An ancestor born July 13, 1600,

Happy birthday to Anna Rosanna White Porter 

 BIRTH 13 JULY 1600 • Shalford, Essex, England 

DEATH 11 MAY 1647 • Windsor, Hartford, Conn

She was the mother of Sarah Porter Judson, grandmother of Sarah Judson Curtiss, and great grandmother of Anna Curtiss Booth, wife of  Zachariah Booth.  So my middle name of Booth, harkens back to the surname of my ancestors.

Anna White Porter was the daughter of Robert & Bridget (Allgar) White, and sister of three other New England immigrants: John White, Elizabeth (White) Goodwin, & Mary (White) Loomis.

She and John Porter had eleven known children. The Parish records of Shalford & Messing, Essex, England list Anne Whighte baptised July 13, 1600 in Shalford, daughter of Robert Wheight. SOURCE: American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI) vol 138, Pg. 460.

And she's one of the few of my ancestors that has a birth date (actually her baptism date) for a great times 10 grandmother!

It's fun to look back at any of the New England ancestors, especially those who were in leadership positions, because there are so many records about them, and if they came from a family in England (which most of them did!) who had church records about birth/baptism, marriage and death, then there are lots of records to check.  However, when all the records say a man was married at 4 years of age, and another record at least lets him get to be 27 before marrying, which one am I to believe?  So at this juncture, I've been looking at John Porter's father, and finding some of the dates of his death are based upon a written text (thank heavens I could find and read it) where it says, "John Porter a boy."  So I doubt that this is our ancestor.  I can only do this research for about a half hour at a time, because it really gives me a headache.

Welcome to the Sherlock side of Genealogy!

And in honor of Anna (Rosanna) White Porter, the records that I have give her birth, her marriage, and a whole list of children's names.

Burke's American Families with British Ancestry (pg. 2869) says her husband,

John Porter of Windsor Conn, born 1590; emigrated to America from Felsted, Essex, England ca. 1637, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, later moving to Windsor in 1639; married Anna (who d. 1647) dau. of Robert White, and d, 1648, leaving issue, 1. Samuel, 2. Nathaniel, 3. Eleazar Porter, 4, William Porter (physician.)

Her father, Robert White, left a will, which gives a lot of information about the family in England.  I already posted about Robert White, and Lady Bridget Algar White.

Anna Rosanna married John Porter of Windsor Connecticut,  and she was the 6th of 8 children of Robert and his wife Brydgette Algar. Source: Descendants of Joseph Loomis in America, and his antecedents in the Old World, pg 104 in Loomis Genealogy.

Anna and John Porter had their first 9 children born in England.  They are listed in records of their baptisms from 1621 to 1637.  One son, Samuel, died at 2 months of age.  This is interesting because the Burke's publication quoted above has him continuing to live, and being the head of a family.  Yes, having lost the first Samuel in 1632, the Porters named another son Samuel who was born in 1635. Source: English Origins of New England Families, Second Series Vol. III, pg. 736.

In the same source, page 732, Anna White Porter and her sister, Mary White Loomis, are described living in homes next to each other in Windsor, CT.

And on page 731, same source, Anna White of Messing (England) is married to John Porter of Felsted on 18 Oct 1620.  That same page talks of Anna's death (as John Porter's wife, in 1647) and her husband's will, when he died in 1648.

Much of the same information is repeated in Families of Ancient Windsor, under John Porter, Sr.

Though there was a date of death in Windsor CT for Mrs. Porter (her given name wasn't mentioned), her burial is unknown.  Her third child was Sara Porter, who married Joseph Judson, and they were my 9 times great grandparents.  But their story is posted about here.

As a footnote, I must mention the fact that I lived in Windsor Connecticut in the 1960s, where the Porter family had lived and Anna and her husband died.  I admit I didn't walk the same paths that she did, but I probably drove the same roads that were part of her life.  Just 322 years later!  I must mention that my husband had grown up in the Hartford, Connecticut area in the 1950s and attended a "prep school" named Loomis.  I'm sure it was founded by the same family as Anna's sister's husband.

Our Windsor CT home in 1968-69. We painted it a nice colonial blue, but it had been cream when we moved there, and apparently the present owners (2013) liked that color as well.

No answers for a 5 times great grandmother

Continuing to meet my ancestors on my mother's mother's tree, the Booth Family Tree...today I explore Ancestry for my 5 times great grandmother Mary Sarah Polly Hyde Hansford.

She may have been born in 1729 or 1739, in Surry County VA.  If she was born on the later date, she would have been 14 when she married William Hansford Jr.  He was born in 1727, and that is the date recorded when he married Mary Sarah Hyde in 1753, where she is listed as having been born in 1730, making her the great age of 23.

