52 Ancestors 2026: Long-Lasting – Vox Populi

 

The American experiment has a foundation based on a government that expresses the voice of the people, or vox populi. We’ve never achieved perfection, but one of the positive changes in our nation, arising from the colonial period, has been the idea that government should represent the interests of the people, by the people (and for the people, to round out the phrase). This ideal distinguished the British colonies from the monarchies of Europe. In Great Britain, colonial government was expressed through the companies that bankrolled the colonies and the charters they were granted.

But my family had to have some troublemakers (maybe that’s a long-lasting trait as well). Many of my ancestors were Reformed Protestants who ran afoul of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and the crowned heads of France, Spain, and England. Their heretical ideas reflected the rise of the middle classes as feudalism waned and included a distrust of human nature such that they believed power should not reside solely in one figure of authority, such as a king or a pope. When the colonies opened up, they were among those who sought refuge away from the royal courts.

The Reformed Protestant churches moved away from hierarchy and toward greater representation. Pastors were still important, but churches themselves were governed by elders (elected representatives) or by congregational votes. These republican and democratic forms of church government provided a foundation for our current system.

But I think my ancestors took it a step further. As I’ve written before, Stephen Hopkins made his second journey to the New World on the Mayflower and was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, which distributed governing power among the adult males of the colony. Interestingly enough, it was the non-Puritan passengers who insisted that, since they had landed somewhere other than their intended destination, they were free to do what they wanted. Stephen Hopkins had witnessed the debacle that was Jamestown and may have been one of those advocates for self-governing. With the Puritans being their own rebellious selves—and highly educated—we do not need to wonder why New England became a hotbed of revolution in the 18th century.

But that is not all. I have found many ancestors who fought for the Patriot side during the American Revolution, and the more I dig, the more I find. Our Declaration of Independence, now 250 years old, represented the views of the elected Continental Congress. Through bumps, twists, and turns, and even changes in who has a voice, that ideal has endured. It was the inspiration for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered to dedicate the cemetery for those “gave their lives so that that nation might live.”.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Photo:

Great Room of the National Archives

52 Ancestors 2026: Multiples – Threes

 

The number 3 has all kinds of meanings. In folklore: “Third time’s the charm.” In Christianity: the Holy Trinity, Peter’s three denials, and the Resurrection on the third day. In public speaking: making three main points or using three examples. For this prompt, I thought I would use three examples of ancestors who married (sort of) three times. I’ve written about these three people before, but each example tells us something about the era and the circumstances of their lives.

The first is Susannah Shattuck, my Puritan ancestor who lived from around 1643 to 1717 and represents the second generation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I’ve written about her remarkable life before, including her three marriages to Joseph Morse, John Fay, and Thomas Brigham. She was twice widowed and found a way to raise her six Morse children, her four Fay children and three Fay stepchildren, and seven Brigham stepchildren. I haven’t found any contemporary descriptions or remembrances of her (men seem to get more attention), but the names of her children reflect her Puritan piety, while her widowhood and sheer number of children demonstrate her perseverance and family-raising skills. She seems to have been one thread of continuity in her community. It’s also notable that the Shattuck, Morse, Fay, and Brigham families were prominent New England families, and she had ties to all three, not to mention the other families her children married into, such as the Larkins, Joslins, Newtons, and Holbrooks.

My second example is not a direct ancestor but a cousin, Artimesia Curry, my Kentucky relative who lived from 1824 to 1914. Her first marriage was to John Gabhart, with whom she had four children. Artimesia was widowed and then married George W. Bennett, whom she divorced in 1871, just days before marrying Hiram Cunningham. We learn a great deal about the times from her story. The Commonwealth of Kentucky was entering a promising phase but was also embroiled in the Civil War as a divided and fiercely contested border state. Hiram was loyal to the Union and served in the U.S. Army. It was gratifying to see his loyalty to his country and his contribution to preserving the Union, but it was also remarkable that Hiram and Artimesia persisted in their efforts to obtain pensions (veteran’s and widow’s) for his service. Pension records are often the stuff genealogists’ dreams are made of. Thanks to Artimesia’s precise memory, I was able to learn about another branch of the Curry family into which Hiram had married. Her depositions, combined with the fact that she had one of the relatively rare 19th-century divorces, contribute to a picture of a strong and determined woman.

