New England – A Deck of Ancestors

52W Mark V – Week 16: Daniel Cook

This is Daniel Cook.

No, not the kid who starred in the eponymous Canadian children’s show that aired in the mid-naughts. (Did we ever decide what to call the first decade of the 21st century?) I mean my Great x4 Grandfather, Daniel Cook.

Daniel was born on December 14, 1769 in Preston, Connecticut, to Isaiah Cook and Mary Palmer. Daniel was the third of eleven children – nine boys and two girls – all of whom were born in Preston.

Daniel has deep New England roots going back four generations on his father’s side, in both Connecticut and Massachusetts. His maternal grandparents were also born in Connecticut, but don’t know much, if anything, about his maternal great grandparents.

However, a quick look at FamilySearch shows that shows a tree on Daniel’s maternal side going back at least five generations on most lines. Until I look at the sources supporting the connection to the individuals identified in that tree, I won’t be adding them to my database. I know if I did that now, it would be another six weeks before I even return to drafting this post, so instead I simply created a “Person To-Do Task” for Daniel in my RootsMagic database. At most, I will mention that the tree on FamilySearch indicates that on his mother’s side, Daniel’s ancestry also goes back at least three or four generations in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

This tree on FamilySearch shows some of the ancestry of Daniel’s maternal grandparents, Samuel Palmer and Sarah Andrus, none of which I’ve verified or checked sources.

Somehow Daniel came to be acquainted with Miriam Fellows. While she too was born in Connecticut, she lived about 100 kilometers away in almost the opposite corner of what is now the state. Nevertheless, meet they did, as they married in Preston on April 1, 1796.

After they married, Daniel and Miriam did not reside in Preston for long. By 1798, they were living in Kingsbury, New York, almost 250 kilometers from Preston. I do not know the motivation for the move, but based upon the 1800 census, Daniel was not alone. Three of his brothers – Ephraim, Chester, and Samuel – are listed as neighbours living in Kingsbury.

Extract from the 1800 US Census, showing brothers Daniel, Ephriam, C(h)ester, and Samuel Cook.

All six of Daniel and Miriam’s children were born in Kingsbury. It appears that only two survived childhood and the teen years, including my Gx3 Grandfather, Henry Lyman Cook.

Daniel lived the rest of his life in Kingsbury. He died there on July 12, 1825. Daniel died intestate and the court appointed his son Marvin and brother Chester as the administrators of his estate.

Letter of Administration of Estate issued by the court after Daniel died without a will.

52W Mark V – Week 15: Miriam Fellows

I can’t believe I’ve been working on this week’s post for over six weeks. Ostensibly, I’ve been preparing to write about my Great x4 Grandmother, Miriam Fellows. What started out as updating my research on her turned into a deep dive into her ancestors, in some cases going as far back as her Great x3 Grandparents.

What probably triggered the trip down the rabbit hole was my interest in Miriam’s mother, Leah Huxley.

I’ve always been intrigued by Leah Huxley, not because I knew all that much about her. It’s just that her name is remarkably close to Sandra Bullock’s character in the most excellent movie, Demolition Man, who was named Lenina Huxley. (Who in was named in reference to Lenina Crowne, from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I much prefer Demolition Man to Brave New World)

I’ve spent most of the last six weeks examining the Huxley, Fellows, and Trumbull lines. Sorry, Pierce line. Maybe some other time.

So imagine my dismay when I discovered Leah’s name might not have been Leah at all. She may have been named Martha at birth. Sure, it’s an extremely far cry from a Non-Paternity Event, but I was disappointed to learn that this fun fact might not be a fact at all. That’s not fun.

Turns out she is both Martha and Leah. It seems fairly clear that she was likely registered as Martha at birth, according to the vital records of Suffield, Connecticut. However, her name was recorded as Leah when she married her husband, Joseph Fellows. As well, the birth records of most of her children named her as Leah.

It may be that the forename in the birth record was a transcription error, recording Leah using her mother’s name by mistake. Alternatively, she might have been named Martha at birth, but used the name Leah to differentiate herself from her mother, who was also named Martha. So crisis averted, she’ll always be Leah Huxley to me.

Through Leah and Joseph, Miriam had deep roots in New England, particularly Connecticut. Miriam was born on April 24, 1773, the tenth of eleven children. She, and likely all of her siblings, was born in Canaan, Connecticut. All of Martha’s paternal Great Grandparents were born in New England; the same can be said for all of her maternal Great x2 Grandparents. As far as I have discerned so far, all of her ancestors hailed from England, and most of her forebears came to the New World in the 1640s.

Despite everything I learned in the last six weeks, very little of it was about Miriam.

