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Sunday, March 27, 2016

MY FIVE GENERATION ANCESTRAL BIRTHPLACE CHART

Recently Facebook friend and fellow genealogist J.Paul Hawthorne posted an Excel chart there that showed the birthplaces for 5 generations of ancestors. It caught the imagination of a lot of genealogists who've been posting their own ancestral birthplace charts for the past few days now. I decided I'd take a shot of doing one too.

The only problem is, I'm what I call "Excel-challenged". Actually, it's more like "spread-sheet challenged" since I didn't purchase the Office Suite that came with the computer when the free trial ran out. I use the MS Works Spreadsheet program instead. I downloaded a template for the chart that Miriam Robbins had made and after four tries, I finally succeeded, then used Snipping Tool to save the chart as a jpeg. This is the result:



On Dad's side the family is all New England, mostly in Maine. The two New Hampshire births are my Ellingwoods, the family that moved back and forth a lot between Maine and New Hampshire. Past those five generations it runs all the way back to the Mayflower in some branches and the Winthrop Fleet in others to the early 17th century. Most of the ancestors were born in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire, with one born in Vermont. For some reason the family steered clear of Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

On Mom's side in the fourth and fifth generations you run into my 19th century immigrant ancestors from Ireland and Germany. The one from Canada was born in Nova Scotia of Irish parents on their way to Boston. They all made lives for their families in the Boston area. I'm equally proud of my heritage from both sides of my family.

Thanks J.Paul Hawthorne for coming up with the idea, and Miriam Robbins for the template!

2 comments:

Kathy Reed said...

Bill, I keep thinking that you and I have to be related through my West line. I, too, have some colonial ancestors that came to Plymouth Bay. Stephen Deane came in 1621 aboard the Fortune. Some Wests include Bartholomew West. One of these days . . .

Miriam Robbins said...

Thanks for the shout out, Bill!