Georgia Ella Powell and Census Issues (resolved)

My great grandmother Georgia Ella Powell (Nannie) married John Adam Zaun (Poppoo) in 1903.  She had five children: Pauline, Bill, Ernie (my grandfather), Jimmy, and Agnes.

Georgia Ella Powell > Ernest Earl Zaun > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin

I have vivid memories of my great grandparents and great aunts and uncles in Richmond. My father was deeply attached to his relatives in Richmond and we would make at least one or two trips a year to visit family.  I knew my second and third cousins as well as most people know their first cousins!  But there were no children our age around when we visited Nannie.  While the adults sat and talked in the stuffy little house on Penick Road, my sister and I would wander around outside looking at the fish pond and all the cement animals in the yard (chickens, squirrels, frogs, etc.), or  we would run up and down the white board fence with the playful palimino pony across the road.  In the house, there were a few old toys - an ancient iron canon that was my father's childhood toy, a grotesque grinning rubber frog, and a beautiful cloth doll that became a black mammy when her skirt was flipped upside down.  Not much for children to do there, so we had to work hard to entertain ourselves.  I don't remember eating or drinking anything while we were there either - I can't imagine children of today enduring such a visit!

Visit with Nannie at Aggie's house, December 1964

[Click Here] to read a previous post and view photos of the house on Penick Road.

I am so thankful that even as a child, I had the presence of mind to talk with Nannie about her family, and to get information for our family tree.  I remember her lying in bed with tears streaming down her face because she could not recall a brother's birthday, or the name of a sibling who died shortly after birth.  I wrote all of her information on a cardboard family tree which I still have.

In researching the Zaun family on Ancestry, it is easy to confirm the name and dates of people because I knew them personally. However, a curious detail has come from my research.  In the 1930 census, it says that Georgia was born in Iowa.  IOWA?  I can find no documentation of her parents ever living in Iowa. Furthermore, the 1930 census is inconsistent, showing Iowa as the birthplace of Georgia on her record and on Pauline's, but shows her birthplace as Virginia in the records of her other children, Ernie, Bill, Jimmy, and Agnes.

1930 Census:  John A. Zaun, Georgia E., Pauline, John A. Jr., Agnes, Jefferson M. Powell; boarder, Johnson Campbell.
Above, see: Earnest Zaun (my grandfather), Jacqueline, and John B., age  3 mos.

The 1920 census consistently names Iowa as her birthplace in all the individual records for her and her children:

1920 Census:  Adam J. Zaun (he was called Adam), Georgia E., Pauline W., William J., Ernest E., John A. Jr., Georgia A. (Agnes) 

Could two different census takers 10 years apart be wrong?  The 1930 census information could be dismissed because of inconsistencies, but the 1920 census is clear.  If the information is incorrect, why would both documents contain the same error?  But unless I find another kind of proof, I have to conclude both census documents are incorrect.  The 1940 census gives Virginia as her birthplace:

1940 Census:  John A. Zaun, Georgia, John A. Jr.

Evidence proves that her parents, Jefferson Monroe and Marie Louise Powell, lived in Richmond in 1880 and again in 1893, but I can find no record for Georgia's birth year, 1885.  It seems highly unlikely that Jefferson and Marie would go briefly to Iowa and have a child, then return to have their other children in Virginia... DRUM ROLL.... but they did!

UPDATE! July 11, 2015:  In Marie Louise Powell's obituary, which I just obtained from a cousin on Ancestry, it says that the Powells lived for a brief time in the Valley of Virginia and in the "Middle West!"
So an Iowa birthplace for Georgia Ella Powell now makes sense.

Fort Lee, New Jersey

My Aunt Teeny gave me a framed picture that had been sent to her mother years ago.  It was a sepia-toned picture of an old Episcopal church. Under the picture it said, "Episcopal Church Parker Avenue, Fort Lee, N. J."  She supposed it was the Abbott family's church and wondered if it would help me with my research. 