But when I check her parent's birth dates, her father, Robert T. Hyde had been born in 1716, and could not very likely have had a daughter born when he was 13 in 1729.  So I'm leaning toward the later date of her birth.  Women might have married at 14, but men certainly didn't.

Oh dear, here we go again.  Robert Hyde of Virginia is listed (possibly) as an attorney who married Jane Underhill (mother that is listed of Mary Sarah) but this Robert died in 1718.  And he had a son Samuel, and a daughter who married a John Saunders who was well known in Virginia.  Oops. that's about Virginia Biographical information anyway.  

The Ancestry trees I've been following have him being born in North Carolina in 1716...so he certainly wasn't the same man as the Virginia one listed.  Poor guy, one or the other of them might have been Mary Sarah Hyde's father, now I have to do some work on Ancestry, mainly looking for source materials.  Are there any?

So it's time to start from scratch.  No wonder I've never followed this branch of the tree before!  

The 1676 American Rebellion

My ancestor Hansfords from Virginia included Uncle Thomas (times about 8 greats) who was part of Bacon's Rebellion which burned Jamestown.  (This is a repost from 2014)

The Burning of Jamestown by Howard Pyle, ca. 1905.

Thomas Hansford was born in 1646 in Virginia
Death 13 November 1676 in York County, Virginia

FATHER: John Hansford 1590-1661
MOTHER: Elizabeth Jands
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Thomas was hanged by Gov. Berkley of Virginia for his participation in Bacon's Rebellion. He is said to be the first American-born person to be executed in the Colonies.

Southside Virginia Families, Vol. 1, by John Bennett Boddie, Genealogical Pub. Co, 1966, page 157.

NOTE: one souce says as many as 23 Men were hung. Did not state Names.
His land was confiscated by the government.
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Wikipedia says:

Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. The colony's disorganized frontier political structure, combined with accumulating grievances (including leaving Bacon out of his inner circle, refusing to allow Bacon to be a part of his fur trade with the Native Americans, and Doeg tribe Indian attacks), helped to motivate a popular uprising against Berkeley, who had failed to address the demands of the colonists regarding their safety.

About a thousand Virginians of all classes rose up in arms against Berkeley, attacking Native Americans, chasing Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia, and ultimately torching the capital. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists.^[2] Government forces from England arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to one more directly under royal control.^[3]

It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part; a similar uprising in Maryland took place later that year. The alliance between former indentured servants and Africans against bond-servitude disturbed the ruling class, who responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery.^[4][5][6] While the farmers did not succeed in their initial goal of driving Native Americans from Virginia, the rebellion did result in Berkeley being recalled to England.

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Thomas Hansford had a younger brother, Charles, born May 9, 1654.  He married Elizabeth Folliet Moody, and their son William Hansford is a direct ancestor of mine.  Six generations later was born my grandfather, Albert J. "Bud" Webb.

So my rebellious spirit might have been well tamed, but the blood runs true!

Hansford family great uncles and aunts

Rev. Thomas Hansford had many brothers and sisters, and I'm not sure how accurate some of the information on Ancestry is. Rev. Hansford was my 4 times great grandfather. Let's explore some more of my great times 5 aunts and uncles.  Yes, they become 5 times greats, because a grandfather's brother is already a great uncle. Thus a great grandfather's brother is a great great uncle.

Richard Hansford, (1763-1813) has 2 birthplaces listed on Ancestry, but no original documentation.  I'll just accept it was somewhere in VA at this point. He married in 1791 to Catherine Acree, and they have 3 sons recorded. The oldest was named after his brother (or maybe Richard's father) William Sallis Hansford. The second son carries his mother's surname as his middle name, which often happened, John Acree Hansford. And the third was David William.

The Virginia Military Records Appendix of State-wide and  Miscellaneous Records, pg 542 lists Richard Hansford as receiving payment for "provisions furnished Capt Lynn's company.  These payments were from the Revolutionary War. There are 1032 pages of microfilms of these payments, and this section just says to Virginia Militia in the Revolution. Apparently many of theses pages were loose and have dates anywhere from 1775 to 1781.  As Richard may have been only 12 in 1775, it's more likely he did provisions toward the later date.  But since he didn't even marry until he was 28, it's hard to see that he had his own farm at the age of 18 (in 1781).

A lot of conjecture on my part.  Who knows the truth.

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Sarah (Sallie) Hansford White (June 17, 1767 - ?) has little information about her on Ancestry...like many women who weren't part of the written records of early America.  She married Samuel White in 1787 in Botetourt County VA.  I've never heard of that county, so did a bit of a search. It's in the Appalachian Mountains area near Roanoke.

