My husband's family has several good candidates for the "oldest" ancestor with names and dates, because of his four Mayflower ancestors.
The family trees of passengers Isaac Allerton, Mary Norris Allerton, Mary Allerton, and Degory Priest are fairly well documented, and I've added their parents' names/dates to hubby's family tree using RootsMagic 7 genealogy software.
Next, I scrolled down the timeline looking for Mayflower ancestors and their parents to see who's earliest. Isaac Allerton's daughter, Mayflower passenger Mary Allerton, later married Thomas Cushman of the Fortune. So the earliest ancestor from that line is actually Thomas Couchman, b. 1538.
Now to my family tree. The oldest ancestor I can name and date on my mother's side is my great-great-great grandfather, Yosef Moshe Kunstler, who died in NagyBereg, Hungary (now known as Berehi, Ukraine) on June 13, 1854. My wonderful cousin B visited the cemetery and photographed the headstone 20 years ago. According to the headstone, Yosef's father's name was Hillel. That's where the trail ends.
On my father's side, the oldest ancestor I can name and date is my great-great grandma Rachel Shuham Jacobs, born about 1845 in Plunge, Lithuania. She married young, was widowed, and came to New York City with her grown daughter and son in the late 1880s. Rachel died in New York City on December 8, 1915. Her death cert shows her parents as Moses Shuham and Sarah Levin, but unfortunately, I have no other info on them.
Thank you to Amy Johnson Crow for this week's #52Ancestors prompt, which is "Oldest."
Four Mayflower ancestors! Wow. That must have taken lots of research!
ReplyDeleteColleen, I am grateful to my husband's 2d cousin who had already done the research and shared with me about 10 years ago. Now my grandkids get greeting cards every Thanksgiving reminding them of their Mayflower ancestors--to keep this info alive into the next generation and beyond!
ReplyDeleteIsaac Allerton's father was Bartholomew Allerton.
ReplyDeleteTY so much!
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