52 Ancestors Week 31: Earliest Ancestor

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 31:

The theme for Week 31 is “Earliest Ancestor.” Who is the earliest ancestor you have identified? Of course, you don’t have to interpret the prompt that way. How about: the first “new” ancestor you discovered, the earliest one to arrive in a certain location, or even one with a surname like Earl(e)y.

I don't think I  can trace that far back. Anybody got a toga?

    Right off the bat I can tell you that this blog about the earliest ancestor in my tree is wrong. So very wrong. It didn't take too long to disprove the Magna Carta connections and to this day I still have trust issues with genealogy before 1600. So, if someone finds a connection, I'll just smile, nod and back away slowly knowing that there's a chance some line can be disproven. It's a chance we genealogists take. I'm just not gonna run around saying I'm the 23rd great-grandson of some king in England when millions of people are as well. That's great and everything. So, I think I'm gonna have to take a new approach to this week's blog.

    This week we're going to talk about the first of my ancestors to live in Haverhill, Mass. In order to figure out who that is, we're going to have to narrow things down quite a bit. The Italians in the tree didn't live in the Queen Slipper city until the 1910s. My great-grandfather Vincenzo Ferraiolo lived with his aunt and uncle for a little while before returning to Italy. His wife Maria didn't arrive with my grandfather and his sister until 1929. My great-grandparents Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione didn't arrive until the 1910s, too. So, they're out of the running.

    My mother's side of the tree has been on North American soil since the 1600s and several of her ancestors ended up in Haverhill starting with my grandmother Natalie. However, she wasn't the earliest to live there. Not by a long shot. For this we're gonna have to go back. Way back. Back before the 1880 US census where you'd find my third great-grandparents. We'd have to go to the founding of the city itself with my 11th great-grandparents, Tristram Coffin and Dionis Stevens.

    I think I might have talked about Tristram and his wife before. While they are wildly recognized as settling the Nantucket colony in the 1600s, they had a hand in settling what would become Haverhill in 1640. Settlers from nearby West  Newbury planted roots in the area and the Merrimack valley would never be the same again! Especially after the Industrial Revolution.

    Now that I think about it if we were to take Tristram away from his 1600s life and put him in the middle of Haverhill NOW, he wouldn't recognize much. Many of the old buildings have been replaced with newer models. Then again the Peaslee Garrison House and other structures still stand. Shout-out to my friend Azure Robinson and her epic Peaslee Garrison House one place study

    Though, I think it was built after he and Dionis left for Nantucket, Mass.

    He would also see the Coffin House was still standing in nearby Newbury. 

    As far as Haverhill itself goes? Yeah, he wouldn't see anything recognizable for a while even though the Haverhill Historical Society has taken great pains to preserve much of the city's past even if some modern roads took the place of older roads.

    Haverhill in the 1600s must have been a completely different place. For some reason I'm picturing something like "Back to the Future Part III" when Marty McFly went to Hill Valley in 1885. The only difference is that there'd be less desert there. There would be more wooded areas and even the Merrimack river itself would look different. And cleaner. Let's address the elephant in the room. We all know the effects all that industrial waste had on the Merrimack. The river would be VERY clean. I still wouldn't swim in it.

    I would also see a culture that's very different to what I'm used to in the 21st century. Our world was very different in the 1600s. Some things changed over time and some things stayed the same.

Ye olde Haverhill

    In the centuries since Tristram lived in Haverhill, the town became a city thanks to the Industrial Revolution like I said. Other things changed as well. Immigrants from all over the world flocked to the city once the factories needed cheap labor.

   The Coffins might actually be impressed by Haverhill these days to be honest. I mean people live much longer lives now and homes are much more comfortable. Everything a person needs would be at their finger tips.

    Then again, they might say certain things are like witchcraft. For example, I'm typing this blog on a machine that's able to transmit messages on a vast worldwide network instantaneously. For a person living in the 1600s, the technology in 2025 would be indistinguishable from magic.

    At least he would see hope for the future. I don't know about telling him about a certain revolution that takes place one hundred years after his death.... Sorry, sweetie. Spoilers. 

    If I were to go back that far, I'd probably have to keep quiet with what I know. Every bit of fiction has strict rules for time travel and not messing with the timeline would be a good thing to do. I'd probably just be content to watch the events from inside the Tardis just to be on the safe side, you know. 

    In any case, there would definitely be a culture shock for me and the Stevenses. The world was very different in the 1600s and our world today would be very different for them. Still, I'd like to think that they'd be amazed at their lasting legacy. They helped to build a town that became a city in the 1800s and then a haven for immigrants from every nation on the planet. That's pretty amazing and it makes me wonder what kind of a legacy we'd leave behind for people in say the 24th century. 

    Who knows?  

    So, those are the earliest Haverhill residents I have in my tree. Whether they knew it or not, they set the stage for what was to come. Eventually all roads led to the city and it made me and countless other people possible. It's amazing isn't it? You dig a hole to make a foundation one day and centuries later a city was formed on that foundation. That's pretty fantastic.

See ya next time!