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!

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.