John BILLINGTON, 12th great-grandfather

Another Mayflower connection I found through the newly-broken-through brick wall of George Albert BAKER's parents John and Mehitable (HILTON) BAKER:

John BILLINGTON (1580-1630) was one of the more... ahem.. colorful characters on board the Mayflower. The Billington family in general (John, wife Eleanor, and two sons John Jr. and Francis) as a whole seem to have had a knack for causing trouble.

In addition to this, they were probably not warmly received among their fellow passengers because they were "Strangers"-- that is, new people who had not been part of the Pilgrims' close-knit community in Leiden, Holland, where many had lived together for years before coming to the New World. The Billingtons may have also been Catholics, which would certainly have done nothing to make them friends among the good uber-Reformed folk with whom they were casting their lot. 

Everything we know about the Billingtons came from the account of Governor William Bradford, who hated them. Because of this, what he says should be taken with a grain of salt.

John Sr. supposedly refused to obey Miles Standish, and tried to cause a mutiny on the Mayflower. 14-year-old son Francis almost blew up the ship when he fired a musket among barrels of gunpowder. 

The family's rep did not get any better after they arrived at Plymouth; wife Eleanor was put into stocks for insulting an official, and son John Jr. was captured by Indians while wandering in the woods. A search party had to be sent out, and they had to do some negotiating with his native hosts to get the boy released to them. 

Then John Sr. shot a neighbor who had apparently been hunting on his land. Whether John actually intended to shoot the poacher, or whether it was an unlucky warning shot, we don't know. What we do know is that John Billington was convicted of murder and sentenced to death; he was hanged in September of 1630-- the first white man to be executed in New England. 

I envision the Billingtons as the obnoxious family on the block that all of the neighbors wish would move-- I can see the Pilgrims gathered for some celebration or social event, and be like, "Oh, God, the Billingtons just arrived... I think John's been hitting the sauce already by the looks of him. And Eleanor is in full shrewish form... hope their little hellion doesn't set the place on fire like he almost did last time they were here..."

John BILLINGTON Jr., the son who was captured by natives and who inadvertently caused better relations between them and the white colonists,  died young and without issue; therefore, all Billington descendants come through Francis. I descend from Francis BILLINGTON through two of his children, Martha and Mary, in three ways total:

Ancestral line 1:

John BILLINGTON (1580-1630) m. Eleanor UNKNOWN

Francis BILLINGTON (1607-1684) m. Christian PENN 

Martha BILLINGTON (1638-1704) m. Samuel EATON I (1620-1684)

Samuel EATON II (1663-1724) m. Elizabeth FULLER (1666-1723)

Barnabas EATON (1703-1790) m. Mehitable ALDEN (1707-1739)

Hannah EATON (1730-1809) m. John CLEMENTS  (1719-1805)

John CLEMENTS (1750-unknown) m. Sarah PERRY (1750-unknown)

Hannah CLEMENTS (1771-1835) m. Jonathan BAKER (1769-1852)

John BAKER (1792-1861) m. Mehitable HILTON (1796-1865)

George Albert BAKER (1842-1914) m. Hannah Melissa SPECHT (1843-1924)

Jessie May BAKER (1873-1927) m. Thomas Parker SIMMONDS (1871-1953)

Estelle MAY SIMMONDS (1893-1930) m. Horace William HOWES (1882-1976)

Henry Richard HOWES (1913-1987) m. Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984)

S. HOWES (1937-1999) m. my father (b. 1933)

Me (b. 1974)

Ancestral line 2:

John BILLINGTON (1580-1630) m. Eleanor UNKNOWN

Francis BILLINGTON (1607-1684) m. Christian PENN 

Martha BILLINGTON (1638-1704) m. Samuel EATON I (1620-1684)

Samuel EATON II (1663-1724) m. Elizabeth FULLER (1666-1723)

Barnabas EATON (1703-1790) m. Mehitable ALDEN (1707-1739)

Hannah EATON (1730-1809) m. John CLEMENTS  (1719-1805)

