, captain of the British ship “Burford,” accused him of selling rum to his sailors. Captain Gambier violently forced Samuel onto his ship and held him there for 125 days, bringing him to England.

Samuel brought suit against Captain Gambier. The case was tried in England in 1761 or thereabouts, and Samuel won! You can read about the case here via Google Books.

If you are also researching this family in Somerset County, Maine, and surrounding areas, I’m certainly interested in hearing from you!

Organizing Your Research

by Wendy, October 2, 2020

I’m always curious about how my fellow genealogists organize their research.

I admit it, I’m an old-fashioned sort of gal. I prefer to write letters on stationery and put them in the mail, to use a planner for my scheduling, a notebook for my list-making, and to read paperback and hardcover books instead of ebooks. Though I also use my phone for many of these tasks – emailing, messaging, writing, and planning – and my ereader has plenty of books on it. My record-keeping system is also a mix of hands-on and digital, and it works for me.

My software of choice is Legacy. The source citation fields offer the best guidance, I think, and it is this feature that won me over from Family Tree Maker many years ago. I also use Rootsmagic, but have yet to really learn my way around it.

I store all of the vital records and other precious family documents I’ve gathered in archival-quality sleeves in 3-ring binders. I keep printed pedigree charts in those same sleeves in their own binders. For me, working from paper pedigree charts offers a visual. I don’t write anything on a pedigree chart that is not yet proven. If I don’t have a source, I don’t commit it to paper. I’ve considered a more complex system of folders and indexing, but I’m not sure it is necessary for me yet.

I’d ultimately like to scan every genealogical document I have and ensure they’re backed up to multiple mediums. Fortunately, I’m not drowning in paper, so to speak. All of it stays very organized with binders.

I use a color-coding system for the various binders and scrapbooks I have in my home. Plain black binders are for genealogy. White binders are for reference documents and notes.

Organizing paper from the get-go makes it easier to stay that way. Everything I have that is not a pedigree chart is organized by surname. My vital records, for example, are all alphabetized. And for those ancestors for whom I have multiple vitals, those are then placed in chronological order.

So for a man, I have his records in order of birth, marriage, and death. The wife’s birth and death are filed under her maiden name, and her marriage is cross-referenced to the husband.

I use an index to make the system easy for someone to understand. If someone picks up one of my vital records binders, they can see at a glance whose names are in there, the order in which they are arranged, and the cross-referenced marriages as well.

Furthermore, I keep a spreadsheet to track the records I request and receive. Admittedly, though, I do the same with my Nancy Drew book collection.

Other paper documents I have include copies obtained from manuscript collections at NEHGS, Civil War pensions, family-created documents written by great-aunts or great-uncles, and more. While I don’t index these, I do alphabetize them. Perhaps it’s high time I also indexed them by name, document, and – if applicable – title of book or collection from which it came.

Being organized is a boon when it comes to genealogy, particularly if you would like someone else to easily interpret and utilize what you have collected.

Hey There!

Let's Connect

Books on my Bedside Table

Recent posts

Recent Posts

Pages