[Bonnie Abbott Bryant and May Abbott Cowan, half sisters of George Wright Abbott: George Wright Abbott > Jacqueline D. Abbott > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin]

I first had to find out the name of the church.  I did a search on Google maps of Episcopal churches in Fort Lee, and there was only one that possibly fit our family's location in the city.  But this church was on Palisades Avenue, and it was much larger.  Hmmm.  I zoomed in and looked around a little in street view and discovered that there was a Parker Avenue that ran parallel to Palisades behind the church.  A closer inspection found that the larger part of the building facing Palisades has been added onto the original smaller building facing Parker.  Bingo!  It was called the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Then, on a whim, I lifted up the corner of the picture and to my surprise found that it was a postcard!  There was writing on it too... it was a message sent to my great great Aunt Rebecca "Bonnie" Abbott Bryant from her sister May in 1917.  Rebecca's grandson Matt is one of my newfound cousins on Ancestry, so I wrote to him about the postcard.  Very cool.  He told me that it was May's grandson, Ray Eggers, Jr., who compiled most of the Abbott family genealogy back in the days when it took a lot of years of traveling to get information.  Coincidentally, I am in possession of all of Mr. Eggers' correspondence with my Aunt Miriam.

I've been wondering how the Bryants and Abbotts met each other.  The Abbott family were well known piano makers in Fort Lee.  Charles Bryant from Virginia became a piano dealer in Fort Lee.  Rebecca Abbott married Charles' brother William Bryant.  Charles' sister Ida - my great grandmother - married Rebecca's half brother George Abbott.  Did they meet through the piano business or did they meet in that little church on Parker Avenue?  Who met who first? (Later I learned that William Bryant had taken the new railroad to NJ from Southampton, Va. to find work, and met Bonnie Abbott, a coworker in a hat factory in Fort Lee. That was probably the first Bryant-Abbott connection). 

I bought a book from Amazon called Music in New Jersey, 1655 - 1860.  I was hoping it would answer these questions, but it included only a couple of pages about the Abbott Piano Factory.  Still, very interesting. Post Script: I gifted the book to Matt and Natalka Weismantel.

Asking the Right Questions

erroneous obit

I had reached a stalemate with my family tree - sketchy details with lots of contradictions and unclear relationships.  I started asking questions, and writing them down.  I identified potential sources of information and tested them out. Answering one question led to three more questions.  I am filling up a notebook with questions!  My notebook has tables, and charts, and maps, and lists... organizing the information in a variety of configurations brings up even more questions.  This strategy has given my research such a giant boost, I can't keep up with all the information I'm digging up!

I started with my simplest question:  Was my great grandfather, George Wright Abbott, the son of Gertrude or Sarah?  Records showed Sarah was his mother, but his obituary named Gertrude (his father's first wife).  I knew Gramp Abbott lived with his daughter Miriam when he died - surely she would have known the identity of his mother?  My potential source:  Aunt Teeny (Miriam's daughter).  When I asked, Teeny told me that her mother Miriam had collapsed when Gramp died and was barely able to function much less write an obituary, so the people at Bliley's Funeral Home wrote it.  So there it is:  the obituary is wrong because strangers wrote it.  Mystery solved.  I am confident in saying that Sarah was his mother.

Another question:  Who was Ida Rene's mysterious first husband?  As far as anyone in the family knew, my great grandmother Ida was married only twice - to William B Butler and to George W Abbott. However, the transcription of her marriage record to William Butler gave her name as "Ida Rena [Bryant] Williams."  So who was this Williams guy?  Also, curiously, Ida and William Butler were married in Princess Anne County, though her family was from Southhampton County.  How did she end up in Princess Anne County? This question took me on an adventure to unexpected places.

from Wikipedia:  Princess Anne County in 1895

I decided that the key was with Ida's twin sister Addie.  I started following tangents on her life.  Addie's grandson Charlie Fletcher told me years ago that the family once lived in Princess Anne County, in the Blackwater area.  So maybe this was the connection to the Williams fellow?  Another Ancestry researcher wrote that Eley Bryant, Ida and Addie's father, farmed the "Land of Promise Plantation" in Princess Anne County.  A search on Google maps proved that Land of Promise Road intersects Blackwater Road in what is now Virginia Beach.  This researcher also wrote that Eley was Southern Baptist - the nearest baptist church at the time was located at the corner of Princess Anne Road and....drum roll....Williams Farm Road. Williams?! Could this be the family?  My mother used to buy vegetables from Williams Farm when I was little.  I still haven't identified Ida's first husband, but I'm getting warmer.  The next step is to search the church's records or the Virginia Beach Courthouse records.

