Puritan connections

Verifying relationships on Wikitree

Each week Wikitree has featured connections, notable people related by a theme.

This week the featured connections are Puritan colonists who arrived in New England between 1621 and 1640:

• Gov. John Winthrop, leader of the Winthrop Fleet, one of the biggest in the first wave of the Puritan Migration

• Anne Bradstreet, poet

• Rev. John Cotton, minister of the first church in Boston

• Rev. John Eliot, “The Indian Apostle”

• Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Endicott

• Mary Estey, accused witch

• Co-founder of the Connecticut Colony and prominent religious leader, Rev. Thomas Hooker

• Ann Hutchinson, part of the Antinomian Controversy

• William Pynchon, fur trader and founder of Springfield, Massachusetts

• Alice Tilley, midwife and conventicle leader

• Governor of Connecticut, Robert Treat

• Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island

I have a number of ancestors who arrived in New England in this period, so some of my forebears very likely knew the people listed.

I am connected to these featured people; I am most closely connected to Anne Bradstreet by 13 degrees.

“Connections” are family relationships, including relationships through marriage.

“Degrees” measure the distance of relationships. Nuclear relatives (parents, siblings, spouses, and children) are one degree away. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, in-laws, and grandchildren are two degrees, that is, they are connected through two relationship steps.

Anne Bradstreet (née Dudley; 1612 – 1672) was among the most prominent of early English poets of North America and first writer in England’s North American colonies to be published. Anne emigrated to America with her husband and her parents aboard the Arbella as part of the Winthrop Fleet of Puritan emigrants in 1630. Both Anne’s father and husband were later to serve as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were also instrumental in the founding of Harvard University in 1636.

Nineteenth century depiction of Anne Bradstreet; there is no portrait made during her lifetime.

Looking at my relationship with Anne Bradstreet my connections work as follows:

This is the “connection path” — the trail of family relationships — between me and Anne Bradstreet nee Dudley. Each relationship, such as a mother to a child, or a husband to a wife, is called a degree or step on the path.

: Anne Dudley
1: ↓ Simon Bradstreet (her son)
2: ↓ Lucy Bradstreet (his daughter)
3: ↓ Ann Remington (her daughter)
4: ↓ Elizabeth Ellery (her daughter)
5: = Francis Dana (her husband)
6: ↔ Edmund Dana (his brother)
7: ↓ William Dana (his son)
8: ↓ Charlotte Dana (his daughter)
9: ↓ Philip Champion de Crespigny (her son)
10: ↓ Trent Champion de Crespigny (his son)
11: ↓ Geoff Champion de Crespigny (his son)
12: ↓ Rafe Champion de Crespigny (his son)
13: ↓ Anne Champion de Crespigny (his daughter)

There are 2 family branches connected by the marriage of Elizabeth Ellery to Francis Dana.

Francis Dana (1743 – 1811) is my 5th great grand uncle.

If you are interested, you can play a Connection Checkers game by verifying the connections listed. The purpose is to Verify each step in your connection path by confirming that every person along the path has a reliable source that connects them to the next person.

For my steps I verified each relationship as follows:

1. Anne Bradstreet wrote a letter to her son Simon. Their relationship is documented in histories such as

   1. An Account of Anne Bradstreet: The Puritan Poetess, and Kindred Topics. By Colonel Luther Caldwell. (Boston, 1898).

   2. History of The Dudley Family. Number VI. By Dean Dudley. Wakefield, Massachusetts. Dean Dudley, Publisher. Copyright © 1892.

   3. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register: Volume 32. New England Historic, Genealogical Society. 1878.

   4. Sibley, John Langdon. Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University (Charles William Sever, Cambridge, 1881) Vol. 2, Page 54.

2. Lucy Bradstreet’s birth in 1680 to parents Simon and Lucy Bradstreet is documented in the Connecticut, U.S., Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection)

3. Ann Remington’s birth in 1725 to Superior Court Justice Jonathan Remington and Lucey Bradstreet is documented in Vital Records of Cambridge Massachusetts to to the year of 1850; v. 01 Compiled by T. W. Baldwin, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 1914. page 590.

4. Elizabeth Ellery’s birth in 1751 to  William Ellery and Ann Ellery nee Remington is documented in the Rhode Island, U.S., Vital Extracts, 1636-1899

5. Elizabeth Ellery’s marriage to Francis Dana on 5 Aug 1773 is documented in “Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001“
   

1. Francis Dana was the brother of  Edmund Dana; both were the sons of  Richard Dana and Lydia Dana nee Trowbridge. Francis’s birth in 1743 was recorded in the “Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001“, Edmund’s birth in 1739 was also recorded in the “Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001“

2. William Pulteney Dana was born 13 July 1776 to Reverend Edmund Dana and Helen Dana nee Kinnaird. William was baptised 1 August 1776 at Wroxeter, Shropshire: Wroxeter Baptisms, Shropshire, England, Extracted Church of England Parish Records Image of transcription at FamilySearch

3. The baptism of William’s daughter, Charlotte, in 1820 at Albrighton Near Wolverhampton, Shropshire is documented in the parish registers indexed at FamilySearch.

4. Philip Champion de Crespigny was baptised in 1850 in France. He emigrated to Australia in 1852 with his parents. His mother Charlotte Frances Dana was named on his 1827 death certificate.

5. Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny’s 1882 birth registration names his father Philip.

6. Richard Geoffrey Champion de Crespigny’s 1907 birth registration names his father. A birth notice was placed in the Weekly Times of 22 June 1907.

7. Rafe Champion de Crespigny’s birth in 1936 was announced in the Adelaide Advertiser.

8. I have a copy of my birth certificate. DNA confirms a link to my father, paternal grandfather, and in fact to my great great grandfather Philip Champion de Crespigny.

The Connection Checkers game makes genealogy research more fun and social. It strengthens our shared tree through verifying the relationships and increases the reliability of the reported relationships.

Related posts

Some of my forebears who were among the some 20,000 English Puritans who emigrated between 1620 and 1642 to the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

• Up and gone to Massachusetts: the migration of my 9th great grandparents John and Elizabeth Upham, from Bicton in Devon

• Z is for zealot: my ninth great grandfather Charles Chauncy (1592-1672), a non-conformist Divine, at one time imprisoned for his views by Archbishop Laud. He emigrated to America and later became a long-serving President of Harvard College.

• D is for Daniel: my seventh great grandfather Daniel Dana was born on 20 March 1664 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the son of one of my eighth great grandfathers, Richard Dana (1617-1690), a New England Puritan, who landed in Massachusetts in 1640.

This post was first published at https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2024/10/12/puritan-connections/