Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

When the first shot of the American Revolution rang out in Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19th, 1775, militiamen throughout the New England colonies were summoned to immediately band together to march for the relief of Boston and for the patriot cause.  “The bearer, Israel Bessel, is charged to alarm the country quite to Connecticut, and all persons are desired to furnish him with fresh horses as they may be needed.” – Massachusetts Committee of Safety at Watertown This was known as the Lexington Alarm. And my 5th great grandfather, Asher Hinman, was one of the 3,700 men from Connecticut dedicated to this struggle. In his early 30s, he set off from the town of New Hartford as a sergeant in Captain Seth Smith’s company to aid in the rebellion, and fend off any further atrocities by the British troops. In just 3 days’ time, when his company had only reached Hartford about 22 miles away, his service came to an end, as the immediate crisis had been extinguished, and their presence ...

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While reflecting on the patriots who laid the foundation for the country, one ancestor sticks out as witnessing the ever-changing beginnings of the United States, as the colonies struggled to gain their independence. While he was not born an American, he made the personal decision to become one and live the remainder of his life as one. Johann Conrad Leichleider, my 6th great grandfather, left his homeland of Germany in the year 1741 (the place would not actually be known by that name for another 100+ years), boarding a passenger vessel in Rotterdam called the Friendship, headed for the Americas. He landed in the port of Philadelphia and took the Oath of Allegiance in the courthouse on the 12th of October, his age given as 21 (though he was likely only 17). About 3 years later, he was married to Mary Barbara, and in 1750 they purchased 100 acres of land in the state of Pennsylvania. They raised a large family there, including a son, Johann Peter (my 5th great grandfather), who served i...

Though the most famous account of witch trials in colonial America lay with the village of Salem (now called Danvers) between 1692 and 1693, witchcraft hysteria spread throughout many other towns in Massachusetts and in colonies beyond, even starting several decades earlier. One of which was Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. Lynn is two towns south of Danvers (formerly Salem Village), where the famous witch accusations were made, and shares its northern border with the town of Salem, where the actual trials were held. Salem was the county seat in Essex, so all judicial matters were held there for all of the surrounding villages like Lynn. All accused criminal offenders from Ipswich, Andover, Beverly, etc. would have been jailed and brought to court in Salem. Lynn had its first “witch scare” in 1669 when a woman in the Quaker faith was brought up on charges. Her name was Ann (Holland) Bassett Burt and she presented herself as a healer. Ann’s good skills in healing the sick were unfortu...

It has only been in recent years that multiple states and regions in the U.S. pivoted from celebrating the yearly anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492, to honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day in its place. Had I written this article just a few years ago, I would have used this day to share the lore about my 3rd great-grandmother Margaret Marshall’s Native American roots. However, that family tale has since been debunked , leaving me with zero genetic ties to the indigenous peoples of America. However, although my DNA lacks this association, my extended family tree boasts an interesting connection to the Piscataway Indians, the natives living on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland before and during the development of the English colonies in the early 1600s. The Piscataway were an Algonquian-speaking nation, thought to have close ties with the Powhatans (you know, the tribe known to us in the somewhat true, somewhat false, fairytale story o...