Mehitable CLEMENTS (1754-1834) m. John TRASK (1751-1833)

Hannah TRASK (1774-1829) m. Jacob Lufkin HILTON (1775-1855)

Mehitable HILTON (1796-1865) m. John BAKER (1792-1861)

George Albert BAKER (1842-1914) m. Hannah Melissa SPECHT (1843-1924)

Jessie May BAKER (1873-1927) m. Thomas Parker SIMMONDS (1871-1953)

Estelle MAY SIMMONDS (1893-1930) m. Horace William HOWES (1882-1976)

Henry Richard HOWES (1913-1987) m. Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984)

S. HOWES (1937-1999) m. my father (b. 1933)

Me (b. 1974)

Ancestral line 3:

John BILLINGTON (1580-1630) m. Eleanor UNKNOWN

                                    Francis BILLINGTON (1607-1684) m. Christian PENN

                            Mary BILLINGTON (1640-1717) m. Samuel SABIN (1640-1699)

                                  Israel SABIN (1673-1718) m. Mary ORMSBY (1677-1715)

                                Jeremiah SABIN (1703-unk) m. Mary ABBOTT (1707-1818)

                         Jeremiah SABIN (1732-1815) m. Susannah LEVALLEY (1732-unk)

                               Sarah SABIN (1747-unk) m. Borden THURBER (1748-1822)

                          Samuel THURBER (1774-1847) m. Mary "Polly" LEWIS (1777-unk)

          Margaret Sophia THURBER (1808-1846) m. Anthony C.  SPECHT (1796-1875)

             Hannah Melissa SPECHT (1843-1924) m. George Albert BAKER (1842-1914)

Jessie May BAKER (1873-1927) m. Thomas Parker SIMMONDS (1871-1953)

Estelle MAY SIMMONDS (1893-1930) m. Horace William HOWES (1882-1976)

Henry Richard HOWES (1913-1987) m. Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984)

S. HOWES (1937-1999) m. my father (b. 1933)

 Me (b. 1974)

Myth: people in the olden days only lived to be 40

Something that I read today-- regarding teenage pregnancy and how back in the day teens having babies was normal (as if we can compare our society and teens' maturity level today with those of the Middle Ages)-- prompted me to address this.

We have a misconception-- due largely to a misunderstanding of what "average life expectancy" means-- that people only lived into their 40's, and therefore married very young.

In 1910, the average life expectancy for people in the United States was 50 for men and 54 for women-- and many people who come across this statistic would mistakenly conclude that this means that most Americans in 1910 died in their early to mid 50's.

The key to understanding average life expectancy is that it is an average-- that is, a column of numbers totaled up and divided by the number of numbers added. It's not a mode (the number appearing most often in a set of figures) or a median (a number that represents the "middle"of a group of figures, so that half of the figures are lower than the median and half are higher). An average can be skewed by a few very low or very high figures.

And this is why the average life expectancy of human beings was so low: high infant and child mortality. While many people in earlier ages lived into their 70's, 80's, and even 90's, about 1 in 4 children would die before they reached age five.

Imagine that you have a class of 20 students taking a test. 15 kids score 100, and the remaining 5 score 30. The class average would be 82.5-- but it would be inaccurate to conclude that most students in the class scored C's. The reality is that most students aced the test, and a few failed badly.

Likewise, when you throw numbers like 2, 1, and 3 in with numbers like 77, 82, and 74, that brings the average down.

Infant mortality has decreased dramatically over the past 100 years, and our average life expectancy has risen in response.

Marriage age is another issue that is related to this... the logic goes that, since people didn't live as long, they must have gotten married much earlier. What I have found in the years I've been doing genealogical research is that, at least in America and western Europe, the average age of marriage has remained pretty constant for the past 1,000 years or so: 18-22 for women, and 22-26 for men. Of course, there are women who married at 15 or 16, but that was not too common. It's only been the past three decades or so that the average marriage age has risen-- I think it's about 26-29 for women and 31-35 for men. People are holding off on marriage and having children, largely due to societal and economic issues.

