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.

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.

Bethlehem Cemetery

My great grandparents, John Adam and Elizabeth Zaun, came to America from Germany in 1867.  I had heard of them, but knew nothing at all about them.  Last fall, I discovered online that they were buried in Bethlehem Cemetery in Richmond.  This was a surprise -  I  previously had no idea where they had lived or died.  Furthermore, it said the cemetery was on Penick Road.  That road was very familiar to me, as it was the street address of my great grandparents.  When I was growing up, my family made the pilgrimage to the little house on Penick Road to see "Nannie and Poppoo" about twice a year.  I wrote them letters regularly as a child, so the address was permanently forged in my memory.

In November 2013, my sister and her husband and I were on our way to a relative's birthday party in the Richmond area, so we decided to stop at the cemetery to see if we could find the graves.  It was a tiny cemetery and many of the stones were very old and illegible.  But as we searched, we found other ancestors' graves.  Everywhere we turned, it seemed, we saw another family name!  Powell, Abbott, Lukhard, Bryant, Zaun, Wright... we even found the graves of infants that we never knew existed.  I took pictures of all of their tombstones.

When I got home and uploaded the photos, I noticed an astonishing coincidence.  My photo of my great grandmother's grave, Ida Rene Abbott, was taken from the same angle as a photo taken in 1933, the day she was buried.  The same shot, 80 years apart! The church in the background looked the same.

In another old photo in my collection, my great great grandfather Jefferson Monroe Powell is standing next to a plaque honoring my great great grandmother Powell - I realized that this picture was taken at the same church.

Fast Facts

We have a double link to Roger Williams through the marriage of Samuel Godfrey and Patience Sabin whose mothers (both granddaughters of Roger Williams) were first cousins.  

Roger Williams, an anti-Puritan, was exiled from Massachusetts Bay Colony.  He survived in the wilderness by depending on the Indians.  He had an exceptional language ability and learned several Indian languages which he later wrote a book about.  He founded Providence Rhode Island and started the First Baptist Church in America.

Capt. Samuel Godfrey was one of the Sons of Liberty who took part in the famed Gaspee Affair, a fiery event in Rhode Island which was instrumental in sparking the American Revolution.

The Hickock/Hiccox/Hickok family is connected through Anna Dillingham Crofford.  Our ancestor, Hannah, was a 6^th cousin to Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok.

Joost Van Den Vondell was the “Shakespeare of the Netherlands” in the 1500’s.  His great great grandson came to America in the late 1700’s. (Later note: this connection is not definitively proven).

Charles Wesley Wandell b. 1819 was a missionary to Australia.  He wrote a letter in 1869 from White Pine, Nevada to his sister Miriam Olivia (our ancestor) saying that he was glad to hear that she was “coming west” by railroad and covered wagon.

Thomas Welles, 4^th Gov of CT – through Judd ancestry.  Was a first settler of Hartford, and is memorialized on a monument there. 

Orrin Judd was a well known preacher in Connecticut.  His scandalous divorce is documented in the newspaper of the time.  He wrote a translation of the New Testament Book of Matthew (look him up on Amazon).

Sarah L Wright married Whitfield Abbott – 2^nd marriage for both – both had been widowed.  Their child was George Wright Abbott, a carpenter, who became my great grandfather.  Sarah was then widowed again at age 36.  Sarah’s mother was born in Ireland.