Kettle of fish has turned into a bucket of …

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Pat Shaul

For some reason, I was just surfing on MyHeritage and decided to search for my great-great-great grandfather, Peter Koontz, the father of Ezra Peter Koontz. At least that was the story my grandmother had told me and she did not know about “Peter’s people”. I already had found that Gpa Peter used the name Baltzer Koontz when he married Elizabeth Derr on 22 June 1832. But searching for either Peter or Baltzer turned up Johann Balthasar Koontz who married Elizabeth Derr.

I had earlier tried to find an English equivalent for Baltzer and the nearest name was Peter. Now there was Johann Balthasar — Balthasar / Baltzer have a phonetic equalness. And the German tradition of naming all the male children Johann and using their call name to keep them apart made sense that he went by what we would assume was his middle name.

So, I now have 3 major research papers under way, along with the 3 books I am trying to research.

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A Fine Kettle of Fish …

Posted on May 28, 2023 by Pat Shaul

Not really anything fishy, it is just that I am getting dug in deaper and deaper into research projects. I was working on my Hotchkiss, Lee, Munn, Tilden project when I got to the part of the manuscript which is the end of the author’s Waters lineage. The text that followed was that he could not find any information on the ancestor other than his name as the father of Hezekiah Waters. So, I picked up the challenge, and created yet another research project titled, Who was Israel Waters. I have just started to do some looking and the status is pretty much as it was in the 1940s, not much. YET!

My other post about getting the book of the plat maps for Farmington Township where my GGG Grandfather, Horatio Lee, began to make an appearance in 1825 got a surpise. Also in Farmington Township, almost on the other side from Horatio’s land, was property assigned to Warham Lee. That is a name that has not shown up in any of my previous research. So, another spin-off project titled, Who was Warham Lee.

Then, of course, as I was researching the Hotchkiss … book, some of the sources I was pulling together to confirm information looked like they should also provide information on some of my other lines. And, of course, they did. I am not taking my “free” weekend to catch up my primary genealogy database from these newly found works. Today, was spent working on the Lane family that came to America in the 1630s. As I was working the information, I realized I was able to link one of the members to my Eames line that all I knew about the woman was that her married name was Lane. The two pieces of information connected an open end! Tomorrow I am going into the Lothrop family who arrived in the 1620s (just after the Mayflower voyages) and married into my Fuller ancestor.

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What a great find!

Posted on May 17, 2023 by Pat Shaul

Last night I was at the Farmington (Oakland Co, Michigan) Genealogy Society meeting where I picked up a couple of books offered from the bequest collection of Peter J. Schaldenbrand. See my most recent books tab for the full list.

The book in question is Land Owners Maps of Historical Farmington Township, Vol 1, 1822-1830 by Peter J, Schaldenbrand. Above is the hand drawn and labeled plat map for 1827. The lower left corner of Section 24 shows the 80 acres of land owned by Horatio Lee, my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather. In addition, it is noted that he held that parcel since 1825!

Also on this map, in section 8 & 9, I find Joseph Munn, the brother of Horatio’s wife, Hannah.

By 1830, section 24 has been fully allocated and Horatio is still there.

What is not covered is the actual town of Farmington where Horatio’s father, William Lee and mother Mary Summers Lee resided and William was the shoemaker for the village.

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Tea Time?

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Pat Shaul

The New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGR) – has started a new project called Boston Tea Party Participants. I started to look at the entries for known surnames that I was sure would have been in North America at that time. A result of my inquiry for the Sprague surname (see Sprague Project) was Samuel Sprague (1753-1844). I dropped everything and decided to see if he might be in my project database. He was not there. Luckily, I have a number of volumes on the Sprague family and have been able to connect him to my Tristram Sprague ancestor (my 11th Great-Grandfather, Samuel’s 4th Great-Grandfather).

My third cousin, 7 times removed, helped dump the tea in Boston Harbor!

Vintage illustration features the Boston Tea Party, a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of British tea into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists and a significant event that led to the American Revolution.
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Old, But Still in Use

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Pat Shaul

I have been working on my Hotchkiss, Lee, Munn, Tilden, and Other Related Families project and am now in the process of going back and adding in the author’s text. I had previously gone through the work and built the lineage into Family Tree Maker to understand what was being said.

In entering the text, I reacted to some of the situations that were called out in the text. Some of the ones were specific – Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary, Vol III, p 75 and another was more generic – History of Guilford.

I looked at my bookshelf and see the four-volume set of A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England by James Savage. OK, so I pulled Vol III and looked on page 75 and found the exact citation mentioned in the text which was written almost 90 years ago.

I also found History of Guilford, Conn. by Hon. Ralph D Smith on another of my shelves and there on page 194 was the item referenced. I will be adding the full quotation into my finished version.

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April Fools, Not.

Posted on April 1, 2023 by Pat Shaul

I have 19,936 individuals, 7774 families, in my database. Not one couple in that mass of Ancestor Pairs married on 1 April!