My grandfather, Stephen Anthony Reed, and his marriages break the pattern a bit. His second relationship, with a woman identified as his wife in the 1940 census, may not have been formalized with an actual marriage certificate. We do, however, have a marriage certificate for his last pairing. Grandpa Steve was born in 1892 in Missouri and married Ruby Fast in 1911. They were both young—19 and 17 years old, respectively. They had five children, although their eldest died young.

His second relationship was with Margaret Branstuder Stephenson, and this household, which included Margaret’s two daughters—one who had previously married at sixteen and another who apparently had special needs—appears in the 1940 census. By 1950, he was living with Verna Fultz Verbeck. Like Margaret, her husband was still living at the time of these census records, although he was living in a different household. Interestingly, Verna’s husband was reported as “widowed” in the 1950 census. Steve and Verna married in 1961, and he died in 1973. If nothing else, I learned about some very complicated relationships, perhaps brought on by difficult circumstances.

Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Missouri are three important states in my genealogy, and in this essay they represent three different regions in three different eras. Family trees are complicated, and a lot gets buried as family stories fade and records become sporadic. It’s easy to talk about the “good old days,” but success was never guaranteed. Life required hard work, perseverance, and sometimes being in the right place at the right time. But if we dig deeply enough, we can sometimes piece together a broad picture and catch a glimpse of the past from the information that survives.

Picture:

Created by the author using Google Gemini (2026)

52 Ancestors 2026: Neighbors and Community – John Reed’s Tangled Web of Litigants

 

Genealogists can get a lot of important information and context by examining the Friends, Associates, and Neighbors—the FAN Club. In my John Reed Notebook project, however, it seems that John’s FANs were mostly linked to him through litigation, which is a very different kind of social interaction. Although these court cases do not present him in a particularly flattering light, they reveal a great deal about his family ties and, perhaps, his character.

For starters, we have John’s family. From the will of his father-in-law, Alexander Harrison of Fairfield County, Ohio, we learn that at the time of his death in 1829, John owed Alexander money that was to go to his mother-in-law, Susannah. We can also learn more about Alexander and his brother George Harrison (not the Beatle) and George’s move to Ohio in 1804.

We pick up the trail in Morgan County with William Reed, who was a neighbor rather than a close relative. When William died in 1852, leaving a wife, Julia Ann, and seven young children, John became administrator of the estate in 1853. He then managed to sell William’s land below market value to Daniel Sims, a neighbor who was, at the time, also a son-in-law, having married John’s daughter Sarah Ann. Sims did not own the property for long. He sold it to Reas Barkhurst for a tidy profit and then went west to Missouri. This part of the neighborhood was friendly to John: Sims got a nice starter farm and a profitable deal, while Barkhurst was able to cash in on land whose value increased during and after the Civil War.

Of course, William Reed’s heirs, once they came of age, were not such fans of John and eventually took him to court. After a series of lawsuits, they finally received compensation for the undervaluation of their land. These lawsuits provide us with more information about William’s children and their spouses.

But John’s duties as administrator had further repercussions. His neighbors had served as sureties on his bond, guaranteeing that he would properly administer the estate. As his dealings began to look increasingly questionable, the sureties went to court to avoid being held liable for John’s actions. Two of those sureties were brothers Samuel and Joseph Miller. But the Millers were also family. In 1850, John’s son John Linley Reed married their sister Elisabeth Miller, and another son, Lindley D. Reed, married her sister Eliza Jane Miller.

The Millers were about to become even more entangled with the Reeds. After John was widowed in 1857, he married the also-widowed matriarch of the Miller family, Elizabeth Dolman Miller, in 1860. The couple lived together for eleven years, but Elizabeth’s death led to another set of lawsuits. Her Miller heirs believed that John had improperly retained funds that Elizabeth had brought into the marriage and sought to recover them from his estate.

But this wasn’t the end of the lawsuits. Just a few months after Elizabeth died, John, himself infirm, moved into the household of Clement Fuller, who had married John’s daughter Evaline. John died in 1872, after spending only about six months with the Fullers. Apparently, he had given them a promissory note to pay for his care during his final months, and the Fullers joined the growing list of plaintiffs by suing his estate.

