The Thrill of Genealogy!

I can almost hear some of you gasping right now. “The thrill of genealogy?!” you are crying out in disbelief, “Genealogy has to be about as exciting as watching paint dry!”

If you feel that way, I would guess that you’ve never actually done much genealogical research – at least not to the point of making any meaningful discovery. Frankly, until I became an “accidental genealogist” I felt exactly the same way. I really couldn’t understand what my cousin, Al Hadad, or other genealogy-bugs I knew saw in tracking down the names of their dead ancestors. And I certainly couldn't picture myself devoting several hours a week to ancestral research.

It took a couple of months of research before my excitement began to develop, but now I have experienced three distinct kinds of excitement in genealogy. And it was these experiences that led me to blog about it, hoping that others would catch my enthusiasm and enjoy similar experiences themselves.

The first type of excitement I experienced was what I will call “the excitement of accomplishment.” This occurred a couple of months into my research the first time I found – and conclusively confirmed – a “missing link” in my ancestry. When weeks of hitting dead-ends or erroneous information are finally redeemed by learning the identity of a previously unknown ancestor, there is a rush of excitement equivalent to scoring a touchdown or winning a race – the joy of effort duly rewarded. As time has passed I’ve found that the greater the effort and the more time invested in the search, the greater the feeling when it is finally rewarded.

The next form of excitement I experienced is what I now call “the thrill of discovery.” For me, it has been a distinctly different feeling than the excitement of accomplishment. Perhaps the best way of describing it is through example. My first experience of this emotion was at the discovery that my 5th great-grandfather, Stephen Jenner, had served in the American Revolution after his family had been forced to flee the approaching British Army in the dead of night. As I read of their experience in The History of Pittsford, Vt. I could almost feel the fear and grief Stephen must have felt as he led his family in the darkness of a July night in 1777 and it brought me to tears. But it was also a moment of exhilaration in the discovery that my own ancestors had actively participated in the creation of our nation -- for me the equivalent of digging up an artifact on an expedition with Indiana Jones! Now I experience a similar excitement each time I discover a significant accomplishment or travail of one of my ancestors.

The third type of excitement came much later in my genealogical journey and, although it is the least important and meaningful of the three, it is still an excitement I do feel and enjoy. I call it the “excitement of celebrity” and it comes from discovering that you are descended from someone truly famous. As I have previously blogged, I had been told since childhood that I was a descendant of Dr. Edward Jenner, the creator of smallpox vaccine. So it was no small disappointment when my own research proved this tale to be false. It was at least a year later before I discovered that I had ancestors of equal or greater fame and accomplishment. The first of these I found while tracing my Jenner (maternal grandmother’s) line back seven generations to the Baldwin line, then another seven generations to Dormer, three more generations to fitzAlan, the Earls of Arundel, six additional generations to de Mortimer, and three more generations to Gwladus Ddu ferch Llywelyn, whose mother was Joan Plantagenet, Lady of Wales, an illegitimate daughter of John “Lackland” Plantagenet, King of England and Lord of Ireland [pictured at top], better known as “Wicked King John” the arch-enemy (in fiction only) of beloved Robin Hood and much-despised rival of his brother, Richard the Lionheart.

Not only had I discovered that I was descended from one of the most (in)famous of all British monarchs, but I made the discovery the same day that I received a complaint from my ex-wife that my daughter was “acting like she thinks she is a princess”! My reply that she is, in fact, a descendant of royalty did not meet with immediate pleasure, but has since (with my daughter’s improved behavior) been accepted with the humour I originally intended.

I have since made many similar discoveries, learning that I am descended also from Eleanor d’Aquitaine, Charlemagne, Charles “le Martel” de Poitiers, and countless others of great fame and accomplishment from medieval times. Each such discovery brings its own unique twinge of excitement, despite my knowing that hundreds of millions of others are also descended from these celebrities.

So, if you have not yet delved into your family history and folklore, I urge you to do so. Otherwise, you will never know what sort of excitement awaits you!

Move Over, Jerry Springer!

[Guilford Green, burial site of John Parmelee Jr.]

Do you remember those weird guests Jerry Spinger used to have on his show? The ones that married their own cousins and were having an affair with their in-laws? The ones that made everyone ask, "Where does he find those people?!" Well, he could have taped one of his shows in Guilford, Connecticut around 1660, and some of my ancestors would have been on it!

When my daughter and I took our genealogy road-trip this past June, we never dreamed we would stumble onto our own episode of The Jerry Springer Show. We had gathered all the information we could find in Woodbury, Connecticut, and were now working our way backward in time, following the parents and grandparents of our ancestors who had left other Connecticut colonies to found the town of Woodbury. One of these was Hannah Parmelee, my 6th great-grandmother, who had married Samuel Jenner II in Woodbury.

Most online genealogical records list Newtown, Connecticut as her place of birth. So Michaela and I had driven from Woodbury down to Newtown. At the Town Hall, we found that Hannah's father, Stephen Parmelee, is listed in Book 1 of the Newtown land records as one of its earliest settlers and landowners. But he did not arrive in Newtown until 1710, and Hannah was born in 1706. Clearly, she had been born elsewhere. Hannah's mother, Elizabeth Baldwin, had been born in Milford and her father was born in Guilford. Milford was closer to Newtown, so that was our next stop. I had to obtain credentials as a card-carrying genealogist in order to gain access to the town records in Milford -- only to return the next day and learn that Hannah had not been born there, either. So, next it was off to Guilford. And there we hit paydirt!

The people at the Guilford Town Hall directed us to the Edith B. Nettleton Historical Room at the Guilford Free Library, where the extraordinarily helpful staff went out of their way to assist us. We reviewed local and family histories, plat maps of the original township, cemetery records, and more -- including some information we never expected and weren't sure we really wanted to know.

Hannah was indeed born in Guilford in 1706. Her father, Stephen, had also been born there in 1669 -- the first of our Parmelee line born on American soil. The town began in 1639 as a plantation from the New Haven Colony. A plantation was essentially a spin-off of an existing colony. It established a separate charter and became a colony in its own right in the mid-1640s. Among its earliest settlers were John Parmelee Jr. (1612-1688), who arrived in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1635 and was among the signers of the original Guilford Plantation Covenant on 1st June 1639. John would later marry Hannah Plaine and become the father of Stephen Parmelee, so John and Hannah are my 8th great-grandparents. This is where it starts getting weird.

When Michaela and I arrived in Guilford, we knew we had a mystery to solve about Hannah Plaine. There were several conflicting dates given for her birth and death in online genealogical records. Some showed her birth as 1594; others as 1621. Some had her dying in 1658; others in 1687. So various combinations had her lifespan as being 1594-1658, 1621-1658, and 1621-1687. Only the latter dates seemed plausible, since Stephen was born in 1669. So we had already concluded that there must have been two Hannah Plaines and that records showing John Parmelee's marriage to the older Hannah Plaine were erroneous.

Well, we were wrong!

Yes, there were two Hannah Plaines. And John Parmelee married them both! You see, William Plaine (1590-1649) was also one of the signors of the original Guilford Plantation Covenant. But it is likely that he came to America with his wife, Hannah (1594-1658) and his daughter, Hannah (1621-1687) to escape his past, because he had committed sodomy in England. Perhaps he could have gotten a fresh start in the New World and escaped prosecution for his crime, but he just couldn't keep his hands off young boys. So in 1649 he was tried and convicted of both the sodomy he had committed in England and the "corruption of youth" he had pursued in Guilford. He was hanged for his crimes on 1st June 1649 -- the first and only Guilford citizen ever executed for a crime. Yeah, weird!

John Parmelee's first wife, Rebecca, died in September 1651, when their son was but six years old, so John married the widow, Hannah Plaine later that same year. Hannah died in March 1658. Now here's where it gets really weird -- or "icky", as my daughter calls it. John married his step-daughter, Hannah Plaine, in February 1659. The two had nine children, including my 7th great-grandfather, Stephen.

So my 9th great-grandmother, Hannah (whose maiden name was probably Plum), was also my 8th step-great-grandmother. And my 8th great-grandmother was the step-daughter of my 8th great-greatfather. Can you hear me singing "I'm my own grampa" right now???