Update on the manuscript that I have been working to transcribe and update with currently available information – Hotchkiss, Lee, Munn, Tilden and Other Related Families. I believe I have determined the author based on the location and age of Horatio and Hannah Munn Lee’s grandchildren whom I determined must be the author based on the text included. Henry Waters Lee (1866-1941) seems to be the most likely candidate. Since the manuscript says it was A Project of the Farmington Genealogical Society, it means the current incarnation of that organization which was established in 1973 really has ancestry in the 1930-1940s.

#Lee #Munn #Hotchkiss #FarmingtonMichigan

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Well, this is a whole lot bigger than expected

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Pat Shaul

I had decided to go through all of my Thru Lines DNA matches on Ancestry to try to determine where each of those persons “fit” into my family. I made some progress by researching the lineages some of them posted and sending messages (via Ancestry messaging application – more on that, later). But there were a number of matches that needed more WORK! So, I went back through the diagrams (thank you Diahan Southard for the suggested method of putting the match lineages into Excel to be able to see the big picture!). Bottom line, I now have a list of 216 DNA matches to resolve.

Now 216 might seem to be a large task especially when one considers I did not go back any further than my great-great-great grandparents in Thru Lines. But the total population that Ancestry DNA now reports is 47,463 with 2,628 classified as 4th cousins or closer.

My research criteria are to only use actual documents that I will be able to cite as support to my linkage theory. These items include, birth, marriage, death records, census records, obituaries (one of my new favorites). As Dr. Deborah Abbott says in all of her lectures, when searching you need to hope the subject of your search is dead because the dead leave a better paper trail.

#ThruLines #DiahanSouthard #DeborahAbbott #DNA

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Happy Birthday, 10 Times Great Grandfather, Thomas Lawrence.

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Pat Shaul

So, on the 8th of March 1619 (404 years ago), my tenth great grandfather was born. Thomas Lawrence was just another entry in my long line of ancestors, or was he? Grandfather Lawrence has a special location in genealogy history / records. He is an approved (aka proven) gateway ancestor to the Emperor, Charles the Great (Charlemagne) of the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne was born in 747 and died in 814. This is the farthest back my lineage goes on any line. My tracing goes through his son, Pipin I, Richard II, Robert of Normandy (the father of William the Conqueror), down through Thomas’s line to Isaac Lawrence’s daughter, Rachel, who married John Jenks my 6th great grandfather. The line continues through my great- great-great grandmother, Esther Jenks, to my great grandmother Effie Clarissa Lee. My mother used to claim that her grandmother used to be very proud of the Lee name and helped both my mother and aunt in filling out genealogy projects for school in the 1930s. She actually created a link to the Lees of Virginia. It was those trees that I found in my grandparents’ attic at age 12 that got me hooked on genealogy. It took me years to find the actual link to the Lees of Connecticut, not Virginia. I wonder how Great Grandmother would have reacted to her line going back to Charlemagne?

That same Lee family line back through the Great Genandmother’s Grandmother Munn’s line led me to Mayflower passengers Edward and Samuel Fuller. She never knew.

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 Hotchkiss, Lee, Munn, Tilden and Other Related Families. – update

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Pat Shaul

Well, I have made it through 80 pages of the manuscript. So far, I have only a small glimpse as to how these families hang together. OK, I know the connections between the Hotchkiss, Lee, and Munn families, but I am still waiting for the Tilden link-in,

But, today, I was reviewing and transcribing the text relating to my Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Horatio Lee, and discovered a number of things. As a youth, he and some friends built a raft and sailed it down the Allegany River to the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and ended up in New Orleans. They sold the raft and got just about enough money to get back home to New York. He came to Michigan twice. The first time with his brother and his brother’s wife. They came overland in Canada. He then returned to New York, married Great Great Great Grandmother, Hannah Munn, and then took the Erie canal to Buffalo, got aboard a sailing ship and arrived in Detroit. Then, during the Toledo War, he was called up to serve by the Michigan Governor. And Toledo went to Ohio and Michigan got the Upper Peninsula – you are welcome UPers.

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Too Many Directions, Too Little Time, Too Many Bright Shiny Objects

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Pat Shaul

I have been trying to keep up my research into the validity of Ancestry’s Thru lines app, but it has taken many different directions and many lines to explore. On the upside, I have been successful in identifying a few of my DNA matches and placing them properly in my database. Some I am close to but they have made one or two generations above them private and each of those could be one of many siblings on each level. So, messages have been sent and hope will rise if anyone responds.

I have also been working on a manuscript I found in the Farmington, Oakland County Michigan library titled Hotchkiss, Lee, Munn, Tilden and Other Related Families. There is no author named. It does include the one-line notation: A project of The Farmington Genealogical Society of which I am a member. I have asked the longest serving members if they have any recollection of the manuscript. Nope, none. They referred me on to the Librarian who came up with the same response. The manuscript has entries going back to the 1600s. So, I have created a new tree in Ancestry and am building each noted person and relationships into that tree and use Ancestry to look up documents that either support or refute the assertions. This is very interesting as I am getting into ship passenger lists from the 1620s, and 1630s to verify those claims. More to come later.

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