My last blog post mentioned that I had found ancestors who were Puritans/Pilgrams - my 10x Great Grandparents, Hugh and Anne Calkins. Since then I discovered I had another set of 10x Great Grandparents who were also Puritans who arrived even earlier in 1633. These Great Grandparents were Reverend William Hosford and Florence Sarah Hayward along with their 4 children. They took the long and dangerous journey from England to the New World on the sailing ship the Mary & John, pi

This weekend has been full of surprises for me. While I was researching my Taylor lineage, which I have managed to trace back to the birth of my 9th Great Grandfather, Stephen Taylor in Massachusetts in 1618, I ran across more ancestors. Some of the ancestors I discovered are apparently very well known in the USA and include my 10x Great Grandparents, Hugh and Anne Calkins, who were Puritans as well as founders of several New England towns. In addition, a number of these "ne

A little over a year ago I took a DNA test with Ancestry.com in hopes of finally putting to rest a family legend that we had Native North American blood. While this was accomplished (we do not have Native bloodlines), my initial test opened up a whole new world of discoveries for me. I had known for several years that my paternal Grandfather, William "Bill" Taylor, had been born out of wedlock. His birth certificate listed his father as "unknown". I had also discovered that m

Monday, October 10th marks Thanksgiving in Canada. While our Thanksgiving differs in date and origin from the US Thanksgiving holiday, I find my mind turning to Pilgrims and the US Thanksgiving on this date due to recent family discoveries. Through my Taylor lineage, my family has been in North America since the 1600's, living in Connecticut as part of the Pilgrim wave of immigration from England. Although at this time I have found no ancestors that were on the Mayflower, I d

As I head into my 15th year of ancestry research, one overwhelming thing has become clear: you cannot choose your relatives. My past year of researching relatives through the use of DNA testing, combined with research using archives, old family records, etc. has grown my family tree to where I now have 4,123 documented relatives, both close and distant. I have been in touch with quite a few of my previously unknown living relatives and I've had some excellent results and hav