“From These Roots We Came”

I am adding a new page on our ancestors who first settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. It has the basic information, but will be fined-tuned with some minor revisions in the next few days. I just wanted to get it posted as early as possible so family members (and any others who have an interest in these families) could start reading it.

These families include the following surnames: Bokers (Boekers); De Haven (In Den Haven); Levering; Schaal; Schibhower; Sellen (Zellen); Stackhouse; Supplee (Souplis); Van Fossen; and Zimmerman. Most of these ancestors came by way of Germany or Holland, although some, like Andreas Souplis, came from France. You can click on the link for pages on the right hand side of this page or on this link.

Spellings of all of these names vary considerably in the early records, as those recording the names many times did not understand the languages from which the names came.

Today I added a page to the site entitled: “Johann Jacob Zimmerman: Reformation, Pietism, and The Apocalypse“. He is found on the Ross side of my ancestry in the 11th Generation of ancestors.

He was an astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, Lutheran clergyman, and most significant historically, one of the leaders of the German “Pietist” movement. He believed that the end of the world was coming in 1694 and prepared a group of believers to head to the “New World” to wait for Christ’s coming. He died the day before the group was to leave, but because of his plans and their journey to America, his children became the progenitors of our existence. Because they were, we are!!

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

A brief history of our “Owens” surname ancestors was added to that site today. Check it out.

I am trying to add at least one surname per week now.

So far we have pages on RossTribe.Com for the following surnames.

Bronough

Chadwell

Owens

Whisenant

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Today I added information on our Chadwell ancestors on the RossTribe.Com web site. Check it out at the following link: Chadwell Ancestors of James McClellan Ross. You can return to this site by clicking the “From These Roots We Came” link on the right side of that page.

The following wills were also added to this site:

Will of John C. Chadwell

Will of George Chadwell

Will of Jeremiah Bronough

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

It seems like a lot of time has passed since I last posted an entry here. I have not however been forgetting my research and work on the family history and genealogy. I have been working on a new site for the Ancestors of my paternal grandparents, James McClellan Ross and Esther Lou Owens. It is still in the early stages but the groundwork has been laid to make it a very informative site for our ancestry. I will link back and forth between that site and this one as the research and data overlap.

The site has many things to offer family members, like email, a homepage, etc. More about this later.

Today, I will talk only about the “Ancestral Roots” page on the Rosstribe.com site (Click on link on right side of Rosstribe.com page to get to the “Ancestral Roots” page). I have listed already the surnames (with the outlines and links for pages on each) for the first eight (8) generations of our ancestors through this line.

[I will do the same later on another web site for the ancestors of my maternal grandparents, John Bertie Long and Nannie Grace Lewis].

Each surname will have its own web page with information on that surname’s ancestral line. The more recent names will of course have more information since they go further into the past. As an example of what you can expect as I fill in the data on each surname, go to the Whisenant Surname and check it out. This will be done with all the surnames as I get the time to complete them.

When you go to a new surname page, you can tell easily whether it is an ancestor of James McClellan Ross or Esther Lou Owens. There is a picture of James McClellan Ross in the left hand corner of each page of his ancestral surnames. For Esther Lou Owens, her picture is in the right on each page of her ancestral surnames.

Check it out. If you have any comments or suggestions as to how to improve the site (or specific information you would like to see added for a surname ) let me know. You can do that my commenting on this site or emailing me at lamar@rosstribe.com or lamar@rossancestors.com.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

This posting is to provide a background for a new page I added today on our Huguenot and Walloon Ancestors. The migration of the Huguenots and Walloons to American might not have occurred had it not been for the persecution of the French Protestants by the Catholic Church and the government of France. This posting sets the social and political environment in which these ancestors of ours lived.

[See our Huguenot and Walloon Ancestors at this Page: “Our Huguenot and Walloon Ancestors“].

Human atrocities throughout history have more frequently been the rule than the exception. Burning at the stake, impalement on sharp stakes, disemboweling, beheading, and “quartering” were common during much of European history. Royalty killed Royalty and commoners killed commoners. No one was safe.

Violence and warfare in some of its most atrocious forms was frequently associated with religious movements. The distinction between state, religion, and society during the 1500’s and thereafter was not made in people’s minds and experiences. Prior to that, for approximately a 1000 years religion had formed the basis for a social consciousness that pervaded the thinking of royalty and commoners.

