Miner, Palmer,Avery - Interesting Connection

I have spent a lot of time looking at a lot of allied families of the Gallup family.  Possibly because it was probably one of the first families that I felt that I had pretty good sources to reference…primarily the Gallup family genealogy.  During my research, there are several allied families that I became quite familiar with such as Avery, Denison, Stanton, Palmer, Chesebrough, and Miner.  While I don’t seem to have direct connections to these families through my Gallup family…my interest in these lines has provided some unseen benefits for some of my other family lines.

Nathanial Swan and his wife Mahitable Brown would be my 7^th great grandparents.  Both were born in Stonington, New London Co., CT in the early 1700’s.  Nathanial was born in 1709 and Mehetable was born in 1712.  Their son, Jesse Swan was married to Elizabeth Baldwin, and they were the family that moved from Stonington, New London Co., CT to New York and their granddaughter Cynthia married Potter Gage and are my 4th great grandparents. (Cynthia Swan & Potter Gage).  While taking this family back a few more generations I found some interesting tie in’s with my Gallup family.  Which make me fascinated with some of the marriage patterns within my larger family tree.

Thomas Miner Grave

Grace Palmer Grave 

Thomas Miner - Memorial

I ran into one of those first interesting names when trying to find the ancestry of Mehetible Brown.  She married Nathaniel Swan on 13 Jan 1730 in Stonington.  She was the daughter of John Brown and Elizabeth Miner…and this is where the connections really became interesting.  John Brown was a second generation immigrant to the New World and while they were interesting – John Brown’s parents Thomas Brown and Mary Newhall didn’t really strike any familiar chords with me.  However, to find out that Elizabeth Miner was the daughter of Ephraim Miner and Hannah Avery – those were very familiar family names in my research.

Ephraim Miner was the son of Thomas Miner and Grace Palmer.  Thomas was born in Chew Magna, Somerset, England in 1608 and immigrated to the America on the “Lion’s Whelp” a ship that arrived in 1629.  By 1634, he had married Grace Palmer.   Grace Palmer was the daughter of Walter Palmer who emigrated with this family in 1629 from Gravesend England on the “Four Sisters” arriving in Salem, MA.  Not too long after he arrived, he along with a few other settlers moved to a new area and helped build the community of Stonington, CT and his considered as a founder of the town along with William Chesebrough, Thomas Minor, and Thomas Stanton.  These are families that are predominant with any family that you research in the region.  Walter Palmer must have been an impressive man.  He was reputed to be an unusually larger man of about 6 ‘5 which must have been quite impressive. 

Walter Palmer Wolf Stone

Walter Palmer Memorial - Erected much later

Walter Palmer died in 1661 and the age of 78 and a large Wolfe stone covers his grave to this day.  Close by is the his son in law, Thomas Minor buried with his wife. 

These four men established the town of Stonington despite what must have been a great deal of hardship and certainly required lot of fortitude.  Through Mahitible Brown’s mother, Elizabeth Miner, I can count Thomas Minor as my 9 great grandfather, James Avery as my 10^th great grandfather and Walter Palmer as my 11^th great grandfather through his daughter, Grace was married to Thomas Minor.  So in Wequetequock Cemetery, their ancient gravestones dating back to the late 1600’s remain as a tribute to these families who chose to be pioneers and build a new home in Stonington, Connecticut away from the closest thing that those settlers had to a comfort zone. Everyone once in a while, I spend some time looking at the Avery’s, Miners, Palmer’s and remember how these men helped build a new settlement.  Their descendants are scattered amongst many of the New England families that connect to many of my other New England families and it is certainly interesting to learn that some of my ancestors of long long ago, helped establish communities that are still thriving to this day!.  

Strange Names....

New parents spend a great deal of time thinking of unique names for their children.  Sometimes they are meant to honor a relative or just names that the parents like.  A lot of modern Hollywood couples have used names like Apple which don’t make a great deal of sense to me.  I suppose that it isn’t really important for it to make sense to me…but it got me to thinking of some of the unique names I have come across in my genealogy research.

There are several names that pop out at me…my modern sensibility has a hard time with the name of Desire for a girl during the era of the Puritans…but it was a common name. I’m not real fond of Hester but certainly do recognize it as an old fashioned name.  My ancestors Thomas Miner and Grace Palmer had sons named Manasseh, Judah, Clement and Ephraim alongside the more common names of John, Thomas, Joseph, and Samuel. Grace Palmer also had half-brothers named Elihu, Moses, Nehemiah and Gershom.  Elizabeth Miner and her husband had sons named Ichabod and Jedidiah and daughters named Hepsibeth and my ancestor, Mahitabel.  Mahitabel’s grandson, Jesse had a son named Ziba.  I even find an Ebenezer Eastman.  Perhaps one of the oddest names that I have found is Wayte-a-While Makepeace.  She was the daughter of Thomas Makepeace and Elizabeth Hawkredd and was mysteriously born a few months after her parent’s marriage.  She married herself in 1661 to a Josiah Cooper, but even he couldn’t make her first name common.  Then there is poor Salmon Treat born in 1672 and married to Dorothy Noyes…his name sounds too much like food…but I know that Salmon was a popular name in an earlier age.

I recognize that most of these names have some sort of biblical derivation, but they do sound a bit odd.  Then there are the nicknames…I have to wonder why a girl named Margaret has a nickname of Peggy or a Mary can also be known as Polly.  Where did those nicknames come from?  According to www.straightdope.com Meg and Mog were nicknames for Margaret and they were changed into Peg and Pog because of rhymes and were probably from the Scottish.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me either way – but I’ve always recognized that Peggy was more than likely a Margaret from experience.

My ancestors have their share of unusual names…Potter Gage is a bit strange as is Buena Vista Baily or my grandmother’s named of Capitola.  If my great grandfather had had his way, my mother would have been saddled with Bettina.  Her mother, Capitola, having lived with an unusual name all of her life, decided that with the last name of Tannahill…she should have a more common first name – hence the name of Betty.  I guess she never thought Mom would marry a Johnson and therefore have one of the more common name combinations out there.  When I was growing up, there was a Betty Johnson who lived just a block away with the same house address but different street name…there were a lot of mix-ups in the mail.  Perhaps that is why some of these unusual names are making a comeback.