Sisters Symonds

Susanna Symonds Ayers (who was mentioned extensively yesterday in her husband's post) had three sisters.

One of them I've long thought of as being the ancestress of my good friend.  But I've never bothered to figure it out.  It was "tabled" along with many other threads of ancestors.

Synods family crest

Mark Symonds married Joanna, and maybe she was also Susan Edgar, or Joanna Susan Edgar, or maybe there were 2 different women, Joanna and Susan.  She or they were mothers of four daughters who lived to adulthood: Susanna and Priscilla, and Abigail and Mary Symonds.

I've found documents which show the married names of each of the sisters. (See yesterday's post for many of those resources.)

Susanna married John Ayers.
Priscilla married John Warner
Abigail married Robert Pearce
and Mary married Edgar Chapman

My ancestor was Nathaniel Ayers, a blacksmith, the youngest son of John Ayers. Nathaniel married Amy (Anne) Cowell Furber Ayers of Ipswich, MA.

My friend's ancestor was Priscilla Symonds Warner's daughter, Rachel Warner Potter, who married Able Potter of Rhode Island.

I just added most of her descendants to my tree, since her tree is available to me to see as a guest.  Actually most trees can be seen by anyone, but not changed.  Now my tree has the direct line of her ancestors as far down as my friend's parents.  All the members of trees who are still living are hidden from other viewers at Ancestry.

So now I know (pretty sure) that she's my 10th cousin, one time removed.  Since her nine times great grandmother was the half-sister of my nine greats grandmother, I guess we look at our shared ten greats grandparents, Mark and Joanna (or Susan) Symonds.

Does this change my feelings towards my friend? Not really.  She has been a dear friend for over 40 years, one who I can just give a hug and can start talking with her as if we lived next door, though it is months and sometimes years between our visits together.

My friend is interested in her English roots, which include some royals.  So she and her sister will be visiting England to see some of the places where her ancestors made history.

I am happy just looking up people/ancestors on line, then looking for historical societies for the areas in which they lived.  That makes their lives more real for me.  I have finally the time and energy to do this, for which I'm so grateful.