Move over, Jerry Springer! My ancestors are just as weird as your guests!

My Umpty-Great Grandparents

Despite my exalted status as a genuine, card-carrying genealogist, there are still many issues I wrestle with that are probably old-hat to more experienced members of the profession. One of these issues is what to call my "umpty-great" grandparents.

This dilemma arose fairly early in my ancestral research. On both my parents' sides of the family, I already knew my ancestors back to my own great-grandparents, so I knew their names and what to call them. As I worked my way backward on the Pellman side, I could get no further than my great-great-grandfather, William Henry Pellman, so again no problem. Thanks to the excellent genealogical work of my late cousin, Al Hadad, I had also compiled the list of Schimmels, Meiers, and Trums back to my great-great-grandparents in each line. The issue arose when I started tracing the Jenner side of the family and got beyond Moses Johnson Jenner, my great-great-great-grandfather. Saying or typing three "greats" wasn't all that problematic, but when trying to describe my Revolutionary War patriot ancestor, Stephen Jenner, I started getting tongue-tied. Stephen was my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather -- that's five "greats" -- and I tended to lose track of where I was, both typing and saying it.

When my daughter and I were preparing for our visit to his burial site, I remember how silly I felt saying, "We're going to try to find the grave of my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather who fought in the American Revolution," as I counted on my fingers. And it got downright ridiculous when I said we were also going to Woodbury "to find the grave of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel Jenner I." Typing it just now I accidentally put in one too many "greats" and had to go back and delete it! First I tried abbreviating it to "gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-gr-great-grandfather," but that just sounded even siller -- as if I'd suddenly developed a severe stammer. Then I tried "my seven-times-great grandfather," but someone actually asked me, "What makes him seven times as great as your other grandfather?" So, I finally settled on "umpty-great" because more people seemed to understand what I meant, and I don't think they really cared whether he had five, six, or seven "greats" in front of "grandfather". They really only needed to understand it was a direct ancestor several generations before me.

Things reached a surreal level of ridiculousness when I learned that I was descended from Charlemagne and tried to figure out a meaningful way to explain that there should be 38 "greats" in front of grandfather! A single exclamation point seems inadequate to describe how ludicrous that seemed to me, so I actually considered following my previous sentence with 38 exclamation points for appropriate emaphasis. One thing I knew for certain: I wasn't about to say or write "great" 38 times in front of grandfather. No way!

The Internet hasn't been a great deal of help in resolving this problem so far. On various genealogy websites -- and I have visited hundreds of them -- I have encountered numerous forms of short-hand notation for umpty-great grandparents, including (for Charlemagne):

• "38-times-great-grandfather"


• "38x-great-grandfather"


• "38-great-grandfather"


• "38-g grandfather"


• "38th generation great-grandfather"


• "38th great-grandfather"


• and the extremely succinct "38ggf"

None of these seems entirely satisfactory. Each has pros and cons. 38ggf, for example, is compact and suitable for a short-hand notation while doing research, but seems a disrespectfully brief description to give a man of Charlemagne's importance. 38th great-grandfather is okay, but seems grammatically confusing, as if Charlemagne #38 out of what should be no more than four great-grandfathers. 38th generation great-grandfather is probably the most descriptive of the alternatives, but again seems technically incorrect, since Charlemagne is actually in the 39th generation prior to me. 38-g grandfather only saves four letters, so I would prefer to just type 38-great-grandfather and leave no doubt what that g stands for (I wouldn't want anyone thinking he only weighed 38 grams!). 38x-great-grandfather sounds vaguely like poor Charlemagne might be my ex-38th-great-grandfather -- as if I would kick him out of the family! And, while 38-times-great-grandfather seems to me the most technically correct shorthand, it still leaves the possibility that some of my non-genealogy-buff friends and family would get the impression that Charlemagne had been my great-grandfather 38 times. Would they wonder if he was ever going to try for 39?

So I'm hoping that some sagacious member of the genealogical community can give me some suggestions on satisfactorily resolving this nomenclature issue. If you have any suggestions, please leave them as comments to this blog posting.

A Genuine Card-Carrying Genealogist!

Two years ago I could not spell genealogist. Now I are one!

But it's not really my fault. You see, I never set out to be a genealogist. From my earliest interest to the present moment, genealogy has never been more than a pastime -- a fascinating hobby. It's not my life's work, by any means ... although it has done a lot of work in my life!

Researching my ancestry has changed me in some very fundamental ways these past two years. It has reshaped my thinking about the history of our nation and our world as I have come to see and understand history as a family matter, rather than just a bunch of meaningless names, places, and dates in a history book. It has caused me to re-evaluate my role in society as my understanding of my family's role in shaping society has become clearer to me. And it has redefined my concept of family and familial relationships.

I still don't really consider myself a genealogist. Its my avocation; not my vocation. I still picture myself as a rank amateur, lacking the tools and experience I think a real genealogist should have. But the state of Connecticutt doesn't see me that way. They consider me a licensed, card-carrying genealogist! Here's how it happened:

This past June, my daughter and I set out for New England on our second genealogical road-trip together. It's pretty much like a road-trip straight out of Animal House. We just throw a bunch of random clothes into suitcases, toss them in the back of my car, figure out which way we are heading, and take off down the road with very little idea of where we are going or what we will do when we get there. Having few preconceived expectations pretty much ensures that we won't be disappointed with the results!

All we really depart with is a list of ancestors we want to research further and the names of the towns in which we know they either were born, lived, or died. Then we simply go to those towns and see what we can find out about them. Now, honestly, does that sound professional to you? Me neither! But the results have been two of the most enjoyable and relaxing vacations I've ever taken, some wonderful experiences shared with my daughter, and some spectacularly meaningful discoveries about our family tree.

So, on the second day of our trip we arrived in Woodbury, Connecticut. Woodbury is the final resting place of Samuel Jenner I, who was our immigrant ancestor on my paternal grandmother's side of the family and the person whose mysteries sparked much of my interest in genealogy (see A Tale of Two Samuels). I had alrady read the passages in William Cothren's History of Ancient Woodbury about the Jenner family, so we knew that Samuel Jenner I had acquired land in Woodbury in 1682, married Hannah Hinman in 1684, that the couple had all their children in Woodbury -- beginning with Sarah Jenner in 1685 -- and that Samuel had died in Woodbury in 1738. Or was approach was simple and direct: wander around, visit as many landmarks and resources as possible, and ask endless questions of anyone who would listen. So we visited the library, town hall, historical society, graveyards, historical landmarks, and tried to drive up and down every street in the area. We spoke with librarians, town officials, historical society members, and practically everyone we met. And we were given practically unlimited access to any information we wanted.

When we finished at Woodbury, we next went to Newtown, Connecticutt. Again, we spent hours in the vault at the town clerk's office, in the genealogy section of the library, and pestered everyone who didn't run away from us. But when we got to Milford, Connecticutt it was a very different story!

The town clerk at Milford insisted that I had to be a genuine, authentic, bona fide, card-carrying professional genealogist in order to view the records of my own ancestors or anyone else. She claimed it was state law. When I asked what I had to do to become a licensed genealogist, she told me that all I had to do was join any genealogical society that issued membership cards to its members.

An hour-and-a-half later I was standing in the offices of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists. And what I expected to be a total waste of a half day of our trip turned out to be one of its highlights. The people at the CSG couldn't have been more helpful to us. My membership fee was the best $35.00 I spent on the entire trip! We walked out with more information on our ancestors in one afternoon than I had gathered in months of web-surfing. And most importantly, I walked out with that magical blue card pictured at the top of this post.

I am now -- at least in the eyes of the town clerk of Milford, if not the entire state of Connecticut -- a genuine, authentic, bona fide, fully-licensed, certified, qualified, and ordained professional genealogist!

Ironically, I don't feel the least bit more qualified now that I have that card in my wallet than I did before I received it. But I must be, because the town clerk in Milford gave me the "keys to the kingdom" -- full, unsupervised access to the records vault at Town Hall. I didn't have to pass any test. I wasn't fingerprinted. I didn't even have to show my birth certificate or driver's license to prove that I am really me. All I had to do was plunk down my $35.00. Now, of course, I know exactly what transpired. If I did abscond with the identities of half the residents of Milford and defraud them, the town clerk can glibly claim to have done "due diligence" in requiring me to show my card and point the gnarled finger of blame at the CSG for not having properly vetted me. It's bureaucratic responsibility-shirking, pure and simple! On the other hand, there are only two kinds of people who would make a 3-hour round trip to Hartford and pay a $35.00 fee to obtain a genealogist's identification card: a true genealogist or a crook.

