Sunday, May 10, 2015

Happy Mother's Day! My Mystery Matrilineal Line

My maternal line

My mother-  
Little Sister, Yours Truly and Mother

My grandmother – Gertrude Matilda Hitchings     

                b. 1 August 1905, Beverly, Massachusetts
                d. 3 November 2001, Peabody, Massachusetts
                m. 14 February 1925 to Stanley Elmer Allen in Hamilton, Massachusetts

My great grandmother -  Florence Etta Hoogerzeil

                b. 20 August 1871, Beverly, Massachusetts
                d. 10 February 1941, Hamilton, Massachusetts
                m. 25 December 1890 to Arthur Treadwell Hitchings in Beverly, Massachusetts

3x great grandmother – Mary Etta Healey
Mary Etta is seated, with the baby on her lap
Florence Etta is standing with a baby
                b. 19 May 1852, Beverly, Massachusetts
                d. 23 July 1932, Beverly, Massachusetts
                m. 14 March 1870 to Peter Hoogerzeil in Salem, Massachusetts

4x great grandmother – Matilda Weston
                b. October 1825,  Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
                d. 19 August 1909, Beverly, Massachusetts
                m.  3 February 1848 to Edward Joseph Healey

5x great grandmother – Mary CLEMENTS (or PRATT?)
               m. to Zadoc Weston

Mary, my 5th great grandmother, is a mystery to me.  I can travel back thirteen or fourteen generations on many of the branches in my family tree, but my maternal line ends after six generations with a solid brick wall.  I've tried to smash this wall for nearly 30 years.

The Mayflower Society’s Five Generations Project Book (Silver Book, Volume XIV, Myles Standish, 2007, page 121) lists the wife of Zadoc Weston as Mary Pratt of Chester, Nova Scotia.  However, my 3x great grandmother’s death record in Beverly, Massachusetts lists her parents as Zadoc Weston and Mary Clement.  Did Mary Pratt remarry someone name Clement? Was there a completely different wife named Mary Clement?  Was the informant wrong?

Another possible clue:  Zadoc Weston, her husband was born 1761 probably in Plympton, Massachusetts, son of Nathan Weston and Hannah Everson.  Nathan is a descendant of the following Mayflower passengers:  Edward Doty, George Soule, and Myles Standish

My mtDNA maternal haplogroup is H.  Is that a clue?

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The URL for this post is
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/05/happy-mothers-day-my-mystery.html
Copyright © 2015, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

4 comments:

  1. I need more pictures! I envy those who have pictures this far back.

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  2. You know I know what you're dealing with - ah, mysteries. Have you already looked to find the baptism of Matilda Weston? I wonder if her godparents' names would be a clue to ensuring you are on the right track.

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    1. Wendy, I have very little information on Matilda because there are so few records in Nova Scotia. No baptism and no solid birth record. Sigh!

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  3. In the back of my mind I question the published books.........sometimes it just doesn't seem like it could be right putting it together with what I know now.

    And I, too, envy those with pictures of anybody. The only possibility of any pictures at all are owned by one of those people who are 90 years old, "grandma said", and they won't share anything they have. I have already disproved many things "grandma said" but I sure would like a picture.

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