Great Aunt Sallie had at least 4 children, Susannah, Nathaniel, Samuel Morris White, and William Henry White, the last of whom was born in 1795.  So though we don't know when Sallie died, it must have been after 1795. The records on Ancestry have her 4 children born in 4 different counties of VA, and though she had been born in Orange County VA, her death (of unknown date) is listed as being in Pratt, Kanawha County WestVirginia.

But of course we know it wasn't West Virginia at that time since the state didn't come into being until 1861.  And I just found that Charleston, WV (the state capital) is in Kanawha County. Having driven through that area last year, I am in awe that anyone grew any food in those mountains, which are such a great source of coal but give very few flat areas for fields. But that's just my perspective. The town of Pratt used to be Clinton (until 1905) so again the records would have changed names...but how did anyone decide that was where she died, I wonder. So this is conjecture on top of geography which got names changed through history.  Phaw!

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Elizabeth Hansford
may have been born 17 May 1768, in Orange County VA.  The Ancestry records seem to depend upon some from England, Dorset County. But I think there was another couple named William and Mary Hansford having their children in England, and there's no way this family went over there and had any of their children.  The Elizabeth that I have listed doesn't necessarily have a husband on 33 out of 35 Ancestry trees, but on one of them she married a William Boone, but there's nothing to substantiate it.  Again she died on an unknown date in Pratt, Kanawha, West Virginia.

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Great times 5 Aunt Frances Hansford Whitmore was born 17 July 1773 in Russell County VA. She died in in 1813 in Rockingham County  VA. She married in 1805 to John Whitmore, and they had daughters, Catherine and Mary.  She died at age 40, leaving very young daughters. So of course I want to check and see if Uncle John remarried. I know he lived until 1850, and died in Ohio.  It looks like he'd been married before marrying Frances, and possibly he married again after her death.  He also spelled his name either Whitmer or Whitmere. 

Early St. Louis summertime

There I am, all of 8 years old, standing with my 4 year old sis in front of my dad's pride and joy, a Studebaker in 1950, St. Louis MO. The photo also ties in to my mother's mother, Grandmommy (Mozelle Munhall) who made our matching dresses, and also to remember some great aunts (actually cousins) Alice and Gertie Attaway, who embroidered the pretty Peter Pan collars.

Of course little girls don't pay much attention to how much work it took my dad to keep his cars running, as well as a daily grind of 8 hours behind some desk or another.  And then to have time to enjoy life on a picnic.  I do know that he was very good to all us girls, and we held him in our hearts all his life.

I think since my birthday is in August, it was probably mine being celebrated with a homemade cake, and I would have been a big 11 that year. (My other immediate family birthdays were in February, March, and November.)

I am sharing the blanket (wearing polka-dots on the left) with cousin Claudette behind me, then sis Mary Beth beside me, cousin Sandra next and then my father.  I'm thinking that we're someplace in Forest Park, St. Louis to have a lake next to us.  The food stuffs in the foreground include one of my  favorites still, Cheeze-Its!  This was the days before plastic grocery bags, so there are several paper bags with some yummys in them, probably chips and sandwiches. They would have been wrapped in wax paper, as plastic sandwich bags were still to be invented.

Claudette and Sandra were 11 months apart in age, and had come to St. Louis on the train probably from their home in Houston. Sandra was just 2 years older than myself with a December birthday. Now that I think about it, I wonder if they traveled alone all that way. I kind of doubt it. When my mom and myself and sis went to San Antonio by train several years later, it was a 16 hour trip.

Claudette will turn 80 this Sept. 28, 2019. I've been out of touch, so I hope she's well.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday, which has a photo of a lot of cars...thus my link to it this week.

Another sibling of Rev. Thomas Hansford

To continue...
Let's look at other children born in the family of William and Sarah Mary Polly Hyde Hansford siblings of Rev. Thomas Hansford, my 4 greats-grandfather.

An interesting brother was Major John Hansford 1765-1850.

Major John Hansford House

(Copied from Early West Virginia settlers 1600-1900's, page 41-45)

Major John Hansford
Genealogy.com Family Archive Image

John and Jane lived near the home of William Morris until they built in 1798 on the opposite side of the river.His house that he first lived in was near where J.G.W. Thompkins built his brick house, which is not far from the mouth of Kelly's Creek.

John Hansford built his  house in 1798, below Paint Creek on land given
to him by his father-in-law William Morris. John had patent for 530 acres on
Kanawha River which he obtained in 1793, also for 400 acres on Paint Creek
in 1800, and for 410 acres on Kanawha River in 1818, and for 197 acres on
Paint Creek in 1822. His house was the best when built that was in the valley.
It was a frame two story, the lumber was made by hand and the nails were hand
made. The bricks were brought from England. The inside finish was of cherry and
walnut.