Land of Promise-Blackwater - still mostly farms

The Addie tangent led to answers to other questions that I wasn't even asking.  I discovered that she and Blucher moved to Ocean View by 1930.  She and her mentally disabled adult daughter Ruth lived in the same boarding house on Peachtree Street as her son Blucher, his wife Catherine, and their sons Phillip and Charles. This possibly explains why my grandfather Ernie moved from Richmond to Ocean View when he came to Norfolk to look for work - he briefly lived in a boarding house near Addie.  It also ties in with Charlie Fletcher's stories about growing up in Ocean View and remembering my grandfather there.

This tangent led to yet another discovery, one that has been haunting me ever since my son Adam bought a house on Newport Avenue in Norfolk.  Which house on Newport Avenue did my dad live in as a boy? In a search for my grandfather Ernie's address in Ocean View, I stumbled on his address on Newport Ave in a 1952 city directory - there it was - 4306.

"Gramp" standing in front of 4306 Newport Ave in 1954.

4306 Newport Ave today

Chaucer (originally posted in Feb 2015)

My 18th great grandmother, Kathryn de Roet Swynford, was the wife of John I Plantagenet and sister in law of Geoffrey Chaucer, the "father of English Literature."  There have been other English ancestors that have gotten me excited, but this one blew me away.  My passion has been English Literature since high school because of an inspiring teacher, Mrs. Comstock.  She was the reason I became an English major in college. I loved studying Chaucer so much in college that I took every single course taught by Chaucer scholar, Dr. Rosemary Sprague.  I even learned Middle English so I could read Chaucer's works in the original language. I had a strong drive to know everything about that time period.  I know the line of descent is not direct, but still... any connection at all is amazing.

Kathryn Swynford is an ancestor through my paternal great grandmother, Georgia Powell.

Postscript: Tragically, the beloved Dr. Sprague died in her bed during a fire at her old Victorian home in Farmville, Va. I own one of her books, and still remember her fondly.

King Edward III

We are direct descendants of King Edward III of England and his wife, Philippa of Hainault, through their son, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster.  Edward was born at Windsor Castle in 1312.  He became King at age 14 (1327) and reigned until his death in 1377.  He created the Duchy of Cornwall and founded the Order of the Garter.  He was a good king and an excellent military leader who led England into the Hundred Years War with France.

This might seem like an impressive claim... however, Edward had twelve children with Philippa, plus at least three more by his mistress Alice Perrers.  A genealogist from the UK calculated the probabilities and came to this conclusion:
There is an extremely high probability that a modern English person with predominantly English ancestry descends from Edward III, at a very minimum over 99%, and more likely very close to 100%. The number of descendants of Edward III must therefore include nearly all of the population of England, and probably much of the populations of the rest of the UK and Eire, as well as many millions in the USA, former British colonies and Europe, so 100 million seems a conservative estimate. 

The special thing about this claim is that I have traced our ancestry back to England in the 1200's through my father's maternal grandmother, Georgia Powell.  Her ninth great grandfather Judd married Katherine Norwood whose maternal line goes back another nine generations to Edward III.

Abbott & Sons Piano Factory, Fort Lee, NJ

Here are some bits and pieces of information about the Abbott Family Piano Company in New Jersey sent to me by Matthew Weismantel, great great grandson of Whitfield Barrie Abbott (which makes him my 3rd cousin):

Bryants and Abbots
My (Matthew's) Grandmother was Margaret Weismantel nee' BRYANT whose mother was Rebecca Godfrey Curtis Bryant nee' Abbott (daughter of Whitfield Barry ABBOTT & Gertude CLAYTON) and whose father was William Thomas BRYANT (son of Eley BRYANT and Margaret COBB). The Abbotts started in America John C. ABBOTT (1809-1898) who manufactured pianos both in NYC and Fort Lee, NJ.

• Born in London in about 1815, John Abbott immigrated to New York with his brothers James, Nathaniel, Abiel, and William to manufacture pianos. John Abbott first apprenticed with the firm of R & W Nunns. He opened his first shop in 1835, at only twenty years of age, at 66 Walker Street in New York City. His pianos were exhibited at The American Institute Fair in both 1835 and 1836, and they were awarded medals at both exhibitions. Abbott quickly gained popularity and a stellar reputation for his instruments. It seems that John Abbott went into general business and left the piano industry before 1850. His brothers James Abbott and William Abbott continued building action parts for pianos in New Jersey under the name of Abbott & Sons.

