It all started out very innocently. I joined a Facebook group to discuss a
specific ancestor, and someone asked me about Mark Haskell and his wife
Elizabeth Giddings. Mark Haskell (1687 –
1775) is my 7th great grandfather, but I couldn’t find a wife named
Elizabeth Giddings. It turns out his father was also named Mark Haskell, and his wife was Elizabeth Giddings. Mark, Jr. had married my 7th
great grandmother Martha Tuthill in 1710, and then a widow named Elizabeth in
1767. I took another look at this widow…
and opened a very large can of worms!
Elizabeth Porter was born in June 1689, the daughter of John
Porter and Lydia Herrick of Wenham, Massachusetts. She first married Daniel Gilbert, and the
marriage intention was dated 2 December 1710 in Ipswich. Daniel died on 2 November 1723. Then Elizabeth married Joseph Goodhue on 1
November 1727 in Ipswich. Joseph died in
1739. Next she married John Burnham on 9
October 1740 in Ispwich. He died in 1749,
leaving her free to marry Mark Haskell as mentioned above. She lived to be about 100 years old (no proof
of this age has been found).
What made this discovery odd to me, was that all these men
were already in my family tree. I didn’t
have to add a single name, just link them together in the database because I
already had them there. I didn’t even
have to add her parents and grandparents, because they were already relatives,
too.
1) Lydia
Woodbury, Elizabeth’s maternal grandmother, is the sister to Humphrey Woodbury
(1609 – 1686), my 10th great grandfather. So that means Elizabeth
herself is a distant cousin.
2) First husband, Daniel Gilbert (1680 – 1723) is a
2nd cousin, 8 generations removed.
Our common ancestor is his great grandparents, John Black and wife,
Susanna, of Beverly, Massachusetts.
3.) Second husband, Joseph Goodhue (1685 – 1773), is
the brother of my 7th great grandmother, Bethiah Goodhue, wife of
Benjamin Marshall.
4.) Third husband, John Burnham (1695 – 1749) is my
7th great grandfather, along with his first wife, Anne Choate (my 7th
great grandmother). So this means
Elizabeth Porter was married to two of my 7th great grandfathers!
5.) Fourth husband, Mark Haskell (1687 – 1775) is my
7th great grandfather, as stated above.
6.) Elizabeth’s son, Daniel Goodhue, born 1728,
married Hannah Giddings, a 2nd cousin 7 generations removed.
7.) Elizabeth’s grandson, Daniel Goodhue (1759 –
1803) married Hannah Shatswell, a
descendant of John Shastswell (1574- 1646), my 11th great
grandfather.
All this tangle because of a simple comment made by someone
on Facebook, which caused me to search out all of Elizabeth’s previous
marriages! Always check out every clue,
for you never know where it will lead you…
For more information see:
The History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann: Including the Town of
Rockport, by John James Babson, 1860
Chronicles of the
Haskell Family, by Ira J Haskell, 1985 (Chapter 16 has Mark Haskell, my
ancestor, it is available online at Ancestry.com and Archives.org )
Vital records of Ipswich and other various towns in Essex
County
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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
Heather, such a cute article! It seems that the gene pool of colonial America was not like an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and rather like a frog pond, so there would naturally be some overlap.
ReplyDeleteJanice Brown
So Elizabeth (fill in the blank) is probably the Elizabeth Giddings that your Facebook friend mentioned. We have many sequential marriages in our family tree, but usually 3 is the maximum. It's like Chaucer's character, The Wife of Bath. : )
ReplyDelete