A possible lead for John MACE

Sunday afternoon, I got a message through Ancestry.com from a lady named Cathy, who turned out to be a 4th cousin. She is also a 3rd great-granddaughter of my mysterious ancestor John MACE. Well, Cathy's son Jon found my blog and my post on him, and it turns out that he has been trying to find about him too.

Jon came across an army enlistment record for a John N. Mace, which shows that he enlisted on 26 September 1849, and deserted on 5 October of that same year. I noticed that there was a relatively high number of desertions, so perhaps there was a good reason.

This John Mace is described as being 26 years old (born around 1821), at 5'8", with brown hair, gray eyes, and a dark complexion. His birthplace is listed as Greenland, New Hampshire. 

The name is very nearly right (the name on his marriage record to my 3rd great-grandmother Sophronia BLY gives his middle initial as "M"). He was the right age, and his Army enlistment/desertion coincides with the period that he "disappeared": between the birth of their youngest child, my 2nd great-grandmother Lizzie in 1847 and the marriage of Sophronia to a Jonathan WILLEY in February of 1850. The disappearance had probably occurred closer to 1850;  a 32-year-old woman in the mid-19th century doesn't marry a man 40 years her senior because she wants his body. Widowed women-- and men too, for that matter-- usually had to remarry quickly; women needed financial support, and men needed someone to run the household and take care of dependent children.

So, if this was in fact my John MACE (which I think is quite likely), why did he join the army? Why did he not return to his family when he deserted? To desert was a crime for which you could be arrested (one other chap on this document actually was), so perhaps he had to make himself scarce for awhile. Maybe he intended to go back to his family, but something happened to him.

I'll probably never know the answers.

But Jon is tenaciously digging and contacting town clerks, and he's already found some more interesting potential relatives to John Mace. There is a Thomas MACE (b. 1792) who married a Catherine LIBBY (b. 1796) on 7 December 1817. They were from Greenland, New Hampshire, and would be the correct age to be John's parents. John's eldest son, who fell at the Battle of Williamsburg, was named Thomas (1843-1862). 

Just leads so far, but we'll see if anything solid turns up. I want to publicly thank my new 4th cousin once removed for reaching out to me and for his detective work.

John ALDEN and Priscilla MULLINS, 11th great-grandparents

In my last post, I mentioned how breaking down the brick wall to the parents of my 3rd great-grandfather George Albert BAKER led to several Mayflower connections. Well, here's one of them...

Whenever you see a depiction of a young Pilgrim couple in the forms of cards, paintings, or even salt and pepper shakers used at Thanksgiving, it certainly represents the most famous Pilgrim Mayflower couple: John and Priscilla (MULLINS) ALDEN.

John ALDEN was a cooper aboard the Mayflower who would end up being one of the most famous and influential Pilgrim leaders. Priscilla MULLINS was a teenaged girl traveling with her parents William and Alice and brother Joseph; she was to be the only member of her family to survive the harsh first winter of 1620-1621. 

John and Priscilla married in 1622, and had eleven children; among them was John Jr., who was accused of witchcraft. 

I believe that this couple captures the imaginations of so many because their marriage was considered to be a true love match in an age where love usually had much less to do with marriage than did money and property. It was a story about a young man and woman who came through hell to survive, find true love with each other, prosper, and live happily ever after. It's a classic fairy tale story, really. 

John and Priscilla Alden have probably the most numerous descendants of any other Mayflower passengers. Through several families which were originally from Massachusetts but which ended up in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in the mid-18th century, I can count myself among them.

