I recently gave a talk to the Colorado Sons of the American Revolution (my first in-person lecture in over two years, and first time in Colorado!). My talk was on the ancestors of American presidents, 1789-2022, and specifically spoke to which presidents have joined, or could have joined, the S.A.R., while also noting that several presidents lived before the organization was founded in 1889. A Pittsburgh chapter of the S.A.R. had a page showing the sixteen presidents who were members of S.A.R. themselves, from Rutherford B. Hayes through George W. Bush. (The page also shows Grant, who died before the S.A.R. was founded but was a member of a parent organization, the Sons of Revolutionary War Sires.) Continue reading Patriotic presidential ancestors
All posts by Christopher C. Child
Ancestors of J. Michelle Childs
I’ve gotten a handful of messages recently asking if I have any relationship to U.S. District Judge Julianna Michelle Childs, who is among those President Joe Biden is considering for nomination to the United States Supreme Court. I’ll point out first that her surname is Childs and not Child, but I noted recently how adding an s to my surname was not entirely uncommon. Are we related? Probably not, but I traced her African American Childs/Chiles ancestry nonetheless! Continue reading Ancestors of J. Michelle Childs
Round and round
After reading a recent news story regarding Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, his name immediately caught my attention. I know two other men named Mike Rounds, and we are all distant cousins through our descent from John Round (ca. 1645-1716) of Swansea and Rehoboth, Massachusetts.
Descendants of John Round are treated in the 1983 work by H. L. Peter Rounds, The John Round Family of Swansea and Rehoboth, Massachusetts, which won the Donald Lines Jacobus award the following year. The South Dakota State Historical Society had published a partial ancestor table of the Senator several years ago, identifying him as an eleventh-generation descendant of the first John Round. There are some errors on the ancestor table, so refer to the chart and sources below, but the table serves as a good start.[1] Continue reading Round and round
Where’s Waldo?
Over the fall, our daughters took an art class at the Museum of Fine Arts each Sunday. This gave my wife and me two hours to stroll around the museum, enjoy a leisurely lunch or, weather permitting, enjoy the outdoors. While visiting a section of Japanese art, I noticed a lot of the art work was donated by American art collector Denman Waldo Ross (1853-1935), a trustee of the museum. I have encountered Ross’s middle name of Waldo several times over the years, and for New Englanders this usually indicates a descent from Cornelius Waldo of Ipswich and Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Continue reading Where’s Waldo?
Learned Larneds
Years ago, Jeff Record sent me an ahnentafel report on his ancestry, curious to see if we had any connections back in Kansas. While we identified several common ancestors in New England, I was curious about his great-great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth (Neff) Young (1864-1898) of El Dorado, Kansas. Neff is not in my own ancestry, but it is the surname of some distant cousins I remembered from my childhood. I frequently went to Kansas over the holidays as a child and would stay at my grandparents’ farm in Sedgwick, Kansas. Most often my mother’s siblings and their children would also be there; sometimes there were more distant cousins present, and at the time I had no idea how they were related to me. The Neffs were some such cousins that would occasionally visit as two of their boys were the same age as myself and a few of my first cousins. Later, as I got interested in genealogy, I learned that they were my third cousins: their mother’s father’s sister Carrie Etta (Wright) Learned was a sister of my matrilineal great-grandmother Daisy Alice (Wright) Horton. Continue reading Learned Larneds
Significantly
After having the illustrated Teams conversation with a colleague (which did continue with me giving details), I thought I would accomplish my dream of writing a post in under one hundred words, one that would prompt longer comments than the 61 words of the original post. So, readers, how would you say genealogy has changed in the last ten (or twenty) years?
“Colonel Larned with the revolver”
Well, Jeff Record got back at me with another Clue post, and wisely moved away from talking about double names, as there are only so many one can find! So, I’ll continue the game with my great-great-great-great-grandfather Col. Morris Larned (1786-1878) of Dudley, Massachusetts. While I have discussed several of his relatives (his wife was the last centenarian in my ancestry, and his namesake great-grandson Morris Larned Healy was a bit of a wild one), I really do not know much about Colonel Larned himself, other than that he was a colonel … but a colonel of what? Continue reading “Colonel Larned with the revolver”
Moved by religion
When I have given lectures and consultations on migrations into and out of New England, a frequent topic of discussion regards the question of whether the migration was religiously or economically motivated. For the period of The Great Migration into New England from 1620-1640, the settlements by the English Separatists and Puritans were overwhelmingly religious (not for religious freedom, but to practice their religion the way as they wanted). Several “second-generation” settlements like Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, and even migrations out of New England to Dorchester, South Carolina, were also religiously motivated, following a minister to a new town. By the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century, migrations out of New England were largely economically motivated for cheaper land and other factors. Still, occasionally a religiously motivated migration occurs, and sometimes they are at first difficult to spot. Continue reading Moved by religion
Ancestors of Billy Porter: Part Two
Continuing with the ancestry of actor Billy Porter, the story of note I found in the actor’s maternal ancestry was more immediate and quite tragic. Porter’s mother Cloerinda Jean (Johnson) (Porter) Ford was the daughter of James and Martha (Richardson) Johnson, and granddaughter of Thomas H. and Mary (Hines) Richardson. Thomas H. Richardson (1889-1923), a native of Cumberland County, Virginia, moved to Pittsburgh by 1910. Thomas and Mary had three children, and Thomas worked as a packer in a steel mill and as a plasterer. Thomas died young, at thirty-three, on 26 May 1923. However, the cause of death on his death certificate prompted me look at his life further – “Shock Hemorrhage following Gun Shot Wound Through right Breast.” Continue reading Ancestors of Billy Porter: Part Two
Ancestors of Billy Porter: Part One
One of my favorite shows of the last few years has been the FX Original Pose, chronicling the lives of LGBTQ people of color in the ballroom culture of New York City during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and ’90s. With its amazing cast of talented actors, one of my favorite characters was Pray Tell, portrayed by the actor Billy Porter, who is known for his earlier work in Kinky Boots and more recently as the fabulous godmother in a remake of Cinderella. With Pose ending its season earlier this year, and Porter releasing his memoir Unprotected this month, I decided to explore the actor’s ancestry and found two very different stories, certainly representative of the variety of the African American experience over the centuries. Continue reading Ancestors of Billy Porter: Part One