Keziah, who are you?
Spare moments this weekend (when I wasn't playing with the kids, going out with my husband, teaching music at church, editing a son's term paper, or cleaning house, that is) have been spent in search of the parents of one Keziah Edson, who in 1801 married Samuel W. Frost in Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts.
I'm already descended from Samuel Edson, deacon in Bridgewater Massachusetts in the mid 17th century, about 4 or 5 times on my dad's side.
Keziah's on my mom's side, though. She is very likely also descended from Deacon Samuel, but the question is "how?"
Ancestry.com turned up a highly useful "Edson Family History and Genealogy"; that with several trampings through the 1790 and 1800 censuses, and the extant christening records available online, have yielded a high probability that she is a granddaughter of Abijah Edson and his wife Susanna Snow. Perhaps through their son James Edson. I'd sure like to conjure up some less-circumstantial proof... because this Abijah is a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. And Abijah died at Valley Forge.
Not that I'm greedy or anything... I've already got lots of Revolutionary war ancestors identified (my children already have a survivor of Valley Forge in their surname line... oh, and I have at least one Redcoat major in the line, too); on my wall is a copy of a Brady photograph from the Civil War showing another ancestor - a musician, no less - with his company. And a whole slew of early Plimoth ancestors. A member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. A couple founders of the General Conference Mennonite church. But for every one I find (and get to know), there's two more to find. And as usual, because of the patriarchal nature of naming systems and marriage culture, my ancestresses are the harder ones to find. I love finding them, imagining their lives, imagining what Sykes described as a continuous umbilical connecting these women to my soul.
So, Keziah... who are your parents?
I'm already descended from Samuel Edson, deacon in Bridgewater Massachusetts in the mid 17th century, about 4 or 5 times on my dad's side.
Keziah's on my mom's side, though. She is very likely also descended from Deacon Samuel, but the question is "how?"
Ancestry.com turned up a highly useful "Edson Family History and Genealogy"; that with several trampings through the 1790 and 1800 censuses, and the extant christening records available online, have yielded a high probability that she is a granddaughter of Abijah Edson and his wife Susanna Snow. Perhaps through their son James Edson. I'd sure like to conjure up some less-circumstantial proof... because this Abijah is a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. And Abijah died at Valley Forge.
Not that I'm greedy or anything... I've already got lots of Revolutionary war ancestors identified (my children already have a survivor of Valley Forge in their surname line... oh, and I have at least one Redcoat major in the line, too); on my wall is a copy of a Brady photograph from the Civil War showing another ancestor - a musician, no less - with his company. And a whole slew of early Plimoth ancestors. A member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. A couple founders of the General Conference Mennonite church. But for every one I find (and get to know), there's two more to find. And as usual, because of the patriarchal nature of naming systems and marriage culture, my ancestresses are the harder ones to find. I love finding them, imagining their lives, imagining what Sykes described as a continuous umbilical connecting these women to my soul.
So, Keziah... who are your parents?
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