Mrs Martha Jane Hansford Smith says that he was a handsome clean shaven
man, and dressed in blue broadcloth and silk hat and entertained most hospitably.
That at the age of eighty years he could mount and dismount from his pony and
would come into the house as gay as a boy.

He represented Kanawha County in the House of Delegates of Virginia at Richmond
in 1811 thru 1818. He was a Magistrate of his county, and was a Capt. in the Militia
of his state. The original commission was signed by George W. Smith, Lt. Gov.
of Virginia, dated July 3,1809. It appointed him Capt. of the 80th. reg. in the 13th.
brigade in the 3rd. division of the Virginia militia. He was a Whig and a baptist, a
farmer and a salt maker and a man of affairs. He owned two salt furnaces,one of
which he ran himself and the other he rented out.

He died Oct.6,1850 and is buried on his property on a hill where other members of
his family are buried.

1850 census Kanawha Co.Virginia family #1040

Hansford,John age 83 born VA.
Jane age 79 born VA.
Alva age 47 born VA.
Marshall age 43 born VA.
Milton age 39 born VA.

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I didn't find who Martha Jane Hansford Smith might have been, who had seen him when this description was written.  It does say he was a Capt. of the militia of Virginia as of 1809.

As mentioned above, he received some of his property from his father-in-law.  He (John Hansford) wrote his own will, where he named his 10 sons and 1 daughter (but left off her last name) and 3 grandsons (just by their first names.) Actually with a bit of search on Ancestry records I found his daughter Sary's husband's name as Morris (like her mother's family) but there are 2 possible men, and many children but only 2 of whom are among those grandchildren mentioned by John Hansford in his will. I'm not going to spend any time trying to figure out who Sarah (Sary) married, and she had died before her father, John actually.

John Hansford's wife, Jane Morris Hansford was mentioned in her mother's will, Catharine Morris.

I also can't find any records of his being a Major, or having served in the Revolutionary War. But in his will he gives each of his 10 sons (or had already given them) one thousand dollars.  That's pretty well off, I'd say.  There is an inventory of his estate, as well as a list of the enslaved people he owned, those on whose backs he made his fortune, you might say.  Most of the plantation owners in Virginia did the same, unfortunately.  But I'll give them credit whenever I see their names listed in a census or a will.

And another interesting note is that his home was in what became West Virginia...Kanawha...though it had been part of Virginia at the time.


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So to continue to see if there's anything interesting to learn about other siblings of Rev. Thomas Hansford...next time, folks!

Douglas Martin Heym

Born July 1, 1939, Owasso, Michigan.

Happy eightieth birth anniversary to Doug, my ex-husband, father of my two oldest sons!

So glad to have shared part of our lives together.  And I am thrilled that he's made it to the big eight oh.  He is happily married to Millie now. They have a houseful of cats (I'm told.)

I will try to pull up some photos of him.  I've sure posted a lot over the years, but somehow no one blog post is focused oh him!

Birth of Russell Heym, August, 1967...Doug then Barbara then Marty holding Russ.

Doug and Millie facing the camera, with granddaughter Caroline to their right. Millie is lit by her phone.  The dinner before Barbara Baker and Marty Heym's wedding April 22, 2019..

The Heym family reunion...Doug on left, then Marty then Russ

Doug flew in a bi-plane, perhaps his 70th birthday?

We have actually something in common these days, besides our grown sons and grandchildren!
Doug was glad to take over as editor of my Heym Family Ancestry tree which was for our sons, if they ever wanted to know that side of their family.  And I was glad to give Doug the connection to the Mayflower, which he'd just heard of, but didn't have data for.

Russ, Doug and Marty, Thanksgiving 2017.

Marty and Doug...pretty recently.

A bunch of soccer lovers who met at my apartment in St. Augustine to go to Jacksonville for a soccer match... Left to right, Tai Rogers, Barb Rogers, standing behind her a friend of Tai's from Eckerd College, Marty Heym, Millie Heym, Doug Heym, Michelle Naglieri, Russ Heym. Probably 1997-99.  It was after the World Cup was held in Orlando (1994), thus the US shirts on my 3 sons, but after Tai started college thus his friend coming for the game (in 1997) And it was before Russ and Michelle married in 2001!

And just added, photos that were posted on Facebook, of his party in 2019...just have to include them for this photo journal to be complete!

 Marty & Doug Heym

 Marty's kids, Michael Thurston, Cayenne Heym, Will Heym

 He's finally an old man!

Doug and Millie Heym

 Marty, Doug, unknown, Michael Cayenne, Will, Millie and Bev Baker

 Better photo with everyone looking at camera!  Marty, Doug, unknown, Michael, Cayenne, Will, Millie, Barbara Baker, Bev Baker.