Good thing for the town of Milford that I'm not both!

The Fountain of Youth

[Vivian Grace (Jenner) Pellman (1887-1973)]

Every so often my genealogical research makes me stop and think. As my family tree began to sprout more branches, I noticed a pattern emerging that gave me one such pause: a lot of my ancestors lived much longer than I would have expected. With all the recent debate and uproar over health care and health care reform, it has made me re-examine not just my thinking, but my lifestyle.

To fully understand how significant this was to me, you have to know that about six years ago I was diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic. My doctor also informed me that I had numerous risk factors for coronary artery disease and pretty much led me to believe that I might keel over at any moment from a heart attack or stroke -- especially if I didn't choke down about a dozen pills a day and dramatically alter my eating and exercise habits. It was after I had been on this regimen about three years -- off and on, at least -- that I began to notice the longevity of my ancestors.

As I traced the various branches of my family and dutifully recorded their birth and death dates, I saw that my father, John A. Pellman (1920-2001) had lived over 81 years, my grandfather, John Guss Pellman (1891-1970) had lived 79 years, George Frederick Pellman (1868-1943) 75 years, William Henry Pellman (1827-1901) 73 years. And these weren't people who had lived lives of luxury and pampering. My father suffered from tuberculosis as a child, and endured the Great Depression and the Second World War. My grandfather had grown up in a frontier town, served in World War I, and suffered through the Great Depression. His father had been the son of a sharecropper and a frontier lawman. And his father was a tenant farmer who had fought three years of civil warfare in Prussia, another three years in the Civil War (see The Ravages of War), and entered the Oklahoma Land Rush at the age of 68.

At first I was tempted to conclude that the Pellmans were simply hardy stock ... until I noticed that the same was true of the Jenner side of my family. My grandmother, Vivian Grace Jenner (1887-1973), who is pictured above, had lived 86 years. Her father, Almond Lewis Jenner (1863-1946) 83 years. His father, Moses German Jenner (1833-1907) 74 years. And so on, back to Samuel Jenner I (c. 1650-1738) who lived at least 85 years during colonial times!

This just didn't make sense. I had always been told that average life expectancy prior to the 20th century was about 40 years, yet most of my ancestors had lived nearly double that. And the same was true of every other branch of my family. With rare exception, the men were living 75 or more years -- even in the 16th century and earlier. But, I soon noticed the same was not true of the women in my family. True, many lived well into their 70s and 80s, like Hannah Hinman (1666-1743), Hannah Parmelee (1706-1780), and Mercy Lewis (1679-1761). But many others died quite young, like Gabriella Phelps (1870-1927), Elizabeth Wallis (1652-1689), Louisa Wise (1834-1864), and Diantha Cady (1810-1837).

Gradually, the pattern began to reveal itself. The women who survived past the age of 40 tended to live well into their 70s or beyond. There were only a handful who died in their 50s or 60s. It was either young or old, and very little in between.

As I related in Tears in the Graveyard, we have discovered that about one-third of the children born to our pre-20th century ancestors did not survive to reach adulthood. Many died within days of their birth, many others from typhoid or influenza, and a few from drowning or fatal injuries. The males who reached adulthood either lived long, full lives or they were killed in battle or by other injuries. Very few of the men succumbed to disease as adults. The women were less fortunate. Quite a few died of complications from childbirth before the age of 40. Another signifcant cause of death was disease -- expecially typhoid and influenza. But those who reached 40 usually lived at least another 30 years.

So, yes, the average lifespan was indeed about 40 years. But, like so many statistics, the average doesn't reveal the truth. The truth is that the people who survived the dangers of childhood and the women who survived the rigors of childbirth and child-rearing lived just as long -- if not longer -- than people live today. And they did it without regular health care, annual check-ups, health insurance, HMOs, PPOs, and MediCare!

What was their secret? What was their "fountain of youth"? Simple: constant activity and good food.

Instead of sitting behind a desk for eight hours, then spending a half-hour in the gym, they worked steadily all day long. Sure, they did hard work, too. But they didn't spend the entire day felling timber and digging up stumps. Most of their work was planting, tilling, weeding, grinding -- moderate work that kept them active the entire day.

And they didn't eat low-fat yogurt, Omega-3 fatty acids, and endive salads with basalmic vinegar dressing. They ate meat, potatoes, bread, and fruits or vegetables when they were in season. Meat could be salted, smoked, or cured; potatoes, turnips, and carrots would keep in the root cellar; and grains could be stored in bins and cannisters, so they could be eaten year-round. But fruits and vegetables were mostly seasonal additions to their diets. They did not follow the "food pyramid". They didn't have vitamins and supplements. And they cooked with plenty of butter, salt, and lard! They broke almost every dietary rule we are told will keep us healthy today. But what they also didn't have were steroids, colorings, flavorings, and chemical additives in their food. It was natural, whole food -- nothing more. Salt, brine, and wood smoke were their primary preservatives; not chemicals.

All of the wonders of science and medicine have not added one day to our lifespan! People are not living longer than they did 200 years ago; just more of them are living as long. That's an important distinction to understand as we look at the issues of health care and retirement in the 21st century world. And the enormous costs of medical care we are burdened with are chiefly the result of excessive leisure in our lives. Our grandparents were right when they told us, "A little hard work never hurt anyone."

As we examine the issues surrounding health care, instead of asking how we can reduce the cost of the healthcare our unhealthy lives require, we should be asking ourselves how much we are willing to pay in added health care costs for our unhealthy lifestyles. That's the message my ancestors sent me this week.

A Noble Endeavor

As I've mentioned in several previous posts, I had long believed that I was a descendent of Dr. Edward Jenner, the discoverer of smallpox vaccination. I also knew that I was a descendent of a frontier lawman (George Frederick Pellman) and a respected British judge (William Willis, QC), as well as the famous (well, notorious) border reivers of clan Kerr. As a youngster, it was a source of great pride that I was descended from someone famous, and I'm sure I bragged endlessly about my family heritage. When I read Ivanhoe and the tales of King Arthur, I imagined that somewhere in the distant past there had been a Sir Percival Willis (or something of that sort), who had been a gallant medieval knight, rescuing damsels in distress and slaying dragons, who had been one of my ancestors.

As I reached my teenage years that childish pride gave way to something a little more noble -- a sense of purpose and duty stemming from a family legacy of people who, if not really famous, had accomplished things of genuine importance in their lives. I remember approaching adulthood with a strong sense of obligation, if not outright destiny, to accomplish great things. I've certainly fallen well short of those expectations, but my genealogical research has proven to be much more than just another in a long list of life's disappointments and failures.

A few months into my research, I discovered that through the Jenner side of my family (my paternal grandmother's side) I was related to Alec Baldwin and the other Baldwin brothers. In making that discovery, I had traced the Baldwin line back to Richard Baldwin I (1503 - 1552) and Ellen Pooke (1507 - 1565), who were my first common ancestors with the famous acting family. Richard Baldwin's mother was Agnes Dormer, daughter of Lord Geoffrey Dormer, Baron of Wing, whose arms are shown above.

50 years after first imagining that I might be descended from an English knight or noble came the discovery that I actually am! The surprise, however, was that it was not on my English mother's side of the family, as I had so long suspected, but on my very American father's side!

This led to a whole series of discoveries in quick succession. The first of these discoveries is the one that made the rest of the process so quick: every family of European nobility is related to practically every other family of European nobility -- and those relationships are extremely well documented. With hindsight the reason for this seems obvious: the rich and powerful families of Europe used marriages to form alliances and accumulate greater wealth. Since noble birth was the key to a noble marriage, meticulous records have been kept for centuries of most noble births and marriages. Because of this, it has actually been quicker and easier to trace more than a 1,000 years of my noble European ancestry than it was to trace the first 200 years of my American ancestry. Most of it is listed in Wikipedia!