My ancestral line:

John ALDEN  (1599-1687) m. Priscilla MULLINS (1604-1688)

Joseph ALDEN I (1624-1697) m. Mary SIMMONS (1644-1696)

Joseph ALDEN II (1667-1747) m. Hannah DUNHAM (1669-1748)

Mehitable ALDEN (1707-1739) m. Barnabas EATON (1703-1790)

Hannah EATON (1730-1809) m. John CLEMENTS  (1719-1805)

John CLEMENTS (1750-unk) m. Sarah PERRY (1750-unk)

Hannah CLEMENTS (1771-1835) m. Jonathan BAKER  (1769-1852)

John BAKER (1792-1861) m. Mehitable HILTON (1796-1861)

George Albert BAKER (1842-1914) m. Hannah Melissa SPECHT (1843-1924)

Jessie May BAKER (1873-1927) m. Thomas Parker SIMMONDS (1871-1953)

Estelle May SIMMONDS (1893-1930) m. Horace William HOWES (1882-1976)

Henry Richard HOWES (1913-1987) m. Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984)

S. HOWES (1937-1999) m. my father (b. 1933)

Me (b. 1974)

Breakthrough for George Albert BAKER, 3rd great-grandfather

One of my brick walls had been the parentage of George Albert BAKER, my 3rd great-grandfather, born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on 28 June 1842, died 9 July 1914 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Recently I was able to break through this-- and boy, talk about hitting the Mayflower Puritan motherlode.

The problem wasn't that I didn't have his parents' names (they were given on his death record), but that I couldn't find any record whatsoever on them.

This turned out to be because George's mother's maiden surname, as listed on the death record, was wrong.

On said record, his parents' names were listed as John Baker and Mehitable Lewis, but each time I looked for them, all I could find was a John BAKER (1792-1861) married to a Mehitable HILTON (1796-1865), both of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

I began to wonder if these were his parents, if maybe Mehitable's maiden name was not actually Lewis. After all, how many John Bakers in Yarmouth would have wives named Mehitable-- a name that had been popular about one hundred years earlier, but had, by the end of the 18th century, fallen out of use?

The only evidence that made me think that George was not their son was Mehitable's age: she was born in 1796, and would have therefore been 46 years old when she had him... not impossible, certainly, but unlikely.

While no records can be found for George's birth (or for the births of Canadians in the early to mid 19th century in general), there is a work entitled Yarmouth, Nova Scotia Genealogies, a compilation of genealogical information obtained from George S. Brown's Yarmouth Herald articles between 1896-1910. Unfortunately, this work is out of print, and the only copies available to buy online are almost $200. It is thankfully available to those with a World Deluxe subscription to ancestry.com, however.

John BAKER and Mehitable HILTON are listed in this genealogy, and one of their children is a George. No birthdate for George is given, but it is given that he married an Annie SPECHT in 1862.

George Albert BAKER's wife was Hannah Melissa SPECHT, they married on 24 December 1862-- and "Annie" is a very likely nickname for Hannah.

Provided this genealogy is correct, then Captain John BAKER and Mehitable HILTON were indeed my 4th greats. Perhaps George was, like me, a late "surprise" for his parents.

The question remains as to why George's death record lists his mother's maiden name as Lewis. Well, with death records, it must be remembered that the deceased him/herself is not giving the information. So it's important to consider who is listed on the record as the "informant"-- this is the person furnishing the information on the record to the authorities. In this case, the informant was George's son William, and it's not unlikely that he could have gotten his grandmother's name wrong. Lewis was the maiden name of his great-grandmother on his mother's side, so that may be where he got it from: "Um, I think her maiden name was Lewis..." (clerk jots that down without bothering to ask, "Are you sure that's her maiden name? What if it's not, and 100 years from now your 3rd great-niece has a problem researching your family history because of this?").

I'm very glad to have gotten past this brick wall, because it turns out that there are some seriously cool Mayflower connections on this line...

Stay tuned.


Ancestral line:

John BAKER (1792-1861) m. Mehitable HILTON (1796-1861)

George Albert BAKER (1842-1914) m. Hannah Melissa SPECHT (1843-1924)

Jessie May BAKER (1873-1927) m. Thomas Parker SIMMONDS (1871-1953)

Estelle May SIMMONDS (1893-1930) m. Horace William HOWES (1882-1976)

Henry Richard HOWES (1913-1987) m. Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984)

S. HOWES (1937-1999) m. my father (b. 1933)

Me (b. 1974)

The mysterious John MACE

One of my brick walls is 3x great-grandfather John MACE, who married my 3x great-grandmother Sophronia BLY (1818-1905) on 31 Dec 1841 in Epping, Rockingham County, New Hampshire.

