52 Ancestors 2026: Tradition – Or Maybe Not

 

Growing up in Buffalo, I was surrounded by traditions, many of them rooted in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods. There were Italian festivals and foods celebrated each year, diners run by Greek immigrants, and the major Christmas Eve and Easter traditions centered around shopping at the Broadway Market. I learned to greet the various grandmothers—Babushka or Yia-Yia—who served as the respected matriarchs of multigenerational households. Since I got married, my own family now has absorbed and adapted many Polish customs, and we still enjoy celebrating those links to the Poland of around 1900.

At the same time, my family gradually let go of many of the Old World customs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and became an amalgamation of cultures—fully American. Although some ancestors originally lived in émigré communities in the colonies, it did not take long for cultures to blend. A few family lines especially stand out, both before and after the American Revolution.

My paternal line began as various groups of Huguenots from France and Belgium who migrated to New Amsterdam, where they became part of a blended French-Dutch community. The Scots-Irish McWilliams family settled in a heavily German area of Pennsylvania, and over time the Highlanders blended with the Rhinelanders. Other German families, such as the Fasts, were more recent immigrants and probably retained more of their German heritage for a generation or two, something that even proved useful during the Revolution. The New England Puritan families were perhaps the group that remained the most English, at least while they stayed in New England.

After the American Revolution and the opening of lands west of the Appalachians, everything began to change. Being “American” increasingly meant becoming something distinct from European identities. The Huguenot-Dutch branch migrated together into Kentucky, but eventually settled in Ohio, where they intermarried with English families. The Scots-Irish-German lines married into families with Quaker roots, descendants who had left the Society of Friends. Even the New Englanders broadened their horizons as they moved westward and married into German families. Farming and rural life became the defining tradition for many generations afterward. Even the one nineteenth-century Irish immigrant branch assimilated within a generation.

The move to Buffalo, however, transformed a rural family into an urban one. Open fields were replaced by parks and parkways, and one-room schoolhouses gave way to large brick schools with wood shops, auditoriums, and swimming pools. Yet perhaps some vestiges of those older traditions remain. Although gardening and mechanical work are far less necessary for me than they were for my prairie-dwelling ancestors, I still find myself carrying on some of those habits today.

52 Ancestors 2026: Unexpected – An Appreciation of Amy’s Prodding and Prompts

 

Genealogical research is full of twists and turns. Sometimes it’s a shady character, a surprising connection to deep history, or an unexpected migration. There have been plenty of such examples in this blog, but what surprised me most this year was how much my blogging and writing led to new discoveries.

I originally thought the weekly prompts from Amy Johnson Crow would be useful for quick summaries, while I spent most of my time breaking through brick walls and adding more and more names to my tree. Instead, the prompts pushed me to explore new territory and dig deeper into ancestors and families I thought I already understood. They also encouraged me to examine the broader context—the times and places in which my ancestors lived. Three areas I explored in particular were early settlements, migration patterns, and a deeper look at farming life in Barton County.

When it came to early settlements, I knew I had ancestors in New England and New Netherland, but writing these posts led me to dig further into the details. “New England” turned out to encompass a variety of Puritan families. I learned more about the Salem Witch Trials, naming conventions, and discovered that I descend from some of the earliest immigrants to Plymouth Colony (the Mayflower) and Massachusetts Bay (Winthrop’s fleet). I also explored my Huguenot line through family histories and narratives about the early days of New Amsterdam, as well as my early Quaker ancestors in Pennsylvania.

Of course, my ancestors were all immigrants, but their migrations didn’t stop at the coast. Early generations moved into the interior of the Thirteen Colonies, and later generations pushed even farther west. I had learned about routes like the Wilderness Road and the Oregon Trail in school, but they became far more meaningful when I realized that my own ancestors had traveled them. One unexpected discovery was the central role that Kentucky—first as a territory and later as a commonwealth—played in so many of my family lines. Perhaps that connection explains why I was drawn to the Bluegrass State for my education, even before I knew of my Kentucky roots.

With all these migrations, many of these once-distant family lines eventually converged in Barton County, Missouri. While I had long collected census data for these families, the depth of information found in those records—especially the agricultural schedules, along with land, probate, and death records—revealed far more than I had expected. These sources provided not just names and dates, but insight into daily life and the interconnected nature of these families.