It had taken me well over a year to trace the Jenners back to the 17th century, then the Baldwins back to the early 16th century. In the process, I had accumulated about 150 people in my family tree, but the majority of branches -- dozens of them -- had reached dead-ends around the year 1800. Within just a couple more weeks after discovering my lineage to Geoffery Dormer (my 14th-great-grandfather), my tree had grown to over 1,000 individuals and I had traced one line back more than 1,500 years!

As of today, my known family tree includes nearly 3,500 people, the majority of whom are European nobility -- barons and baronesses, margraves and margravines, counts, countesses, and earls, dukes and duchesses, kings and queens, and even several emperors! They range across most of medieval Europe, from the British Isles to Scandinavia, to continental Europe, and northern Africa. They include some of the most famous names in world history, like Charlemagne and William the Conqueror. They also include people of amazing character and accomplishment, like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Sir William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, as well as a full compliment of cowards, fiends, and monumental failures. Their lives unfold the entire pageant of medieval history: conquests, plunder, assassinations, truces, alliances, crusades, defeat, and bloody revenge.

Just as American history came alive for me when it became the story of my family, so has European and Middle Eastern history now become personal and vital when viewed for what it really is: centuries of family squabbles. And not just any family, but my family!

In future posts, I will share with you some of the more interesting members of this amazing family.

What IS a Family? (Part 1)

In tracing the Jenner side of my family back to its immigrant ancestor, I discovered that young Samuel Jenner I arrived in America as an infant around 1650 in the company of his mother, Hannah (Barrett) Jenner. His father, Richard Jenner, had died around the time of his birth. The widow Jenner left her two oldest children in England and ventured off to the New World to live in the care of her brother, Samuel Barrett. While it may seem inconceivable in our time that a women would leave two of her own children behind and cross the Atlantic Ocean to stay with her brother, it must be understood in its historical context.

The newborn Samuel Jenner was probably still nursing at the time Hannah was widowed. She was a Puritan and being persecuted for her faith. She and her children were in constant danger in England. Her brother, Samuel Barrett, on the other hand, appears to have been well established in the New World, where she would be accepted and nurtured along with her newborn son.

Not long after arriving in America, Hannah met and married a John Coe. She had two more children by John: Andrew Coe in 1654, and Hannah Coe in 1655 or 1656. At first, I filed this remarriage away as an interesting factoid. After all, this John Coe and his descendents were not ancestors of mine, so they were merely a footnote at the time I learned about them. It was only later, as I began to prepare and view Hannah's and Samuel's lives in narrative form, that it occurred to me that they were still family.

Although not his biological father, it was clearly John Coe who actually helped raise young Samuel Jenner. It would have been John and Hannah who instilled in Samuel the strength of character that propelled him to be one of the founders of ancient Woodbury township, where he is buried. It would have been John who taught him how to work, and the skills he would need to build a life for his family in the American frontier. It would have been John who served as his model for what a father should be -- and apparently it was a good model, since Samuel sired eight children, six of whom lived long and productive lives, while two died in infancy.

I now doubt that it was merely coincidence that I learned of both Samuel's biological and adoptive parents through personal contact with Carl Robert Coe. Carl was extremely generous with his time and information about the Jenner and Coe families, and even though I'm not actually a descendent of the Coes he has invited me to take part in Coe family reunions and other events. In short, he has treated me like family!

Subsequent research has led me to two more step-parents in the Jenner line. My grandmother's Jenner family Bible lists only Diantha (Carly/Cady) Jenner as the mother of Moses German Jenner and his sister Diantha. But she died in 1837, no more than two years after giving birth to the daughter who received her name. The widower, Moses Johnson Jenner, remarried 11 months later, so it was his second wife, Irena (Osborne) Jenner, who raised little Moses and Diantha. Similarly, Moses German Jenner's first three children, including my great-grandfather, Almond Lewis Jenner, lost their mother less than a year after Almond's birth. So they were raised by their step-mother, Mary (Epp/Upp) Jenner.

As if to underscore the important of step-parents in a family, it was probably Mary -- the step-mother -- who recorded most of the information in my grandmother's Bible. It is not my grandmother's writing, and it couldn't have been written by anyone who predeceased Mary. The handwriting seems too feminine to have been Moses Jenner's, which leaves Mary as the most likely. So most of what I know of my Jenner ancestors was probably passed down to me by the kindness of a woman who was not a biological ancestor.

Care, concern, and love are the building blocks of a true family; not merely biology. One of the many lessons our Jenner ancestors have passed down to our current generation is that our family consists of the people who love and nurture us; not just those who gave birth to us.

Famous Cousin - Alec Baldwin

Yes, Alec Baldwin -- the Alec Baldwin -- is my cousin. I don't think he realizes it, though, because he never calls or invites me over for dinner. Of course, Daniel Baldwin, William Baldwin, and Stephen Baldwin are also my cousins. 11th cousins once removed, to be specific. I know, that's not exactly a close family tie. But it was, in its own way, one of the early landmark discoveries in my genealogical journey.

Alec was the first famous person to whom I found out I'm related. Sure, I understand that we're all part of the greater human family and we're all descendents of Adam and Eve, so anyone reading this is a cousin of one sort or another. But Alec was the first celebrity whose relationship I could actually trace genealogically. We are 11th cousins once removed because the most recent common ancestors we share were Richard Baldwin I (1503 - 1552) and Ellen Pooke (1507 - 1565). Richard and Ellen were my 12th great-grandparents and the Baldwin brothers' 11th great-grandparents, hence the "once removed" in our relationship. I guess that qualifies as a little more than six degrees of separation, but I still found it be be an intriguing discovery.

As I wrote in one of my earliest postings, I had long been told that I was descended from Dr. Edward Jenner, the discoverer of smallpox vaccine. As a child, the idea of being descended from someone really famous seemed especially cool to me. Well before I discovered the Baldwin connection, I had disproven the link to Dr. Edward Jenner. Dr. Jenner lived from 1749 to 1823 in Gloucestershire, England. I had discovered conclusive evidence that our branch of the Jenner family had arrived in America before 1700, so we couldn't possibly be his descendents, and at first that had been a bit of a letdown.

So perhaps it was a form of recompense that it is through the Jenner line that we have a common ancestor with the famous Baldwin brothers. Here's the line: me >> John A. Pellman >> Vivian Grace (Jenner) Pellman >> Almond Lewis Jenner >> Moses German Jenner >> Moses Johnson Jenner >> Timothy Jenner >> Stephen Jenner >> Hannah (Parmelee) Jenner >> Elizabeth (Baldwin) Parmelee >> Nathaniel Baldwin II >> Nathaniel Baldwin I >> Richard Baldwin III >> Richard Baldwin II >> Richard Baldwin I. 14 generations spanning a period of 350 years!

The discovery affected me in several ways. First, it personalized the fact that each of us is related -- and more closely than we might imagine -- to the people around us. For all I know, my next-door neighbor might be a cousin, too! Secondly, it aroused my curiosity about other surnames in my family tree and the possibility of relationships to other famous people -- Phelps (Michael?), Harding (Warren?), Burr (Raymond? Aaron?), etc. And finally, having traced one branch of our family tree back to 1503, I began to appreciate the fact that my ancestors had not merely witnessed history; they had helped shape history!

As I discovered a few months later, the Baldwin brothers were only the beginning. And, as famous as they are today, I would soon learn that I was descended from people of even greater fame and importance in the pageant of human history!

Tears in the Graveyard

My first experience visiting a cemetery for genealogical research came in October, 2008 when my daughter and I traveled to Harmony, New York in search of information about Timothy Jenner, Ruth Hurlbut, Moses Johnson Jenner (son of Timothy and Ruth), and Moses German Jenner (son of Moses J.). We were specifically trying to find ironclad documentation of Moses German Jenner's birth, since all we had at the time were notations in my grandmother's Jenner family Bible.

We were supposed to meet a representative of the Harmony Historical Society at their offices that morning. They were preparing for the annual Harvest Festival in North Harmony and we were told they would be outside getting set up. We arrived about 11:00 AM only to find no one there. It was drizzling at the time and we later learned that they had headed to a nearby coffee shop for shelter and an early lunch, hoping the weather would improve while they were eating. Since it wasn't the nicest weather, my daughter and I decided to drive around the area and get the lay of the land, rather than stand around getting wet.

