A quick peek around the Mayflower

I had learned a few years back from my aunt that we had family on the Mayflower.  No Grays, of course, that would be way too easy ... but other family that eventually merged in with the Grays.  The first one we found was Stephen Hopkins, my 10th great grandfather, through Hannah West (married Jeremiah Gray, grandson of Capt Jesse). 

 

So there's one.  Then there's James Chilton and Edward Winslow, my 11th great grandfathers.

Also, William Brewster, my 12th great grandfather through Sarah Moulton (wife of Capt Jesse).

John Billington descends to Mary Ritchie, who married Thomas Gray (grandson of Capt Jesse).

Peter Browne, Francis Eaton, Priscilla Mullins & John Alden descend to Lottie Jestings (my great grandmother, married to Reginald Gray).

And then we have Francis Cooke, my 10th great grandfather.

and on and on and on ...

I know there are more, I just got tired of looking.  Basically there were 120 people on the Mayflower, they all got cozy in Plymouth, Massachusetts and ended up making a bazillion descendants all inter-related, many of whom worked their way down to me.

It really is too bad there were no Grays on the Mayflower ... 

#$%$@#&%$!!!!!!!!!

There are SO MANY frickin Grays in history -- it's nearly impossible to sort them out as to who goes with whom!  And many of them had a bazillion kids from multiple spouses -- it's like rabbits breeding!!!!!

ok ... rant over.  back to work.

Feels like home

I haven't lived in Plymouth, NS for almost 24 years.  In fact, I've been in Vancouver, BC for the last 10 of those.  I've always prided myself on being very versatile, like the idiom: "Home is where you lay your hat".  Things can change quickly, often unplanned, sometimes for the good, other times not so much, but wherever I am is home at the moment. 

Don't get me wrong, I love love love my new city, but I do get a bit of melancholy thinking about where my hat used to lay and all the rich Gray history surrounding it.  Next time I visit I'll have to set aside a full day to go cemetery hopping.  I love cemeteries.  I don't even have to know any of the residents, I just love to walk among the stones, read the inscriptions, notice the flowers left by loved ones.  Some people find cemeteries creepy and full of death .... I find them peaceful and full of history.  I need to start maintaining a list of who is buried in which cemetery and get some good photos.  There are a number of NS cemeteries that are not documented at all, Plymouth being one of them.

Today was a day of bmd's ... reading birth/marriage/death records.  Most days have a bit of everything, but today I decided to stick to those and see if I found any not-so-obvious trails.  I was perusing a particular list of births in 1867, 100 years before I was born (ok, 99 years if you want to be nit-picky about it).  Scrolling through the lists of names I found Gray, Sims, Johnson, Hatfield, Stuart, Allen, Robbins, Ryder, Trefry, and many more ..... even after all this time, just reading this list sent me home.  I grew up around most of these names, or hearing of them from years past.  Trefry's had the Arcadia Meat Market for years.  My dad's best friend and neighbor as a child was a Johnson.  I was engaged to a Hatfield at one time.  My aunt married a Sims. 

The two florists in Yarmouth were  Crosby's and Robbin's.  I could go on and on, but my point is how very cool it is to run down a list of names and be able to say "I know that name ... and that one ... and that one ..." often with an anecdote or bit of information attached to each one.  This is Main St in Yarmouth.  The town clock there on the left was built by my cousin, Randy Forbes.  The building on the corner with the large turret at the top was Fitzer's Fine Clothes, now a tourist shop I believe.  One of the Florist shops was near that.  That's how I remember it anyhow.  Now, of course, it looks quite different.  There's that melancholy again.