• In Spillane’s History of the American Piano-Forte, published in 1890: “John Abbott, a graduate from the shop of R&W Nunns, began business at 66 Walker Street, NY in 1832, and became very successful immediately from the standpoint of making reputable instruments. In 1835 John Abbott took the gold medal at the Mechanic’s Institute for a piano-forte which won special mention. In 1836 he moved to 267 Bowery. Mr. Abbott exhibited a grand piano in this year which won the second premium at the Mechanic’s Institute. This clever piano make is yet living and is a member of a family whose connections with the trade has been of long standing. James Abbott of Abbott and Sons, is a brother and was connected with him in 1833 when he began business on Walker St., and is the youngest of the Abbott Family of piano makers.”

• ABBOTT. London-born makers in New York, NYand Fort Lee, NJ. John Abbott (b. London, 1815-d. after 1890) apprenticed with R&W Nunns in New York; in 1832 he opened a workshop at 66 Walker Street (Spillane). Spillane reported that John Abbott won a gold medal for one of his pianos at the American Mechanics’ Institute Fair in 1835, and the following year he won a silver medal for a horizontal, not square, grand piano. In 1836 his address was 267 Bowery. Abbott apparently opened the firm of Abbott & Sons in Fort Lee, NJ, possibly as early as 1836; although the date is uncertain, he is known to have been working in New Jersey by 1839. http://antiquepianoshop.com/online-museum/abbott/

• John had three brothers, all of whom were active as piano makers, Nathaniel B. Abbott was listed as a maker during the 1840's, but later he turned to other occupations; he became first a policeman, then a carpenter. James Abbott (b London, 1825) worked with his brother John in 1833 on Walker Street in New York and in the firm of Abbott & Sons about 1839 in Fort Lee. James lived at a hotel owned by John in Hackensack, NJ; he was active in the business until 1860, according to Kaufman. William Abbott (b. London, 1816-d 1889) also worked with John in Fort Lee in 1850. Abiel, another brother, operated during that year a piano dealership in NY; he lived in Jersey City. Spillane state that all four of the Abbott brothers were trained at R & W Nunns.

• It is my (Sylvia Abbott) impression that the Abbott family was a large one and branched out to perhaps many other states. I have no records of this. My ancestor, James, had a small piano making business in Edgewater, bought property in Fort Lee in 1850 where piano actions were made in his home. In 1872 Abbott Piano Factory opened off Lemoine Ave. In 1953 the building was sold and has since been torn down to make way for the new Port Authority Building on South Marginal Rd.

• According to Margaret Weismantel, John C. Abbott died pushing Bonnie Cowen up a flight of stairs in a baby carriage. Now that I have dates for his death in Dec 1898 and Bonnie Cowen's birth in August 1895 this certainly plausible.

Charles Bryant, a "dapper fellow"
On another note, from Matthew Weismantel: "My aunt has been asking me if I have any information about a Mariah BRYANT who she remembers owning a boarding house in Ocean Grove, NJ. The only Mariah I have come across was in your photo on-line with Charles Bryant.

l to r:  Mariah, Ida Rene Abbott, Addie Fletcher, and Charles Bryant.
Possibly taken on the occasion of Charles and Mariah's wedding? This photo had to have been taken around 1910, which is after their mother Margaret died on a train... after "the rift." 

My aunt later remembered that there was a Charles Bryant who was married to a Mariah and owned a piano store on Broad Street in Newark, NJ -- strange since it was the Abbotts who owned a piano factory.

We will never be Royals

... but we were so close!  the English are so much better at documenting their lineages.  Once I am able to connect our family tree to someone in England, the research is a piece of cake.  There are Knights, Lords and Ladies, Crusaders, Consorts, Castles, and a direct (albeit illegitimate) link to Royalty in our ancestry. There was even a beheading!

Elizabeth Fitzhugh Vaux, Lady of Ravensworth, my 14th great grandmother on my paternal side, was the grandmother of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.  The Vaux family were created barons by Henry VIII in 1523.

Ruins of Ravensworth Castle

Her husband Nicholas, my paternal 14th great grandfather, was the Baron of Harrowden; his grandfather was a Knight.