So we headed south on Open Meadows Road. We had gone no more than a mile or two when we saw a sign identifying the Blockville Union Burying Ground. The sign said it had been established in 1828, so we pulled in on a hunch that we might find some of our ancestors buried there. I pulled our car to what appeared to be the center of the cemetery. My daughter was in the passenger seat so I told her, "You take that [the right] side and I'll take this [the left] side. Yell if you find anything." We opened our doors and stepped out.

"Here they are!" my daughter immediately announced, "You parked right next to them."

I was still gathering up my camera and notepad and bumped my head on the door-frame when I looked up to see where she was pointing. There they were: a half-dozen aged headstones all in a row. My daughter was pointing to one in particular. "Here's Timothy." She moved to the next headstone as I was walking around the car to join her. "And here's Ruth," she announced with growing excitement. She moved to the next headstone while I was still walking toward her. "And here's Alcena." Just as I reached her side, she made a little whimpering sound I will never forget. "Oh my God, Daddy," she said in a quavering voice, "She was only nine years old." Tears were welling up in her eyes. "Daddy that's awful," she said, snuffling back her tears and wiping them from her cheeks.

That was the moment genealogy suddenly became intensely personal for me. As I write this I am fighting back my own tears, as happens every time I recall that moment. The hurt on my daughter's face and in her voice is more than I can bear, even in memory. Michaela has always been sensitive to the suffering of others -- especially children -- and little Alcena Jenner was no exception. We have talked at length about that moment, and it was also the moment that genealogy became personal for her.

It is no longer simply tracking down and recording names, dates, places, and events in a notebook or software application. It is the process of discovering and understanding the lives of those who traveled before us and brought us to this point in time. Through it, we glimpse their hearts and minds, their dreams and ambitions, their hardships and sufferings, and come to appreciate them as members of our own family -- now gone, but not forgotten, and no longer taken for granted.

Like most others of their generation, Timothy and Ruth (Hurlbut) Jenner, ventured out into a vast and dangerous land in search of a dream. It wasn't a dream of conquest and wealth; merely a dream to build a life that was just a little better for themselves and their children than it had been for their parents. They chased that dream by risking their lives for a tract of land just large enough to sustain them, working from dawn to dusk under constant exposure to possible attack by beasts, outlaws, or hostile tribes, while enduring the hardships of a harsh and unforgiving environment. And along the way, they would bury several of their own children before they reached adulthood. Michaela, then 13, began to truly understand their struggles that day.

That was the day that, for both of us, "frontiers people" and "pioneers" ceased being anonymous images in history books and movies and became ancestors we are proud of and grateful for.

Granddad and Moonwalking

JOHN GUSS PELLMAN

(15 August 1891 - 30 November 1970)

Apollo 11 Lunar Landing

(20 July 1969)

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and the media are inundating us with images, reflections, and analysis of the historic event. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldren, Michael Collins, Walter Cronkite, and John F. Kennedy are being celebrated for their roles in this world-changing event -- as they should be. But my most vivid recollections of the Apollo landing will always be of my grandfather, John Guss Pellman.

My parents traveled a lot when I was young, so I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house at 4204 Ingalls Street in the Mission Hills district of San Diego. If I remember correctly, the house was actually ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and built in 1924. It's been almost 40 years since I was last in that house, but I can vividly recall every detail of it, down to the pictures on the walls, the curtains, the nick-nacks, and even the smells. That's where I was on July 20, 1969 when Apollo 11 touched down -- sitting on my grandparents' brown hide-a-bed sofa watching it all unfold on TV with Walter Cronkite providing the commentary.

It was probably soon after Neil Armstrong uttered his immortal statement, "That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind," that I turned away from the TV and exclaimed, "Isn't that cool, Granddad?"

To this day, I remember the sensation I felt. It was like a mild electric shock that ran down both of my arms. There were tears in my grandfather's eyes. It was the first and only time I had ever seen him cry! And I couldn't understand why he would be crying when the whole world around him was rejoicing.

"What's wrong, Granddad?" I asked.

"Now I've seen it all," he said softly, gazing in awe at the TV. I must have looked puzzled by his remark, because he explained it something like this: "When your Grandma and I were married, most people were still using horse-and-buggies. There was no radio or TV, and airplanes were still experimental. Not many people had telephones, so we heard about most things from newspapers, letters, or over the neighbor's fence. And now -- in my lifetime -- they've sent a man to the moon with a TV camera so I can actually watch it happen. I've seen everything!"

I didn't truly understand the import of his remarks then. It was only after I began studying technology and social change during my PhD program that I began to sense the enormity of the change he had experienced and why it had affected him so deeply that day.

Granddad was born on August 15, 1891 in Farley, Missouri. Farley was nicknamed "Schimmel Town" because the Schimmels were such a large proportion of the town's population, which is still only about 250 people. His parents were George Frederick Pellman and Mary Victoria Schimmel. His childhood home had no running water or indoor plumbing, no electricity or gas, no furnace or air conditioning, no refrigerator -- not even a fan! Other than the house being a little more weather-tight and having a cast-iron stove for cooking, and buggies and wagons having improved seats and suspensions, most technologies used in his everyday life were not that much different that those of the Middle Ages! The major technological advances at the time of his birth -- railroads, steamships, mechanized harvesting equipment, and the telegraph -- were not a part of his daily life.

After spending his first ten years in Farley, the family moved to Kaw City, Oklahoma Territory, where his grandfather had settled after trying to stake a claim during the Cherokee Strip Land Run of 1893. While his father was sheriff of Kay County, young John and his brothers spent much of their time on the Kaw Reservation, playing with the children of the Kansa tribe. He once remarked, "When we played cowboys and Injuns, we had real Injuns. The only problem was the Injuns always won!" Washungah, the last chief of the Kansa Nation, appears to have been like an uncle to Granddad and he always spoke of him with great respect and affection.

When Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907, the family moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where Granddad remained until the outbreak of World War I. He spent those years working a variety of trades including barber and blacksmith. As automobiles grew in popularity, Granddad made the transition from blacksmith to automotive mechanic. He returned from serving in the War, married Vivian Grace Jenner in 1919 and moved to San Diego, California shortly after the birth of my father, John A. Pellman, to take a job as service manager for the Paige (a brand that later became part of General Motors) Agency in San Diego. He showed up for work with just a screwdriver and pliers in his hip pocket. "If you can repair cars with just a screwdriver and pair of pliers," the owner remarked, "You must be one heck of a mechanic!"

Paige was acquired by the Graham brothers in 1927, but the company did not survive the Great Depression and Granddad found himself unemployed in the early 1930s. Nevertheless, he continued to hone his skills as a mechanic and adapt to new technologies. When the government began rationing gasoline during the Second World War, his son Robert C. Pellman converted the family car to run on butane, so they could trade their rationing coupons for other essentials. Granddad continued to do the majority of his own mechanical work on increasingly complex automobiles until quite late in his life.

So, he was no stranger to technological change, nor was it something that intimidated him, as we sat there together watching the moon landing 40 years ago. His tears were simply tears of awe, as he reflected upon all that he had witnessed during his life.

I will see nothing of that magnitude in my lifetime unless we invent teleportation, fully functioning androids, or break the light-speed barrier in the next 20 years or so. I've seen computers become smaller and more powerful, airplanes become faster, appliances become more energy-efficient, phones become smaller and portable, and dozens of other adaptations and improvements of technologies that existed when I was born. But there have not been, and probably will not be, the revolutionary and life-altering technological advances that occurred during Granddad's life, which literally spanned the Horse-and-Buggy Era to the Space Age!

Creating Harmony

The town of Harmony is located in Chautauqua County in the southwestern corner of New York state (see red dot on the map at left). It is a tranquil rural community of about 2,000 people with a growing reputation for producing some of the finest maple syrup in the country. The earliest settlers began arriving in 1809, and the town was incorporated in 1816, at which time it was on the western frontier of the newly created United States of America.