France in particular had tied itself closely to the Catholic Church. The Church sanctified the monarchy’s right to rule in return for military and civil protection. “One faith” was considered essential to maintain societal stability and innovations was frowned upon and not generally acceptable. Even the Renaissance period had to be justified as a return to a simple, purer time rather than as change.

The French Huguenots and Walloons

After the Protestant Reformation that had been started by Martin Luther about 1517 in Germany took hold, it spread rapidly in France. The French Protestants gradually left the Lutheran teachings and adapted the teaching of the Reformed Church, established in 1550 by John Calvin. This reformed religion was practiced by both members of the French nobility and the social middle class who were for the most part artisans, craftsmen, and professional people. Their belief in salvation through an individual faith that did not rely on the intercession of the church hierarchy, and an individual’s right to personally interpret scriptures put them in direct conflict with the Catholic church and the King of France.

On January 19, 1536 a general edict was issued in France which encouraged the extermination of the French Protestants. These Protestants called themselves “reformees” (reformers). By 1550, when the first church based on John Calvin’s teachings was established in a home in Paris, they were being called Huguenots, a name which has continued to be used to describe them until this day.

General persecution continued after the edict of 1536 but the movement prospered and by 1561 there were 2,000 Calvinist Churches in France and the Huguenots had become a political faction that seemed to threaten the state. The antipathy toward the Huguenots created an atmosphere of hate that led to the Massacre at Vassy, France on March 1, 1562 of 1,200 Huguenots. This triggered the Wars of Religion which lasted from 1562 to 1598.

Persecution of the Huguenots continued and in August, 1572, 8,000 Huguenots were killed in one night at the St. Batholomew Massacre. This occurred in Paris at the wedding of Henry of Navarre (later to rule as Henry IV) where thousands of Huguenots had come to celebrate his wedding.. Catherine de Medici, who violently hated the Huguenots, had persuaded her son Charles IX to order the mass murder. She personally inspected the carnage on Sunday, the 24th of August in 1572. Pope Gregory XIII ordered bonfires and celebrations in Rome, when news of the massacre reached him on the 2nd of September, 1572.

When Henry IV became ruler, he signed the Edict of Nantes on April 13, 1598, ending the Wars of Religion and establishing 20 specified French “free” cities where the Huguenots were allowed to practice their faith. This official support soon ended upon the murder in 1610 of Henry IV. Cardinal Richelieu began a siege of the Huguenot free cities which resulted in their last stronghold of La Rochelle falling to Richelieu in 1629. Widespread persecution of the Huguenots again began in earnest and under Louis XIV (1643-1715) the Edict of Nantes was finally revoked on the 22nd of October, 1685. Louis XIV stated a policy of “one faith, one law, and one king” and the end result was the destruction and burning of Protestant churches and homes, and many Huguenots being burned at the stake.

In spite of emigration being declared illegal, 200,000 or more French Huguenots fled the country, going to Switzerland, Germany, England, America, and South Africa. Between 5,000 and 7,000 Huguenots and Walloons (French speaking protestants from Wallonia, in the South part of Belgium) came to America between 1618 and 1725. At least four of these became a part of our ancestry.

Click Here: “Our Huguenot and Walloon Ancestors“.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

I have not been able to correct or delete the site search box on the site. It has not been working correctly. I am putting in a new link for searching the site which I have tested and seems to be working excellently. Click on the link: SEARCH SITE HERE. Put in your search words and do the search. As an example, put in “Robert Ross” as a search term and you should get a listing of a number of locations where he is mentioned. I got nine different locations on the site where his name was mentioned.

I am also putting the SEARCH SITE HERE link on the blogroll to make it easier to do a search on the site. This search tool is provided by FeedBlitz and does a great job of locating site names, etc. I recommend them highly.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

For those of you who are as busy as I am, you can’t always check out sites of interest on a regular basis. I am assuming if you are here (my how I hate to assume!!), you at least have some interest in what is being posted here.
To be notified when a new item has been posted on this site, SUBSCRIBE HERE. (Click on the words SUBSCRIBE HERE). When the form comes up on your screen, put in your email address, follow the instructions and click on “Subscribe Me” and it’s done. You will be notified by email each time a new item is posted. You can then choose whether to visit the site to read the entire posting or not.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Every ancestor in our pedigree tree was necessary for us to be here today. Whatever their trade, religion, race, language; if they had not existed, neither would we. Whether the ancestors were good or bad is irrelevant. Whether they were rich or poor is irrelevant. Whether they were educated or not is irrelevant. Only one thing is important to our existence. We can say that because they were, we are! How philosophical, Uhh?