Harrowden Hall, now the Wellingborough Golf Club

Sir George Throckmorton, my paternal 13th great grandfather, was the Lord and Knight of Coughton.
His son, Sir Robert, was the High Sheriff of Warwick.

My paternal 12th great grandmother was Muriel Berkeley of Berkeley Castle.

Berkeley Castle

Audrey Barlow, my paternal 9th great grandmother, was a descendent of Henry II of England by his mistress Ida De Tony.

Audrey Barlow, also the ancestor of Sarah Palin, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter.

My maternal 14th great grandfather, Sir Ieuan "Evan" Bushe, was descended from Welsh royalty and was in a long line of Knights and Ladies, and his issue married into families of Lords and Ladies such as Fernfould and L'Strange. According to Wikipedia, he was a renowned poet.

Ieuan wrote about 50 poems.  His love poems are considered to be his best work.

Sir William Carter of Hertfordshire, my maternal 13th great grandfather, married Lady Alice Croxton of Watford; his parents were the Lord and Lady of Cusworth.

Cusworth Hall, now a country house museum

Lord William Ravenscroft of Croxton (maternal 14th great grandfather), father of Lady Alice.

Croxton Abbey

My maternal 16th great grandfather, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, was beheaded in 1460 after the Battle of Wakefield.

Richard Neville effigy

Others direct ancestors include:
Sir John Anstell (maternal 13th great grandfather) of Cornwall

Cornwall

Sir John Wright, maternal 15th great grandfather, Lord Kelvedon

St. Mary the Virgin Church, Kelvedon, Essex

Perhaps, most famously of all, John Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Lancaster, maternal 18th great grandfather

John of "Gaunt" (born in Ghent), 1st Duke of Lancaster

Kenilworth Castle, modernized by John of Gaunt after 1350.

So, that is the extent of my knowledge of our English bloodlines to date.  I remember learning about some of these people in my history and English Literature classes.

Congruent Maternal/Paternal lines

I have discovered additional convincing evidence that my father's and mother's ancestors knew each other long, long ago.

In 1652 my paternal 9th great grandfather Thomas Judd was one of seven founders of the Church of Christ in Farmington, CT, and was a pillar of the church until his death in 1688.  His children and grandchildren were baptized there.

Samuel and Hannah Hickok, my maternal 8th great grandparents, were members of the congregation at the same time and their children were also baptized there.

There were only 84 proprietors of town of Farmington at the time.

Detailed church records can be seen here.

From the church website > click here.

From the Farmington Historical Society:

George Washington, who traveled through town in 1780 and 1781, is said to have called Farmington "the village of pretty houses." And when the French army, commanded by the Comte de Rochambeau, camped in town in 1781, an officer wrote, "This town contains some of the handsomest houses and best people in America."

Our Women

This journey can get emotional.  Because of technology, multiple stunning revelations can happen in a very short period of time and create a profound and heartfelt appreciation for the lives of  2nd, 3rd... even 9th and 10th great grandparents that I'd never even heard of before.  These direct ancestors were very real people who lived in houses that I can see up close on my computer.  They loved, and married, and had children, many of whom died at a young age.  Some died in childbirth.  Some women were helpmates to husbands who were prominent leaders in their towns, churches, businesses, cities, states or military.  Others were leaders in their own right, in classrooms, newsrooms, publishing, inventing, and professional careers long before it was fashionable for women to do these things. Some women traveled across the country in a covered wagon and had to defend their homes from Indian attacks.  Some sent their men off to war - French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Mexican War, Wars against Cherokees, Apaches, Lakota Sioux, and other Indian nations, ...WWI and WWII.  Women carefully recorded births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths in their family Bibles.  Some had husbands who had affairs and broke their hearts; I just found out last night that my 3rd great grandmother had her three children taken away from her by her ex-husband. This woman was my Nanny Zaun's grandmother.

It was a nostalgic moment last night when I discovered the address of my Nanny Zaun's home.  We had looked for the house last fall but could not identify it which was distressing to me and to my sister.  We drove up and down the street several times looking for a familiar house.  We finally concluded that it had probably been torn down.  Last night I stumbled on the house number in an old city directory and looked it up on Google Maps.  It took a minute, but soon it was all clear.  The memories came flooding back.  The house is pretty much the same... the yard is more neatly manicured now and the concrete animal sculptures and benches are gone.  There is a garage where the fish pond used to be.  The fenced area across the street where we used to visit the playful palomino is still there but no horse.  Here are some snapshots from the satellite photos:

At the corner of Penick and Fernwood

The reason we had trouble identifying the house last fall is because as children we always came into the house from this side entrance on Fernwood.  We never used the front door on Penick Rd.  