I first learned of the town during a Google search for information on my 4x-great-grandfather, Timothy Jenner, son of Revolutionary War veteran, Stephen Jenner. By this time in our research, my daughter and I had decided that she would join the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when she turned 18 and I would join the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) now. By doing so, all my daughter would have to prove for her DAR application is her descendency from me, so by gathering all the documentation for my SAR application now, we would be killing two birds with one stone. As a result, the Jenner portion of our genealogical quest had shifted from merely knowing who our ancestors were to proving who they were -- a significantly more difficult task. We were looking for original documents, like birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, or official town records that listed the parents of each of our Jenner ancestors. It only took a couple of days to learn that such records are sparse prior to 1900 and all but non-existent prior to 1850.

By this time, we had backtracked from my grandmother, Vivian Grace Jenner (born 1887 in Pleasonton, KS), to her father, Almond Lewis Jenner (born 1863 in Anderson, IN), to his father, Moses German Jenner (born 1833, location unknown). We had copies of their birth certificates or US Census records establishing their relationships, but we had not yet located any record acceptable to the SAR or DAR of the relationship of Moses G. Jenner to his father, Moses Johnson Jenner, or of Moses J. Jenner to his father, Timothy Jenner. So these were the focus of our research. And it was during this period of our research that we learned the history of American civil record-keeping.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, there was no federal or state government; only colonies and townships. Colonies were continually changing in size, name, and character during the period of colonial expansion from 1620 to 1750. For example, New Haven Colony in Connecticut started several "plantations" at nearby West Haven, East Haven, Guilford, etc. Initially, these plantations were subordinate to, and subject to the charters of, their sponsoring colonies. But, if they were successful and grew, they eventually separated into distinct colonies and were granted their own charters. With colonies being in flux, townships were the most stable level of governance, so the majority of civil record-keeping was handled by town clerks or, more often, by church clerks.

Churches were the center of social, civil, and economic life in the colonies. Most of the town charters that I have read include provisions that membership -- and regular attendance -- in the local church was mandatory for property ownership and citizenship in the town. This only makes sense. Colonial towns were often first settled by fewer than 50 people. Each new town was a dangerous excursion into the wilderness and its inhabitants were utterly dependent upon one another for their survival. It was absolutely essential that the settlers of each town be completely of like mind and harmonious in their relationships or the town would fail and its residents would die. All residents being members of the same church, sharing the same fundamental beliefs and values, was the best way of ensuring the harmony necessary for survival in a harsh and unforgiving environment. So, in addition to being houses of worship and centers of social life in the colonies, the churches also served as the centers of local government prior to the Revolutionary War -- and it was the job of the church clerks to record the births, marriages, deaths, and even deeds and other financial transactions of the towns.

Following the American Revolution and the establishment of state and federal governments, responsibility for civil record-keeping began to shift to agencies and offices of the government. Starting around 1790, when the first federal census was taken, church clerks turned their records over to town or county clerks, who became responsible for their maintenance thereafter. Until around 1850 the process was fairly haphazard, with no consistent methodology for maintaining and indexing previous information and no uniform method of recording new data. Some town clerks were much better than others at cataloging the information that was turned over to them, so many local records are woefully incomplete until late in the 19th century. Such was the case, it appears, with the birth records for Moses Johnson Jenner and Moses German Jenner.

Then, "once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly ..." from my tapping a Google search returned a hit on the History of Chautauqua County, New York, From Its First Settlement to the Present Time With Numerous Biographical and Family Sketches, by Andrew W. Young (1875). It was another Google Book, like the History of Ancient Woodbury, and it contained several paragraphs about Timothy Jenner and Moses Johnson Jenner!

Timothy Jenner and his wife, Ruth Hurlbut (Jenner), together with their son, Moses Johnson Jenner, were among the earliest settlers in Harmony, NY. They arrived in 1815, the year before the town was formally chartered, along with Samuel, Zaccheus, and Nathaniel Hurlbut. The Jenners and Hurlbuts had all come from Pittsford, Vermont (see black dot on the map at the top of this page). They bought lots in 1816 and 1817 and built homes on the south side of the town, not far from the settlement of Blockville. In 1817 Timothy, Ruth, and Moses were among the dozen founders of the Panama Baptist Church. Both Timothy and Moses went on to serve as the clerk of the church, keeping records of the births, marriages, and deaths of its members and the minutes of its earliest meetings. The Jenners and Hurlbuts were prominent throughout the early history of Harmony township, nearby Busti and Blockville, and other parts of Chautauqua County. Descendents of the original Jenner and Hurlbut families are still living in the area, and Michaela and I had the pleasure of meeting some of them when we visited the town (the subject of a future blog entry) in October 2008.

We are still searching for records to confirm that Moses German Jenner is the son of Moses Johnson Jenner. It appears that Moses J. left Chautauqua County in the mid-1820s, probably shortly after his first marriage (4 August 1825). He is not listed there on the 1830 US Census. In 1826, his parents were expelled from Panama Baptist Church for supporting women's suffrage. Perhaps Moses left in protest, so that his children's births were recorded in another township, if they were officially recorded at all. The earliest document we've found listing Moses G. Jenner is the 1860 US Census (his first as an adult) which places him in Indiana, but shows his birthplace as New York. There is some evidence that Moses Johnson Jenner was living with or near his daughter, Diantha, in Indiana at the time of his death in 1852. We know we are close to a breakthrough on our two Moses's. The records we are slowly collecting are being to "harmonize" with each other to form an increasingly clear and complete picture of the lives of these two generation of Jenner ancestors.

And my daughter and I have found that, as we discover more about the lives of our ancestors and begin to understand the sacrifices they made and the risks they took to create a new nation and lay the groundwork for freedom and prosperity for their descendents, the closer we grown in harmony with each other.

Who's Yo' Daddy?

There is a lot of erroneous information on the Internet. That's no surprise to any experienced web-surfer. But I was shocked to discover how much of the information on genealogical web sites is erroneous. Fortunately, it was a shock I received early in my exploits as a family tree researcher, so it didn't do nearly as much damage as it could have done.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, much of my early research focused on the Jenner branch of my family, because I was originally searching only for my immigrant ancestors. My mother was an immigrant, so no search was needed there. I quickly hit a dead end on the Pellman lineage (see The Major Branches and others). So the Jenners had proven to be the easiest to trace at first. That is, until I reached Samuel Jenner I.

Two years ago, all the online genealogical sites that came up on the first few pages of a Google search listed the same information for Samuel Jenner I: He had been born in Charlestown, Massachusetts on 21 March 1669** to Capt. Thomas Jenner III and his wife Rebecca Trerice. This included what I took to be the authoritative sites, including the LDS, RootsWeb, Ancestry.com, and Genealogy.com. With a little more digging, I was able to find information on Thomas Jenner II and the Rev. Thomas Jenner I. By all available accounts, the Rev. Thomas Jenner I had been the immigrant Jenner ancestor -- a Puritan minister who had arrived at the Saybrook colony in 1636. I still recall the excitement I felt when I emailed this information to my family and closest friends. We were descendants of the Puritans! Our family was among the first to colonize America!

**before 1752 events occurring prior to March 25th are usually recorded with a dual date, because prior to the Calendar Act of 1750 the calendar year began March 25th rather than January 1st throughout the British Empire. So 21 March 1669 (by current reckoning) would have been 21 March 1668 at the time. Such dates are now typically recorded in historical references in the format, 21 March 1668/69.

I was a little troubled by this, since it didn't concur with the notation in my grandmother's Bible that Samuel Jenner had been born -- and his father, unnamed, had died -- on the passage to America. But, when I learned that Capt. Thomas Jenner III had died at sea during a voyage back to England sometime between 2 November 1685, when the vessel sailed, and 12 December 1686, when the news of his death reached the Colonies, I chalked the difference up to faulty memories and word-of-mouth. But with each new bit of information I gleaned about Samuel Jenner I, I became increasingly suspicious of this account.

My suspicions became outright doubts when I finally got my hands on a PDF copy of "the Cothren." The Cothren, as genealogists are fond of calling it, is the History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut, from the first Indian deed in 1659 ... including the present towns of Washington, Southbury, Bethlem, Roxbury, and a part of Oxford and Middlebury, by William Cothren, published in 1854. William Cothren was the Town Clerk and Town Historian of Woodbury in the mid-19th century, and his book was a narrative presentation of the town's records of births, marriages, deaths, wills, trials, and land transactions.