When each of these ancestors had children, their children’s children became cousins, and with each succeeding generation; more and more distant cousins were created. So, after a number of generations we find ourselves distantly related to thousands and even millions of persons.

In the past, it was difficult to know who these distant relatives were. There also was no easy way to know if we were related to a famous person unless this person just happened to be in your direct ancestral line, like a 4th or 5th great grandfather or something.

The task is now a little easier. Over the last decade, the internet has filled with genealogy sites where individuals can place their own genealogical trees. These unlinked trees are great for research and have often helped us to find ancestors and their offspring that we did not know about. Their descendants (our distant cousins), like us, have been researching their ancestors, and at some point many of these share a common ancestor with us.

These unlinked trees were good, but that was only the beginning. For research purposes the next step was to start to combine these trees together where they had common ancestral links to form a much larger family tree incorporating all of these individual trees. I’m not going to give a history here of different sites that now do this, but one of these, Ancestry.Com has provided a new tool to help you find our famous relatives which I have tried out several times, JUST FOR FUN.

If you have submitted a genealogical tree with family ancestry data as I have, you may go to specific individuals on your tree and institute a search for famous relatives of that individual. On the right hand side of the site is a box with links under the title Tools. One of these is “Find famous relatives”. It was here that I did the preliminary research on “my” famous relatives. The famous relatives that result and their connections to us are only as accurate as the information on the “One World Tree” links. If there are mistakes in the individual family trees which make up the “One World Tree”, then the connections given to us will also be in error.

I made a copy of the connections to these “famous” relatives and then checked these connections with my own family tree information and the individual links tied to each person in the connection. If my comparison seemed to prove their connections were accurate, I considered them as relatives. So, I am only including those which appear to be legitimate ancestral connections in my postings on this site. [One of the reports said that Geoffrey Chaucer, the famous English author, was my 15th grandfather. When I checked the results, there was a mistake in one genealogical connection of over one hundred years, which made the connection definitely not true.]

All of the famous relatives that I am placing on this site are based on their relationship to me through one of my grandparent’s ancestors.

If you want to see how you fit in, you have to know which person on our lineage you are related to. In my case, I could be related through my dad’s side through his mother ( Owens family) or his father’s (Ross family) ancestors), or my mother’s side through her mother (Lewis family) or father’s (Long family) ancestors. So, all of my brothers and sister have the exact same relationship to these famous persons as I do. All of our children would have the same relationship to the famous person as each of their cousins.

If you are connected directly to any of the ancestors that lead back to the common ancestor that we have with the famous person, then you are related also. The relationship would be different from mine, but you would still be related.

Over the next few weeks (or months), as I develop charts of the connections to these famous ancestors, I will place links to them on a page listing entitled: Our Famous Relatives.

Just a little teaser! Or two!

• President George Walker Bush is my ninth cousin [through Longs] (I am posting this one to a page entitled ‘Our Famous Relatives: PRESIDENT GEORGE WALKER BUSH’ today).
  
• His wife, Laura Welch Bush is my seventh cousin, once removed [through Longs]
  
• President Gerald Ford, is my eighth cousin, one removed [through Rosses]
  
• James “Wild Bill” Hickock is my sixth cousin, four times removed. [Ross Side]
  
• Eleanor Roosevelt, is my half-eighth cousin, twice removed [Long side]
  

Stay tuned to see “step by step” exactly how they are related to me (and you!). I’ll be posting the first one soon.

If you have any questions or comments on this posting or any of “Famous Relative” pages to follow, sign up and enter your comments. I would love to hear from any and all relatives.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.

Today I placed a another link on the blogroll to the right which goes directly to the RossTribe.Com Family Web Site. It is a site initiated today to keep in touch with and provide a service to the descendants of James McClellan Ross (Ahn 4) and Esther Lou Owens (Ahn 5), my grandparents.

Those direct descendants of these two individuals are eligible for a FREE email using rosstribe.com as the domain. It is powered by Google and provides several gigabytes of storage for each mail box. If you are one of these direct descendants, contact me at my secondary email: lamar@rosstribe.com. I will add your new email for you.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.