Holly and I spent many long boring hours wandering outside while the adults visited.  The most interesting thing to do was watch the goldfish in the pond right here.  This yard was more overgrown with grass and trees then.  It seemed much bigger than it looks here.  My great grandfather's business was concrete statuary and garden ornaments, so the yard was full of concrete chickens, squirrels, and turtles.

View of the horse's yard across the corner.  The little palomino loved company and would run up and down the fence playing with us.

Entire family at the Zaun house on Penick Road, circa 1953.  Virginia and John Zaun, Joe and Gail Watson, unknown couple. 

This couch backed up to the front window on the Penick Rd. side of the house. My dad and mom (before kids) sitting there with a cousin.  This is where they sat and visited with Nanny and Poppoo for hours and hours on our biannual trips to Richmond.  Mom asked for some of Nanny's glass figurines when she died - the ones behind the lace curtain in the window - but all she got was a box of mason jars.

The picture of the little girl on the steps with a collie was a favorite of mine.  The girl looked like Shirley Temple.  Wonder what became of it?  The portrait in the back room was of Nanny's grand? great? grandmother.  I remember that she looked like me.  That portrait was the only thing I wanted of Nanny's when she died, but some evil step-aunt got hold of everything. Nanny and Poppoo had a small but strange assortment of antique toys that she kept by the hearth - a cannon, a grotesque bullfrog, and a pickaninny doll that had two heads, one black and one white.  I treasure the items that I inherited - Poppoo's tobacco cannister and jar for matches.  The tobacco lid is worn from his gnarled hand caressing it as he sat in his big leather chair and smoked his pipe.

50th wedding anniversary.
I now have the picture frame shown above their heads.  Dad discovered a hidden portrait of four year old Nanny behind the picture in the frame.

In the yard by the pond.  On a concrete bench, of course.

Illustrious ancestors from the Colonies

There are so many significant persons in our ancestry that it has become tedium to sift through all of the documents and photos.  I find myself wishing that there was a simple way to present the lineage from all parents in a visual way to show how they are interconnected in history.  My mother and father's ancestors surely knew each other.  There just weren't that many people around at that time!  Ancestors from both sides played prominent roles in the founding and leadership of places such as Hartford, New Haven, and Providence.  Sometimes their names are juxtaposed on monuments or in graveyards.

Here is one monument that features several names of our direct ancestors, located in Hartford Connecticut.

Thomas Welles (10th great grandfather - paternal), John Bidwell (9th great grandfather - paternal), John Hopkins (7th great grandfather - maternal), Thomas Judd (9th great grandfather - paternal)

A list of names on the monument:  http://josfamilyhistory.com/stories/founders-monument.htm

The Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford

The Founders of Hartford

The original Founders Monument is located in the Ancient Burying Ground, also sometimes referred to at the "Old" or "Center" Cemetery. The cemetery is located at the rear of the First Congregational ("Center") Church at the corner of Main and Gold Streets in Hartford. The original brownstone Monument erected in 1837 was replaced by one of pink Connecticut granite in 1986. The Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford maintains a list of names found on the new monument and biographical information about each of the Founders.

The Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford maintains a list of names found on the new monument and biographical information about each of the Founders. Those descended from an ancestor who settled in Hartford before February 1640, may be eligible for membership.   http://www.ctstatelibrary.org/node/3531

Henry Plantagenet, Sarah Palin, and Me

We share a line of ancestry with Sarah Palin apparently.  We are mutually descended from Audrey Barlow who was descended from Henry II (1133 –1189) by way of his mistress, Ida De Tony.

Audrey Barlow (paternal 9th great grandmother)
m.
William Almy, Colony assessor for Portsmouth, MA

Also descended from Audrey are former presidents, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. 

