Apes of Creation Genealogy Page

03/31/2024

If you have an online family tree, you've likely seen “hints” to related records or other family trees. Here are 10 rules for evaluating and using hints.

03/31/2024

This is a pedigree chart going back five generations and only showing places of birth for the individuals. My parents places of birth look off, but they were born in the nearest hospital across the state line. Everyone on the chart was born at home except for my parents and me.

I thought about using where they lived most of their life instead, but I've got quite a few movers once I get back to the great-great-grandparents generations.

Thanks to my Facebook friend JPH for initially posting this idea several years ago.

--Michael

03/31/2024

A groundbreaking new project shows the full scale of death during the 1922-1923 conflict. Its authors Andy Bielenberg and John Dorney explain the findings.

01/29/2024

Precision, Pictures, and Perspective Posted on January 25, 2024, updated on January 24, 2024 by mjnrootdig I’ve been writing about tombstone pictures on Genealogy Tip of the Day. As time has gone on, I have become a bigger fan of taking overview photos to provide perspective and indicate the locat...

03/31/2022

This applies to NY. I do wonder how this will bungle researchers in the future.

After all, pets are family to many of us.

11/15/2019

Amazing news for those adopted from NYS! January 20, 2020

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation allowing adoptees to receive a certified birth certificate at age 18.

08/19/2019

My Mayflower First Family really was First

There are a few common excitements among genealogists and family historians. We all aspire to discover Royalty, a famous individual, a President or leader. We secretly rejoice when we discover a Witch and gain morbid delight discovering a murder, murderer, or convict. Yet for Americans there is an elusive golden challis. Discovering a Mayflower direct ancestor. There are countless Mayflower societies, clubs, and organizations that all offer many benefits to a researcher. Magazines, collaboration, non-digitized documents, libraries, companionship and fellowship to name a few. But in order to access this wealth of information, you must prove your lineage.

Today I am writing about my Mayflower ancestor and his family, James Chilton. James Chilton is my 9th Great Grandfather on my maternal side. He and his family are one of my favorite discoveries.

James Chilton was born about 1556, in Canterbury, County Kent, England. He was the son of Lyonell and Edtith (Unknown) Chilton. He married a woman only known as "Mrs. Chilton" around 1583. They went on to have eight children together. It's sad that her name was lost to time, as she and the family seemed to be revolutionaries, Separatists, and became Pilgrims.

In 1609, Mrs. Chilton chose to attend the secret burial of Andrew Sharpe's child. The family of the child opposed of the "popish" way services were held in Roman Catholic controlled Elizabethan England, so they chose to bury the child according to Protestant faith. This time period would later be known as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and conflicts between Roman Catholic and Protestants were very common. Mrs. Chilton and others were later charged by the Archdeacon's Court. It was not long after the family left for Holland during the excommunications seeking freedom of religion

Later, in 1619, James and his oldest daughter Isabella were caught in the middle of an anti-Armenian riot in Leiden and James was severely wounded when a rock split his head open. He was lucky to survive and required the services of the town Surgeon, Jacob Hey. Upon his recovery the decision was made...they would be among the first to go to the New World.

On September 6, 1620 the Mayflower, James Chilton, Mrs. Chilton, and daughter Mary Chilton took their maiden voyage departing from Plymouth, England. He was the oldest pilgrim on the ship at the age of 64. The Voyage would take 66 days. It is unknown if the Chilton's were originally on the Speedwell, the pilgrim ship that failed and caused an additional 45 days at sea and an impromptu return to England. If they were, They spent an astounding 111 days at sea.

They arrived in the New World on Nov 9th, 1620, a few degrees off from their planned landing. As the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked. The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south to the Hudson River opening, they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now known as Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. It was during this time period while anchored in the harbor that James Chilton would die of unknown causes, never setting foot on New World soil.

On Christmas Day, 1620 the decision was made to break ground on what would later become Plymouth, Massachusetts. The first female to step on shore was my 9th Great Aunt, Mary Chilton. Some records state she was simply the first person, but there isn't proof of this.

Sadly, a month later, Mrs. Chilton died of what would become known as First disease. A disease that was unknown to the Pilgrims and contributed to the death of 45 of 102 Mayflower passengers that very first Winter.

Mary would be orphaned in the New World at the age of 13. It is unknown who cared for her and took her in, but it is known that she was awarded her family's share of land and in 1627 she married John Winslow...a second run immigrant who came in on the ship "Fortune".

In light of all the recent issues regarding immigration, My Chilton Ancestors remind me of why people flee. The hopes to have freedom of religion, avoidance of tyranny and war, to build a new clean life. They also remind me of the Native people we displaced, the hardships we brought and placed on them. Immigration and the associated problems are an old as time issue. One that will tick away regardless of laws or politics. We all must learn to either forge ahead like an immigrant, adapt, or be displaced. Regardless of that choice, changes will come. Births and deaths will happen in new lands and old.

Happy Hunting everyone.

11/08/2018

Some light reading ;)

It is a treasure trove from one of the bloodiest chapters in Scottish history, which reveals how Jacobite generals compelled their exhausted troops to slay any deserters on the fields of Culloden, and documents the soul-searching which followed the failed uprising of 1745.

07/21/2018

The Force is strong with this genealogist.

07/15/2018

Another quarter done here at Apes of Creation. I would like to welcome this quarter's newest members.... Bridget Jeffery, Tammie Chapple, Shirley Stefanelli, Keith Jeffery, Charles R. Clawson, and M. Sean Howery. Some of you are blood, Some of you may be blood and we just don't know it yet, Some of you aren't blood...but we are all family. Welcome!!!

07/14/2018

The New Age of Genealogy has arrived. Many genealogist's have been discussing this exact thing for nearly a decade.

Forensic genealogists use a modern approach to family history research & genealogical research. Forensic research resources include DNA testing for ancestry