As we head into 2020 with the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, I’ll likely be posting more and more on various figures with Mayflower heritage, as I have already this year with Denise Nickerson and Terry Kiser. As is most often the case (except in my own), usually one Mayflower line leads to another, then another, etc., since members of these families often married one another.

After watching the Netflix original movie El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which focuses on the character Jesse Pinkman, I took a look on the ancestry of actor Aaron Paul, who portrays Jesse. As various biographies report, Aaron Paul Sturtevant was born in Emmett, Idaho on 27 August 1979, the son of Robert Lee and Darla (Haynes) Sturtevant. While the actor goes by his middle name (in part due to casting directors stumbling over “Sturtevant”), I recognized that surname as usually going back to colonial Plymouth.

Samuel Sturtevant first appears in Plymouth Colony on 3 May 1642 in a court case which refers to a business deal with Mayflower passenger Edward Doty over the 1641 corn harvest. Mentioned in several Plymouth records throughout the 1640s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, he died at Plymouth on 16 October 1669. While not a Mayflower passenger, many descendants of Samuel Sturtevant will also have Mayflower lineage. He had nine children, two of whom married descendants of passenger Richard Warren.

While not a Mayflower passenger, many descendants of Samuel Sturtevant will also have Mayflower lineage. He had nine children, two of whom married descendants of passenger Richard Warren.

Robert Hunter Sturtevant’s 1986 genealogy Descendants of Samuel Sturtevant, treats Aaron Paul’s lineage down to the actor’s father Robert Lee¹² Sturtevant (Leon Robert^11-10, Joel Benton⁹, Henry Irwin⁸, Joel Benton⁷, Cyril⁶, Lemuel^5-4, Samuel^3-1), born at Nampa, Idaho on 22 May 1948.[1] Except for the first generation, this genealogy provides very few citations, although from vital, census, and other sources cited below, this line is indeed correct. Within the ancestry of Aaron’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Joel Benton Sturtevant (1809–1886), the actor has descents from Mayflower passengers Mary, Isaac, and Mary (Norris) Allerton, Peter Brown, Francis Cooke, Richard Warren (twice), and my own ancestors, Francis, John and Elinor (____) Billington.

As an additional related piece, six years ago, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon had an entertaining segment called Joking Bad, in homage to the Breaking Bad series, and both Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston had cameos. Aaron Paul’s Jesse character was parodied by Fallon’s announcer, actor and comedian Steve Higgins. Higgins, like Sturtevant, is another name that goes back to colonial Plymouth. Again, while not the on the Mayflower, the immigrant Richard Higgins, who arrived in Plymouth by 1632 and moved to Eastham in 1645, has many descendants with Mayflower lineage. Stephen Eugene¹² Higgins (Harold Richard¹¹, Tyler Joel¹⁰, Joel Mansfield⁹, Jonathan⁸, Shaw⁷, David⁶, Moses⁴, Richard³, Benjamin², Richard¹), a native of Iowa, was the great-great-great-grandson of Jonathan Higgins (1794–1857) who moved from Maine to Iowa, and whose parents, first cousins Shaw and Eunice (Higgins) Higgins, were born in Eastham, Massachusetts. Steve Higgins has descents from Mayflower passengers Stephen Hopkins (twice through his children Constance and Giles, who were also passengers) and William and Mary Brewster (at least once, probably twice).

Sources

Aaron Paul: John Bradley Arthaud, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations … Volume Twenty-One, Part 3: Family of John Billington, 194–97 (Cyril Sturtevant and wife Lucy Benton, follow families back for Cooke and Brown descents); Robert S. Wakefield, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations … Volume Seventeen: Family of Isaac Allerton, 110–11 (Fear Gibbs’s birth, follow families back for Warren lines); Mansfield Vital Records, D: 277 (marriage of John Sergeant and Fear Gibbs, daughter of John of Lebanon, 3 April 1760); Sargent Genealogy, 41, 50 (Sergeant to Benton); Revolutionary War Pension of Joel Benton W-20,711; gravestones of Cyril and Lucy (Benton) Sturtevant, Joel Benton and Sarah (Chapman) Sturtevant, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6755754/lucy-sturtevant; Rock Co., Wisconsin Probate Record Joel B. Sturtevant, 1886, no. 2820; 1909 South Dakota Death Certificate of Henry Sturtevant, no. 16075; 1953 Idaho Death Certificate of Joel Benton Sturtevant, no. 939; 1902 South Dakota Birth Record of Leon Robert Sturtevant; 1924 South Dakota Marriage Certificate Leon Sturtevant and Ethel Walker; 1940 U.S. Census, Ritzville, Adams Co., Wash., Leon R. Sturtevant household; 1947 Idaho Marriage Certificate for Robert Sturtevant and Verna Lee Webb, no. 01095.

Steve Higgins: John D. Austin, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations … Volume Six Family – Stephen Hopkins, 249-50 (Priscilla Snow and Jesse Higgins), 457-58 (down to Lydia Hopkins and David Higgins), Barbara Lambert Merrick, Mayflower Families in Progress William Brewster … Fifth Generation Descendants of his daughter Patience, 183–84, 194–96 (down to siblings Richard and Priscilla Sparrow, with spouses, Priscilla’s stated as probable); Katherine E. Chapin Higgins, Richard Higgins, a resident of and pioneer settler at Plymouth and Eastham, Massachusetts, and at Piscataway, New Jersey, and his descendants, 256, 270-71 (David through Jonathan Higgins, descendants of Jonathan and Elizabeth (Higgins) Smith have joined the Mayflower Society); 1870 U.S. Census, Washington, Dubuque Co., Iowa, J.M. Higgins household; Dubuque County, Iowa Probate Record of Joel M. Higgins, 1896; 1925 Iowa State Census, Washington, Dubuque Co., Iowa, T.J. Higgins (listing parents); 1928 Iowa Marriage Record of Tyler J. Higgins and Vera Nabb; 1934 Iowa Birth Certificate of Harold Richard Higgins; “Harold R. Higgins,” The Des Moines [Iowa] Register, 9 October 1979, 16; “Marian Coppola Higgins, The Des Moines Register, 10 July 2011, 19.

Note

[1] The family had moved westward from Massachusetts to Vermont to Wisconsin to South Dakota to Idaho.