Major John Greene (Abbott > Whitfield > Godfrey > Greene)

• With his father, surgeon John Greene, purchased land from Indian Chief Miontonomi in 1642 and called it "Greene's Hold" alias Occupasituxet
• Built a corn mill with three others in Warwick, RI, 1651
• General Record keeper for the town, 1652-54
• Commissioner 1652-63
• Deputy for Newport to the RI General Court 1679-1690
• General Solicitor in 1655
• Attorney General in 1657-1660
• Warden, 1658
• Commissioned Captain 1664
• Agent to the king in England to discuss the RI Charter, 1670
• Governor's Council 1683
• Major of the Main 1683-96
• Agent for RI to the King of England 1685-87
• Sent a letter of congratulations to the throne (William & Mary) 1690
• Deputy Governor of RI 1690-1700

Archaeology site:  http://proteus.brown.edu/greenefarm/Home
"Five generations of Greenes owned the estate until 1782, when John Brown (1736-1803, a wealthy, powerful Providence merchant and co-founder of Brown University, bought it.  the farm was then worked by tenant farmers, and the Brown family used it as a country retreat.  Brown's grandson, Governor John Brown Francis (1791-1864), returned to the property, where he and his descendants remain today."

Screen capture of the site of Greene Hold from 2014 Google Maps.
Major John Greene is buried in Spring Greene Burial Ground, the family plot on the homestead. 

New Jersey

Some of our ancestors were early colonists, but many came to America just a few generations ago from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. So it is no surprise that our lineage can be traced back to the area in and around New York City.

Fort Lee, NJ keeps coming up as a common place of origin, particularly on my father's side.  Thomas Whitfield came from England, married Betsy Godfrey from Providence RI, and settled in New York.  Their daughter Sarah married John Abbott from Newark, NJ.  The Abbotts' son Whitfield married Sadie Wright from Brooklyn and settled in Fort Lee. Their son, my great grandfather, George Abbott, was born there.

Orrin Bishop Judd, my dad's paternal ancestor from Hartford, Connecticut, lived in Brooklyn at different times in his life and married Elizabeth MacDonald from Bronx, NY.  My mother's great grandmother, Miriam Olivia Wandell, was born in Brooklyn of parents with a Dutch heritage.

I have always felt a draw to that part of the world, especially to Long Island and Rhode Island.  Never thought much about New Jersey, but it's looking more and more interesting now.

New Haven, Connecticut

I have traced several branches of our family tree back to New Haven during colonial times.

Capt. Daniel Hall, my maternal 7th great grandfather, lived in nearby Wallingford with his wife Thankful Lyman from Middletown, CT.  Abraham Hall, my 6th great grandfather, lived in New Haven with his wife, Sarah Doolittle. Abraham is buried in Center Street Cemetery, Wallingford, which is close to Doolittle Park.

Capt. Daniel Hall > Abraham Hall > Medad Hall > Elisha Hall > Alfred King Hall > Andrew A. Hall > Ada C. Hall > Horace C. Crofford > Virginia M. Crofford > Teresa Zaun Austin

John Hopkins, my 7th great grandfather (maternal), operated a grist mill in New Haven built by his father Stephen Hopkins of Hartford.

Lt. John Hopkins > Mary Hopkins > Abraham Hickcox > Jared Hickcox > Hannah Hickcox > Anna Dillingham > Horace C. Crofford > Horace C. Crofford > Virginia M. Crofford > Teresa Zaun Austin

Some of our ancestors, both maternal and paternal, are buried in a famous graveyard on what is now called, "Center Church on the Green."  The original cemetery is gone, but many of the gravestones are preserved underneath the church building.
http://www.newhavencenterchurch.org/history.html

I will add the names of our ancestors buried there as I discover them.

From my maternal grandfather's lineage:

Eleazer Brown 1642 - 1714 (my 8th great grandfather)

Sarah Buckley Brown 1640-1723 (my 8th great grandmother)

From my paternal grandfather's lineage:

Nathaniel Bradley 1661-1745 (my 7th great grandfather)

Ruth Dickerman Bradley 1668-1725 (my 7th great grandmother)

Alice Prichard Bradley 1625-1692 (my 8th great grandmother)

Plain brown wrapper

I received a mysterious package in the mail today from Aunt Teeny.  It was a thick packet of papers, but was addressed to "Leah & John" at my address.  So I called Aunt Teeny and she said that she had found a pile of genealogy papers and put them in the mail for me.  No clue why it said Leah & John.  When I opened it, it appeared to be a random assortment of letters and old typewritten documents.  On closer inspection, I realized that it was years of correspondence between Aunt Miriam and Uncle Herman and a relative in New Jersey named Ray Eggers.  Mr. Eggers had spent years doing research on the family and had published books about it.  He was particularly determined to prove the link with Roger Williams. He did it the old fashioned way, by traveling all over the Northeast doing research using primary documents.   It took more than a decade, but he finally accomplished his mission.