While Miriam was from Canaan, in the northwest corner of Connecticut, her husband, Daniel Cook, was from Preston, 100 kilometers away in southeast Connecticut. I have no idea how they came to meet, but they married in Preston, Connecticut on April 1, 1796. Within two years, Miriam and Daniel had moved to Kingsbury, New York, where they had six children together. Miriam passed away sometime in 1830*, likely in Kingsbury, five years after her husband died.

That’s it – essentially one paragraph. It’s a bit unsatisfying after all the time I spent trying to learn about her, but at least I’ve learned a lot about her people and where they came from.

* I caught a typo in my post for October 6, 2025 about Henry Lyman Cook, which had Miriam as having lived from 1773 to 1796. However, the latter date is when she married, not when she died.

52W Mark II – Week 42: Friends

I’ve really struggled with this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge theme of “Friends”. I have not had a scintilla of inspiration. I tried to tackle the topic from a new perspective. No Dutch ancestors with the surname “Vriend”. No Quaker ancestors. No one that I could think of who were members of a fraternal organization. Finally, I settled on a bit of a thought experiment: people who might have been friends, or at least who might have known each other.

My wife and I have very little in common genealogically. My lineage is largely Dutch, Germans from Russia, and adherents of the Mormon church from its earliest days. My wife has incredibly deep roots in the Maritimes, mostly of Irish descent. She also has a branch of her family that originated in Ontario, likely of English background. There is very little overlap.

One thing we each have in common is a Mayflower ancestor. Mine is Francis Eaton, hers is Richard Warren. Outside our Mayflower ancestors, we both have other branches that reach well back into 17th century colonial New England, including not only Massachusetts but also Connecticut. I have come across names in both our trees of people who lived in the same place at the same time many times. Needless to say, I would not be surprised if some of my ancestors knew my wife’s ancestors. Who knows (absent further research!) if any of them might have been friends?

However, not only I have never found a common ancestor between the two of us, I have yet to find any connection between our trees, such as distant cousins. Of course, somewhere out there a connection exists. As our eight-year-old repeatedly says, “after all, everyone’s related!”

52 Weeks – Week 47: Wrong Side of the Law

Absent any very well-kept family secrets, I don’t have a lot of possibilities for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge theme, “Wrong Side of the Law”. For the most part, I have more ancestors who have been on the correct side of the law.

The only ancestor who readily came to mind who had any significant legal problems was my Great x5 Grandmother, Hannah Newland of Norton, Massachusetts. Today her problem – if it would even have been a problem had she been able to do as she wanted – would have been more of a social than legal issue and, frankly, one that would be no one else’s business.

48. John Watterman residing in Norton and Hannah Newland, both Norton. Entered February 15th, 1777, and cryed one time and forbid by the Selectmen.

Hannah’s problem arose from her relationship with a John Watterman (often described as Watters due to the legibility of the records). It seems that John may have been a Hessian mercenary who fought for the British during the American revolution, but later who joined with the rebels. In February 1777, Hannah and John declared their intention to marry. However, the Selectmen of Norton, Massachusetts denied them permission to do so.

While not well documented, one account was because of John’s “questionable” German background. If so, that is somewhat ironic, given that Hannah ultimately ended up marrying another Hessian mercenary, my Great x5 Grandfather, “Chris John Burgess”. Despite this rather English-sounding name, Chris John was born Johann Christian Borges (or Burges) in Prussia. Like John Watterman, Chris John also came to America to fight for the British, only to change sides later in the war. The legend is that he changed his name after doing so, in order to better fit in with the colonials.

However, what is more likely is that Hannah and John had conceived a child out of wedlock. The child, Benjamin Newland, was born in August 1777, six months after Hannah and John declared their intention to marry. A copy of an extract of a court record that I have shows that Hannah was fined five shillings for “fornication and having had a bastard child born of her body”, as well as paying the cost of the prosecution. John was in attendance at the court proceeding and essentially acknowledged paternity. The court ordered John to pay for the maintenance of the child. It appears clear from the court record that the order was less for social welfare purposes and more to prevent the town from bearing the cost of supporting an unwed mother.

Of course, after completing this post I remembered an ancestor who was infamously on the wrong side of the law. My Gx10 grandmother was Rebecca Nurse, who was one of the women of Salem Village executed on the false accusation of being a witch. While on the wrong side of the law – albeit through a mockery of the law, even by the standards of the day – Rebecca certainly was on the wrong side of what constitutes justice.

Suffice to say, one need not necessarily be a scoundrel, ne’er-do-well, or criminal to be on the wrong side of the law. Just make sure you don’t live in the wrong era, depending on what you do.

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