In the end, it is hard to point to just one unexpected discovery—there were many. What surprised me most was how much progress I made simply by writing. The process kept me engaged, encouraged deeper research, and led me to explore topics in ways I might not have otherwise.

Not a bad year at all.

52 Ancestors 2025: Cousins, or Keeping It All in the Family

 

The theme of “Cousins” can go in many directions. I’ve already written about both well-known (Artistic) and lesser-known (Divergent Journeys) cousins and their connections. When you descend from colonial immigrants who arrived in the 1600s, you naturally end up with a large collection of notable (and sometimes notorious) relatives. Years ago, Ancestry put out an app called We’re Related, which used user-submitted trees to identify famous cousins. While many of those links were questionable, the app did provide leads. Thanks to that, I’ve explored possible connections to people as diverse as Abraham Lincoln and W.E.B. Du Bois. I also seem to share distant ties with numerous Puritan families, which makes being able to trace links to cousins like Nathan Hale, Grover Cleveland, or either President Bush surprisingly common.

But instead of diving into a celebrity cousin rabbit hole, I decided to explore a different—and perhaps more interesting—angle. You may remember my 8th- or 9th-great-grandmother, Susannah Shattuck, and the couple Edward Fay and Sarah Joslin, who not only had memorably-named children but were themselves second cousins once removed. That cousin connection was taken one step further a couple of generations later.

My 4th-great-grandfather, Samuel Day Jr., was born in 1772 in Connecticut. He was the grandson of Edward and Sarah (Joslin) Fay. In 1793, he married his first cousin, Elizabeth Munger, who was also their grandchild. The couple soon moved to the new state of Vermont, the fourteenth in the newly formed United States.

Today, first cousin marriage seems surprising or even taboo, but in early America it wasn’t prohibited, and in rural communities it was relatively common. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that the practice was seriously questioned, and much later still before genetics helped explain the associated risks. Even then, people seemed to recognize that marrying close kin could lead to undesirable traits, though they lacked the scientific framework.

Samuel and Elizabeth’s life in Vermont was difficult. Samuel worked by cutting and burning trees to make potash. But by 1809, financial trouble overtook them. Samuel was unable to repay a debt, and the sheriff seized and sold his land, home, and possessions. By then, the couple had eight children, the oldest just 14, and the youngest under a year.

To make matters worse, that same year the family was "warned" out of town. Under Vermont law, towns were responsible for their indigent residents—unless those residents were transients or posed a financial risk. Despite having lived in Jericho for 14 years and owning property, Samuel’s misfortunes and large family apparently led the town’s selectmen to deem them a burden. Being warned out didn’t require them to leave, but it did mean they could no longer count on public support if they needed help.

FamilySearch shows that their last son may have been born in Vermont in 1811, so the family may have remained for a short while longer. But by early 1812, they had relocated to Madison County, New York, where Elizabeth died, leaving Samuel with little money and a household of children.

Samuel did marry again but this time not to a cousin. At age 40, he wed Hannah Robbins, who was just 20. Together, they had 11 more children, including Hannah Robbins Day, who married John Jay Fast, who became a prosperous farmer and the patriarch of the Missouri Fast family.

Samuel died in 1839, and Hannah followed in 1845. Samuel’s life spanned from the American Revolution to the early years of the Republic. Like many New Englanders, he migrated within New England, then to New York, and finally to Huron County, Ohio. He wasn’t alone in this path—his father-in-law, Ephraim Munger, and other Munger family members likely made the same journey. Samuel, who acquired the title “Dr.” somewhere along the way, is buried in Day Cemetery in Huron County, Ohio, along with Hannah and many other Days.

Though his Vermont community warned him out, Samuel wasn’t truly alone. His extended family and faith in kinship likely helped him weather hard times. These families built communities wherever they went. While the history books may spotlight the “great men (and women)”—some of whom may be our cousins—it was ordinary people like Samuel and Elizabeth, struggling, moving, adapting, and building, who truly laid the foundations of this country.

Note: The author is indebted to Mary Richmond, who wrote a series of stories posted on RootsWeb that described what was known about the Day, and associated, families.

Photo: First Vermont Flag