There were also people in the Morgan and Muskingum County communities who were not related to John Reed but whose names appear here and there in the records. According to the 1860 census, widow Julia Ann Reed ended up living next door to John in Muskingum County. Whatever she received from the sale of William’s land, she was able to maintain a farm valued at $1,200, with another $250 in personal property. Her oldest son, 17 years old, helped on the farm.

Living with John were his daughter Mary Jane Reed Bay and her husband, Thomas Gordon Bay. Interestingly, one of the witnesses to a deed involving John Reed was James Bay, who was a cousin of Gordon Bay. Also in John’s household was John Lyder, a 70-year-old fellow Virginian. Were they friends from back east?

The task of managing John’s estate eventually fell to Edward Bethel, whose relationship to John is unknown. He took on the herculean task of defending the Reed estate against all comers. One clue to a possible relationship with the Reeds is the fact that a Bethel family lived next door to Clement and Evaline Fuller. Checking the census for more Bethels, we find Russell Bethel, Edward’s brother, married to Elizabeth Bay, who was a distant cousin of Gordon Bay.

When studying communities and neighbors in an area that had only recently been settled, it is hard not to uncover family ties among the people living there, with very few degrees of separation. With all these relationships, John Reed’s messy life left behind a messy estate. Edward Bethel defended the property the Reed children were to inherit against the heirs of William Reed (neighbors), the heirs of Elizabeth Dolman Miller Reed (in-laws and stepchildren), and John’s own son-in-law and daughter, with the various principals testifying against one another.

From this genealogical exercise, we learn about all the entanglements and disputes that could not be settled at family gatherings but instead had to be settled in the courthouses of Morgan and Muskingum Counties. And, at least, these legal proceedings were better than settling affairs in the style of the mythical Wild West.

Photo: 

Pepe Silvia meme https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-silvia

52 Ancestors 2026: A Day in the Life – A Shaker Day

 

A lot of oft-repeated truisms start with “There are two types of people in the world,” and go on to say something about morning people and night owls, dog people and cat people, or those who see people as falling into two types and those who see gradations. One of the traits sometimes described in terms of dualisms is the difference between people who are organized and follow routines and those who are carefree and spontaneous. As an inveterate list maker and daily planner, I can see some truth in that distinction. And how often is the “two types of people” statement followed by, “And they always seem to marry each other”?

We could go much deeper into discussions of opposites attracting, but this entry is more of an exploration of a very orderly religious sect that is part of my family history: the Shakers (or the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing). My paternal ancestors, the Bantas, were part of the mixed Dutch/Huguenot Conewago Colony that migrated to Kentucky in the early 1780s. Three Banta brothers (my first cousins six times removed) were among the founders of the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.

Each day in the Village was marked by the hour. At 5 AM, a clock would strike and the villagers would wake up. Those assigned to tend the farm animals would take care of feeding them and, for the cows, milking them. Next came breakfast, followed by another strike of the clock signaling the start of farming, industry, and other chores. The farmers tended the crops and animals in the morning. The industrial work included making furniture and clothing, much of it for the village but also for sale to the outside world. At the striking of the noon bell, the villagers would meet for dinner, after which they began their afternoon work.

The day ended with supper, followed by prayer and meditation and lights out at 9 PM. Of course, the Sabbath was reserved for worship, along with the necessary farm activities. The Shakers also held special events featuring their signature singing and fervent dancing. Simple times and an eschatological worldview did not mean an absence of joy.

Throughout the day, the Shakers would assemble for prayer, anticipating and hoping for the Second Coming, which they believed was imminent. They wanted to be like the five wise bridesmaids in Matthew’s Gospel and live their daily lives in preparation.

For many in the early years of our nation, the wild days were times of opportunity, but some wanted a life of stability and an escape from the outside world. For them, the Shaker villages provided a sanctuary and an opportunity for women to be full members of the community, although the division of labor was usually based on sex. The Shakers were part of the religious revivals that characterized the early days of the Republic, but their enforced celibacy and the fact that the Second Coming still hasn’t happened meant that the colonies could not last. Their music and craftsmanship, however, have endured.

We may not understand their theology, but many of us who are list makers and planners might envy their routines. To a point.

Photo: From https://blog.shakervillageky.org/today-in-pleasant-hill-history/