As I scanned the documents to post online, it occurred to me that Ray Eggers was probably a source for the Weismantel family Ancestry research as well.  I have been communicating with Matt Weismantel through Ancestry over the last year.  Ray's connection with Marge Weismantel was the source of many photos and documents, as well as the Bryant family Bible, all of which had already been shared with me by Matt.  We are all descendants of Roger Williams through the Abbott line.  

All of Ray's work and correspondence is now posted in Google Docs and has been shared with my fellow Ancestry researchers.

May Abbott Cowan, half sister of George Wright Abbott > Bonnie F. Cowan > Raymond F. Eggers.
[George Wright Abbott > Jacqueline D. Abbott > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin]

In talking with Aunt Teeny this afternoon, more stories came out about the Butler family.  She said that Rawley Martin Butler came home from WWI with syphilis.  He came to live with the Lukhards when Junior (Herman, Jr.) and Dee (Rawley) were young and shared a bed with the boys until the syphilis was discovered. Rawley's wife Hilda divorced him and he eventually died of it in 1944.  Rawley's grandson questions some of these details, however, because Rawley and Hilda had two children in the 20's and she lived to a ripe old age.  He also said that Rawley had been known to have a gambling problem and had lost the family home which could very well have been a reason for the divorce.  The chronology of this story doesn't exactly make sense, but either way, it's a very sad situation.

We're all related...

It is so exciting to find people on Ancestry who share the same relatives.  Email exchanges between one of these newfound cousins has spiced up my research lately!  We share the same great grandmother, but he is a descendant of her first husband and I am from her second.  We have worked together through emails to solve some of the puzzles in our family tree, particularly regarding the Butlers (who are not related to me, but were close to my grandmother).

We knew that William Butler was an engineer and that he and Ida Rene lived in Lynchburg.  Another relative on Ancestry documented William's middle name as "Brown", but we have found no proof of that... yet.  If it is Brown, then there is a 1904 gravestone in Lynchburg that matches his information.  Closer inspection of a census document showed the abbreviations "Cabell, Rmt" and "So Ry".  Curious!  I googled "So Ry" and came up with Southern Railway... he was a TRAIN engineer!  The time and place made perfect sense.  I pulled up Google maps and found Cabell Street in Lynchburg... as I followed it by satellite view through the city, it crossed a main roadway called Rivermont  ("Rmt").  They must have lived at or near that intersection.  These leaps and bounds of discovery took less than five minutes!  So now I am going back and looking more closely at all of the census documents for everyone in my tree, searching for clues that I might have missed.

I spoke with my "Aunt Teeny" (Miriam Vaughan) and asked her what she knew about the Butlers.  She did not know much, but promised to contact some people who would know.  I also realize the urgency to interview certain older folks while they are still around, like Charlie Fletcher who is descended from Ida's twin, Addie.  Interesting that both Ida and Addie married men who were twenty years older than they were.  Both of these women had powerful, far-reaching influence in the family... makes me want to find out more.

Places

I would love to plan a trip itinerary based on the principal locations that my ancestors lived.

New England

Providence, RI, and Newport
Hartford and New Haven, CT
Fort Lee, NJ
Barnstable, MA
Buffalo Gap, SD
Liberty, IN
Lancaster, NE
Fort Lincoln, ND
Newcastle, WY
Hancock, IL
Hampshire, UK
Cornwall, UK
Salisbury, UK
Isle of Wight,  UK

Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Illinois

Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Cornwall, Salisbury

Ok, so I threw in Salisbury.  Who knows, we probably have Druids in our ancestry somewhere....  [PS just found out (2/8/14) that my 8th great grandfather John Greene was born in Salisbury, and we have deep royal roots there.]

One more place:  Berkley Castle, Gloucester is the birthplace of my 12th great grandmother Muriel Berkley, 1516-1543