Reading the Cothren I learned that Samuel Jenner I had purchased land and settled in Woodbury not later than 1682. If he was the Samuel Jenner born in 1669, then he would have been no more than 13 when he ventured off on a life of his own! This might have been feasible if he had been orphaned, but Capt. Thomas Jenner III and Rebecca (Trerice) Jenner were both still living in 1682. He married Hannah Hinman around 1684 and the two had their first child, Sarah, in 1685. That would have made him 15 at marriage and only 16 at the birth of their first child, which would only have been possible in a "shotgun wedding" -- a scenario that seems extremely unlikely given that Hannah Hinman was not only the daughter of one of Woodbury's most prominent citizens, Sgt. Edward Hinman, but would have been three years older than Samuel. Even if, despite the strictures of 17th century Puritan society, Samuel and Hannah could have found a way to sneak off together, what 16-year-old girl would have any interest in a 13-year-old boy?

The real nail in the coffin of this scenario, however, is the Woodbury Town Charter, which was also recorded in the Cothren. The charter states that only members of the local congregation were permitted to own land in the township. And only adults, aged 21 or over, could be members of the congregation! When I read that I knew that my Samuel Jenner I could not have been born in 1669 -- and that meant that someone other than Capt. Thomas Jenner III must be his father. So, now what?

For several months, I had been spending a couple of nights per week tracking down various leads and posting messages on Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, and other ancestry message boards. One night I got a reply. Another descendant of Samuel Jenner I had seen one of my inquiries and checked her Jenner family Bible -- one that had been passed down through a different line of descent -- and it contained a notation that Samuel's father had been a Richard Jenner. Not only did it name the father, but mentioned that Samuel's mother had been Hannah Barrett, that Richard had been killed "in a foreign adventure" shortly after Samuel's birth, and that Hannah had remarried after coming to America -- to Capt. John Coe.

It took several more months and numerous emails between myself and members of the Coe and Hinman families to finally piece the evidence together. And it was during this process that I came to realize that real genealogy was a forensic science; not merely a record-keeping process. It requires extensive research, collection and examination of clues and evidence, evaluating each piece of evidence to determine its authenticity and credibility, and arriving at a well-reasoned conclusion.

In the matter of Samuel Jenner's paternity, I was able to piece together the following evidence in favor of Richard Jenner and Hannah Barrett:

• The recently widowed Hannah (Barrett) Jenner arrived in America sometime after 1650 with her infant son, Samuel
• She initially stayed with her brother, Samuel Barrett, in Newtown, New York
• The will of Samuel Barrett's brother, probated in London in 1666, mentions a nephew, Samuel Jenner
• Hannah had two children by John Coe: a daughter, Hannah, born in 1654, and a son, Andrew, born in 1655 or 1656.
• Samuel Jenner eventually married Hannah Hinman, and Hannah Coe married Hannah Hinman's brother, Capt. Titus Hinman.

This Samuel Jenner would have have to have been born around 1650, making him about age 30 at the time he bought property in Woodbury, Connecticut, and eligible for membership in the Woodbury congregation. This Samuel would have known the Hinman family, since his half-sister married his brother-in-law. The Hinmans were among the founders of the Woodbury township, so it would have been natural for Samuel to have been one of the township's earliest landowners. And the Samuel Jenner born in 1669 could not possibly have been mentioned in a 1666 will. It is not proof, but it is certainly a compelling amount of circumstantial evidence.

I will not consider the mystery of Samuel Jenner's parents conclusively resolved until I secure incontrovertible evidence, such as a birth record. But for the time being, the extant evidence makes it all but certain that the 1669 Samuel Jenner of Charlestown is not my Samuel Jenner and makes a strongly convincing case that the son of Richard and Hannah is my 7x-great-grandfather.

A Tale of Two Samuels

In my July 2, 2009 blog entitled "A Lamp Unto My Feet" I described how my grandmother's Jenner family Bible has led me to a number of wonderful genealogical discoveries in the past couple of years. It has also introduced me to several mysteries -- mysteries that have been both fascinating and frustrating to attempt to solve. The first of these great mysteries is the one I now call "A Tale of Two Samuels." It led us -- literally -- to the grave (pictured above) in Woodbury, Connecticut of Samuel Jenner, born circa 1650, died August 17, 1738.

In the family history section of my grandmother's Bible I found the following notation following the recorded birth information for my 5th-great-grandfather, Stephen Jenner: "Stephen was the son of Samuel and his father Samuel was born on the pasage [sic] to America." Reading this, we first believed that Samuel Jenner, father of Stephen Jenner, was our immigrant Jenner ancestor -- and he had actually been born while on the voyage to America! How cool was that?! But our excitement soon turned to befuddlement as we sought more information about Samuel Jenner.

A few hours of searching on Google and Ancestry.com soon provided a perplexing array of conflicting information:

1. Samuel Jenner had been born in 1669 in Charlestown, Massachusetts and died in 1738, or by some accounts in 1767, in Woodbury, Connecticut.


2. Samuel Jenner had been born in London, England around 1650 and died in Woodbury in 1738.


3. Samuel Jenner had been born in 1703 in Woodbury, Connecticut and died in 1767, or by some accounts in 1738.


4. Samuel Jenner had married Hannah Hinman in 1684 and had eight children -- with no Stephen among them.


5. Samuel Jenner had married Hannah Parmelee in 1728 and had 13 children -- with Stephen the last of them.

Over a period of weeks, my daughter and I sifted through a mindboggling collection of contradictory accounts. We found documentation of no less than five "Hannah Jenners" who might have been the wife of Samuel, with birthdates ranging from 1666 to 1732. We also uncovered five Samuel Jenners, but only three with plausible birthdates: 1650, 1669, and 1703. Those with birthdates 1739 or later simply couldn't have been the father of Stephen Jenner, who was born in 1749. Some of this information seemed highly authoritative, backed by the genealogical expertise of the Church of Latter-Day Saints no less, but most of it was based on no more than what we ourselves had: family folklore.

The process was immensely frustrating! I was frittering away night after night after night, often chasing a lead through the nightmarish labyrinth of the Internet for hours, only to reach another dead end -- and ultimately getting nowhere! Many nights I felt like Edgar Allan Poe, crying out in my despair, "Oh, the 'Net, 'Net, 'Net, what a torment has me beset!" instead of "Oh, the bells, bells, bells, what a tale their terror tells!" Several times I set the Samuel Jenner line of inquiry aside to concentrate on other branches of the family, only to come back to it a week or two later out of my compulsive resolve not to let it to get the better of me. It was maddening in the extreme, because it seemed so simple and straightforward on the surface, but was proving so difficult and convoluted in actuality.

But it was this very process that truly developed my understanding of genealogy. It revealed the patterns and traps into which so many erstwhile genealogists fall, as well as the reward that ultimately awaits those who remain steadfast and determined. And in the process it sealed my fate, dooming me to a fascination with genealogy.

Eventually, it dawned on me that this was a tale of two Samuel Jenners -- a father and son. I had been misreading the notation in my grandmother's Bible. What I had originally taken to mean, "Stephen was the son of Samuel and his [Stephen's] father Samuel was born on the pasage [sic] to America" turned out to mean, "Stephen was the son of Samuel and his [Samuel's; not Stephen's] father [also named] Samuel was born on the pasage [sic] to America." Once I grasped this distinction, the rest of the puzzle -- well, most of it, anyway -- fell into place.

Stephen Jenner was the son of Samuel Jenner II (1703 - 1767), who was the son of Samuel Jenner I (c. 1650 - 1738) , who was our immigrant Jenner ancestor. It would actually take several more months -- a topic for a separate entry that I will entitle "Who's Yo' Daddy?" -- to determine who the real parents of Samuel Jenner I were, and confirm that he and his mother (still another Hannah, for Pete's sake!) were the original immigrant Jenners in our family. But the mystery of the Samuels themselves was now solved, at last. In solving that mystery, I learned several valuable genealogical lessons:

1. Never assume that a specific name represents only one individual. Often, especially prior to 1800, several generations of ancestors will share a single name. In my case, there are at least four successive generations of John Baldwins and three of Geoffrey Dormers in the Jenner line alone! This false assumption led several sources to erroneously combine the lives of Samuel Jenners I and II into a single generation.