My mother's cousin told me that the story she was told about John MACE is that he had disappeared while going out to cut wood one day-- only his ax and lunchpail were found, and he was never seen or heard from again. 

No birth record can be found for him and, because he disappeared (either voluntarily or because he met with serious misfortune), neither is there a verifiable death record. 

Intriguingly, the death record for John and Sophronia's daughter Lizzie (my 2x-great grandmother) gives her father's birthplace as "Spain." My second cousin also mentioned that her mother and grandmother had claimed that Sophronia had been of Spanish descent. 

Usually, these kinds of claims have at least some truth, even if the facts are not completely accurate. I've traced back Sophronia's line, and there is no Spanish descent on her side... but Lizzie's death record indicates that the Spanish ancestry might be on John's side. 

MACE is a fairly prominent New Hampshire surname, and most New Englanders who have it in their family trees descend from Robert MACE, who came from England in the 1650's and settled in Gossport, New Hampshire. I had figured that John MACE was almost certainly a descendant of his. Perhaps John's father was a sailor (how else would a New England man of the early 19th century end up in Spain?) and he married a Spanish woman. Another possibility is that his father's name was changed to MACE from something else.

I had taken an Ancestry.com DNA test last summer, and 3% of my DNA was listed as "unidentified." 3% just so happens to correspond to the amount of heredity one would receive from a 3x great-grandparent...

Again, more questions than answers.


Ancestry chain:

John MACE (?-?) m. Sophronia BLY (1818-1905)

|

Elizabeth MACE (1847-1907) m. James WINSLOW (1838-1906)

|

Bessie Maud WINSLOW (1886-1970) m. Frank Bailey PALMER (1888-1958)

|

Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984) m. Henry Richard HOWES (1913-1987)

|

S. HOWES (1937-1999) m. my father (b. 1933)

|

Me (b. 1974)

Frustrations with Ancestry.com

Lately I have to admit that I'm not terribly pleased with Ancestry.com. Is it the best and most useful genealogy mega-database out there? Yes. Can you really do online genealogy research without it? No.

There have been a number of bugs with FamilyTree Maker for Mac, and a lot of my frustration has to do not with the bugs themselves (they happen), but the way in which Ancestry.com deals with them.

A few months ago, there was an issue with FamilyTree Maker being "offline"-- the leaves were gray instead of green, and you could not double click on the leaves to see hints.  I tore my hair out thinking that there was something wrong with my computer's internet connection, messed around with my router... only to find, later, an entry buried in Ancestry.com's blog mentioning that there was a known issue with this and that it is being worked on. The entry wasn't even kept at the top of the blog so that people could see it-- assuming that people would even think to look at the blog to begin with.  It took several days before whatever the problem was was fixed and FamilyTree Maker was once again "online" and able to link to the Ancestry.com website. 

Then, a few weeks ago, there was another bug: FamilyTree Maker unlinked the family tree that I had uploaded to Ancestry.com (when you make changes to either your FTM tree or to the ancestry.com tree, the TreeSync feature will update the other tree if they are "linked"). I kept trying to re-upload my FTM tree to Ancestry.com, and each time, they would become unlinked. 

This time, there was no mention of this bug at all anywhere that I could find; I emailed Ancestry.com tech support, and never got a response. I did get an email to take a survey about how my issue was handled, so you can imagine that my feedback was not good: I told them that it was not handled at all. No follow-up response even then. 

However, this bug eventually got fixed.... until yesterday. Now the same thing is occurring again, and, again, no public notification anywhere that I can find. 

Evidently, Ancestry.com is more interested in not discouraging potential members from signing up than in serving existing, paying members. Considering the fees that I shell out for membership (Ancestry.com isn't cheap), not to mention the FTM software that also cost, I feel that I am entitled to be told if there is a known system glitch, and to have my communications acknowledged. 

Seriously, Ancestry.com, if you are going to charge as much as you do for membership, then you really owe your members better service.