Old Family Is Old
As of today, I have traced my father's family back nine generations to Patrick Fassett (b. 1628 in Scotland, d. 07 Nov 1713 in Billerica, Mass.) and my mother's family (following her father's surname, Morford) back eleven generations to a John Morfit (b. 1620 in England, d. 1700 in Gunpowder Hundred, Maryland) supposing the spelling of the name changed between him and his son born in 1650.
Trying to dig for information on my maternal roots is much harder for both sides, as so far there have been very little in the way of finding any sort of leads for either the Shindorf-Hansen's (My father's mother and her mother, etc) or for the Vincent-Fox women (My mother's mother and her mother, etc)
But needless to say, to have both sides of my family to be so old...it's surreal. Most people can only trace back a handful of generations before they immigrated, but both sides of my family arrived before any of the colonies had actually become established (it was still considered The Dominion of New England, which at the time included Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Province of New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey).
So far I know that two Fassett's served in the Revolutionary War and I have not even really outlined the Morford's proper to see if any of the men's birth years and times line up as well for that period in order to search at Footnote for war records. How unreal would it be to have two separate sets of ancestors having fought in the war for American Independence? I think it would make a convincing lineage to be accepted as a Daughter of the American Revolution.
You know, until this point, I always considered American history to be rather bland and boring, but knowing now that my family had been here so long (and a few were prominent in the New England colonies and later, states) has really ignited my interest.
Talking to my Grandpa Morford today yielded a lot of interesting stories regarding his time being drafted during World War II, and how he served in Sydney and Brisbane, Australia, New Guinea, Biak, Owe, and New Caledonia as a Radio Operator while his older brother Vinnie was infantry in both the Philippines and New Guinea. I definitely need to bring my voice recorder with me the next time I go over there because I should really have his stories told, in his own voice, for posterities sake.
Next order of business: Giving in to Ancestry.com and buying the World Membership so I can go further back on the Morford side (and there is records, I just cannot access them because of the wankers) and possibly the Fassett side as research has led to believe that Patrick Fassett took that as a surname and abandoned the name MacPhearson in fear of persecution.
The plot thickens!
Trying to dig for information on my maternal roots is much harder for both sides, as so far there have been very little in the way of finding any sort of leads for either the Shindorf-Hansen's (My father's mother and her mother, etc) or for the Vincent-Fox women (My mother's mother and her mother, etc)
But needless to say, to have both sides of my family to be so old...it's surreal. Most people can only trace back a handful of generations before they immigrated, but both sides of my family arrived before any of the colonies had actually become established (it was still considered The Dominion of New England, which at the time included Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Province of New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey).
So far I know that two Fassett's served in the Revolutionary War and I have not even really outlined the Morford's proper to see if any of the men's birth years and times line up as well for that period in order to search at Footnote for war records. How unreal would it be to have two separate sets of ancestors having fought in the war for American Independence? I think it would make a convincing lineage to be accepted as a Daughter of the American Revolution.
You know, until this point, I always considered American history to be rather bland and boring, but knowing now that my family had been here so long (and a few were prominent in the New England colonies and later, states) has really ignited my interest.
Talking to my Grandpa Morford today yielded a lot of interesting stories regarding his time being drafted during World War II, and how he served in Sydney and Brisbane, Australia, New Guinea, Biak, Owe, and New Caledonia as a Radio Operator while his older brother Vinnie was infantry in both the Philippines and New Guinea. I definitely need to bring my voice recorder with me the next time I go over there because I should really have his stories told, in his own voice, for posterities sake.
Next order of business: Giving in to Ancestry.com and buying the World Membership so I can go further back on the Morford side (and there is records, I just cannot access them because of the wankers) and possibly the Fassett side as research has led to believe that Patrick Fassett took that as a surname and abandoned the name MacPhearson in fear of persecution.
The plot thickens!