2. Never assume that an "authoritative source" has its facts straight. Not only did the LDS and many others have a considerable amount of erroneous information about Samuel Jenner in their records, but I later learned that even sources like Burke's Peerage contain occasional errors. Everything in genealogy has to be fact-checked -- even the experts!


3. Just because it's the "majority opinion" doesn't mean it's right! The majority of information about Samuel Jenner I in the genealogical record is actually wrong. Very wrong. I will post the details in "Who's Yo' Daddy?" This is a great lesson for life in general. The majority are followers; not leaders. So don't expect them to be right just because they are the majority.


4. Real genealogy isn't looking stuff up in record books and websites, then copying it by rote; it's genuine forensic science! It requires gathering evidence and and remaining skeptical while performing analysis, hypothesis testing, and both inductive and deductive reasoning. It resembles "CSI" or "Indiana Jones" much more than it resembles being a librarian or a county clerk -- and that's what got me hooked!

Blame It on Google!

On July 4th I wrote of my Revolutionary War hero ancestor, Stephen Jenner. It was the discovery that we had at least one ancestor who had fought in the American Revolution that truly sparked my interest in genealogy. Up to that point my interest had been more of a stubborn curiosity than a deeply rooted interest. I hate leaving loose ends, so I wanted to finish the project my daughter and I had started and discover who my immigrant ancestors had been and how and when they had come to America, even though the project itself had been submitted and graded months earlier.

In the earliest days of my research, my two main tools were Ancestry.com and Google. Each is a search engine with unique characteristics. Google searches a massive hodgepodge database consisting of every imaginable type of document or image, while the Ancestry.com database is limited to records directly related to genealogy. Both typically return hundreds or thousands of "hits" on a given name search, the majority of which are non-productive. So, one of the first lessons I learned in online genealogical research is how to narrow a search to produce fewer, but more relevant, search results. One of the simplest ways is to include the names of related family members with the target person's name to produce only the records of the target person or those with amazing coincidences. It was in performing such a search on Stephen Jenner that I made one of my most meaningful discoveries to date.

I had searched on Stephen Jenner plus his wife, Mary (Kirkham) Jenner, and eldest son, Timothy Jenner. This narrowed the search results only to those documents that contained all three of these names and thereby eliminated many Stephen Jenners to whom I am not related. One of the URLs listed within the first couple of pages on Google was link to a Google Book entitled, History of the Town of Pittsford, Vt., With Biographical Sketches and Family Records, by A. M. Caverly, MD. This book, written in 1872 by Dr. Caverly, who was then the town historian of Pittsford, had been out of print for over 100 years and was obscure even in its heyday. But, thanks to the miracle of Google Books -- a project to scan and archive millions of out-of-print books that began in 2005 -- it was now readily available and searchable online!

And in it I found the story of Stephen Jenner that I related in my post on July 4th.

The "Caverly," as I later learned genealogists refer to the book, is one of hundreds of similar local histories that were written by town historians all over the U.S. in the mid-19th century to memorialize the origins of their towns and the actions of the towns' founders. Each is a treasure-trove of vital information about the early settlers and prominent citizens of American towns and cities. The "Caverly" records that Stephen Jenner was one of the earliest settlers of Pittsford, Vermont. He arrived there with his new wife, Mary, in 1774, just five years after the town was first settled, with several other young families from Woodbury, Connecticut. The following year their first child, Timothy (my great-great-great-great-grandfather) was born there. After the war, he built one of the town's first sawmills, and by all accounts was a pillar of the budding community.

For the first time in my life history was something more than just a list of faceless names, places, and dates in a boring textbook. It was personal. It was family. The realization that my own ancestors had suffered and risked their lives to create our nation made history come alive for me in a way I had never appreciated before! And suddenly the issues in the 2008 election came into startlingly clear focus for me: politicians were making promises about whether to prop up or to tear down the principles and institutions that my ancestors had risked their lives to create and pass on to us.

This one discovery caused me to re-evaluate practically every political opinion I held. In addition, that single discovery ignited in me a desire to learn everything I could about the members of my own family who had risked and suffered -- and dared -- to create the country in which I live!

So, if you're tired of listening to me prattle on about my ancestors these days, don't blame me. Blame Google!

An American Hero

As I write this entry it is July 4th, 2009. I just finished celebrating the day with my daughter, elder son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. We had a lovely time, although little of our time together was spent in true reflection on the significance of this day. So it is fitting that this would be the day I post a tribute to a true American hero: my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Stephen Jenner.

Step back in time with me to July 7, 1777. It has been just over a year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Although the colonies are at war with England, it is a special day in the Jenner household. It is Timothy Jenner's 2nd birthday, but from the sound of it you would think it was the 4th of July. Pops, cracks, and booms have echoed through the little town of Pittsford, Vermont all day. But it's no celebration -- not for the 4th of July or little Timothy's birthday. The fireworks-like sounds are the sounds of real musket and cannon fire reverberating from the town of Hubbardton, Vermont, about 20 miles east of Pittsford. Late in the day exhausted colonists fleeing from Hubbardton brought the news to Pittsford: British forces under the command of Gen. Simon Fraser caught up with retreating colonial forces following their defeat at Fort Ticonderoga at the outskirts of Hubbardton. In the ensuing battle, the entire town was razed, killing some 300 men, women, and children. And now the British were headed toward Pittsford!

Upon receiving the news the townspeople went quickly to work, loading whatever possessions they could manage onto any available conveyance -- mostly horses and a few carts and wagons -- then burying everything they could not carry so that it could not be used by the British. After hours of hard labor, late in the night, a weary 28-year-old husband and father, Stephen Jenner, helped his wife, Mary -- pregnant with their second son, Asa -- onto their only horse, placed a sleeping Timothy (my great-great-great-great-grandfather) in her arms, and led them as quietly as possible out of town under the cover of darkness. I can only imagine how they must have prayed that no British scouts were watching the roads out of Pittsford that night!

Through the night, Stephen led his young family away from the advancing British toward the nearest place he hoped they would find refuge: Mary's birthplace, Stevenstown, Massachusetts (now Salisbury, NH). It was at least a 100 mile journey on foot, and they stopped to rest as seldom as possible since danger could be lurking all around them. They made it safely to Stevenstown. Asa was born in December, 1777 and the family probably remained in Stevenstown until he was at least a year old before returning to Pittsford.

In March, 1780 the British forces were again threatening the area. On March 23rd, the alarm was given and every able-bodied citizen took up arms to defend the town. Stephen Jenner grabbed his musket, shot, and powder and reported for duty in the company commanded by his neighbor and friend, Capt. Benjamin Cooley, in Col. Ebenezer Allen's Vermont Militia. The company patroled the area for five days, then returned without having encountered British forces.

As far as we can determine, Private Stephen Jenner never fired a shot in the American Revolution, but he is still an American hero because of his personal hardship and sacrifice for the cause of American independence and his willingness to risk his life in the service of that cause. Last month, my daughter and I visited the town of Pittsford and found the grave of Stephen Jenner. His headstone (pictured above) bears this inscription: "He was born and bred in Woodbury, CT. At 23 years of his age he came to this town and established his home for life. At 25 years of age he was married to Mary Kirkham of Stevenstown, NY whom he left a widow, he also left 6 sons and 4 daughters. At 33 he became a Baptist in which faith he lived and ever supported the general character of an honest Man." I would be honored if my descendants would write the equivalent of me!

When my daughter located Stephen Jenner's grave, I was surprised to see that someone had recently placed an American flag at his headstone. As I stood looking at his grave, I teared up at the thought that 200 years after his death someone still cared enough to accord him this honor. We were almost certain there were no Jenner descendants in the area who would have done so. After several inquiries, we finally learned that the local American Legion post maintains a roster of all war veterans buried in Pittsford and that every Memorial Day a local Boy Scout troop places the flags at their graves in honor of their service. I am deeply grateful to both organizations for honoring all of these American heroes!