My Ayres ~Wood Ancestry
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o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o My Ayres ~Wood Ancestry From the 7th Century to the 20th Century Noreen Ayres Craig o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o © Copyright 2017 Noreen Ayres Craig Library of Congress Control Number: 2017957729 CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC U.S.A. ii o one can understand history without continually Nrelating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives. Thus nearly all changes were far less perceptible to those who lived through them from day to day...when the salient features of an epoch are extracted by the chronicler. We peer at these scenes through dim telescopes of research across a gulf of nearly two thousand years. Winston S. Churchill1 1 The Birth of Britain, A History of English-Speaking Peoples (Toronto, 1956, McClelland & Stewart Ltd.) p.47 iii iv Contents Forward. ix Ayers Settling On The Merrimack. 61 Acknowledgement. xi Nova Cesaria Beckons.. 65 Prolgue. xiii Pike Ancestry.. 69 Ancestral Lineages.. xv Ayers Ancestry Continued. 78 Bloomfield Ancestry. 83 PART ONE Ayers Ancestry Continued. 85 Ayres Ancestry.. 1 Ross Ancestry.. 90 In the Beginning.. 3 Manning Ancestry. 93 Pippinid & Carolingian Ancestries. 9 Martin - Roberts Ancestry. 98 Robertian & Capetian Ancestries.. 18 Drake/Compton/Trotter/Walker Ancestries.103 FitzRandolph Ancestry. 21 Ayres Pictures. 108 Viking Ancestry. 23 Compton Ancestry.. 118 FitzRandolph Continued.. 25 Thomas Ayers’ Family Cont’d.. 118 FitzRandolphs of Middleham. 28 Getting to Ohio.. 122 Glanville/Valognes Ancestry. 30 Thomas Ayers. 126 FitzRandolph Continued.. 32 Ayers Family Continued. 130 Bogot/Bigod Ancestry. 33 A Call to Arms. 142 de Vere’Ancestry. 34 Raw Men Sent Into Battle. 145 De Clare Ancestry. 36 A New Year.. 149 Bigod Ancestry Continued. 37 Fighting on the Mississippi .. 156 Warenne Ancestry. 41 1864. 164 Angevin/Plantagenet Ancestry. 42 The Historian.. 177 FitzRandolph of Spennithorne.. 47 Wes’ Brother Augustus Seymour Ayres.. 178 Scrope Ancestry.. 49 1865. 179 FitzRandolph of Spennithorne Cont’d.. 52 Homesteading in Kansas. 189 FitzRandolph’s of New England.. 55 Post War Blues. 193 Blossom Ancestry.. 58 Ayres Family Continued. 200 The Evered/Webb Connection. 60 v PART TWO Deeding Rest Estate. 232 Wood Ancestry. 211 John Cooke’s Will.. 233 Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers. 213 Cooke Sisters Marrying Taber Brothers.. 234 Tracing Lydia’s Pilgrim Roots.. 214 From Blacksmith to Preacher. 236 The Mayflower. 217 A Cooper in the Clan. 238 Tale of Plymouth Rock. 219 Time to Move Further West.. 241 Where to Settle. 219 Wilbur/Wilbore Ancestry.. 241 Pilgrim vs Puritan Attire. 221 Moving to New England. 242 Family Reunions & Newcomers. 221 Martha Earle’s Ancestry. 252 A Failing Experiment. 223 Dealing with King Philip. 253 Disheartening News. 224 Peace Davis’ Ancestry. 257 Settling A Debt. 224 Susanna Chase’s Ancestry. 265 The 1627 Distribution. 225 Sherman Family History. 267 Abused in Their Simplicity. 225 Chase Family Continued. 274 Richard Warren Family.. 226 Wood Family Continued. 274 Francis and John Cooke.. 228 Rest Macomber Ancestry. 277 John Cooke Marries. 229 Appendix A - Ayres War Diary. 289 Clerk of Court vs Cooke.. 229 Appendix B - Ayres Gas Engine Works. 297 Cooke’s Business Affairs. 230 Appendix C - Questionable Ayers Ancestry. 311 John Cooke’s Move to Dartmouth.. 231 Index. 317 From Separatist to Baptist.. 231 vi Forward Noreen worked on this book for many years. On a couple of occasions she asked me to print out a hard copy to proofread. When I would tell her I thought it was supposed to be a genealogy book rather than a history book she would go back to the computer to take out a lot of the history. Her discarded files contain a lot of European history. Noreen died 1 April 2017 after being ill since suffering congestive heart failure in 2014, probably due to a congenital heart defect. During the last few years of her life she had not been well enough to pursue this work. After she died I felt it would be a shame to trash what she had spent hundreds of hours creating. Accordingly, I have tried to assemble the various files, do a little proofreading, and do the indexing necessary to complete the work. I hope she would approve the result you see here. Robert Craig vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish there was some way that I could personally express my thanks to the many court house staff members that provided assistance in this research. Also other diligent researchers and the use of the Family History Libraries. I have been fortunate to have family letters and documents available. I can only posthumously thank my Father, my sister Jean, and my sister Lucille, executrix of our father’s estate, who gave me many of the family materials used in this book. Also Paul J. Ayres who let me copy material in regard to his side of the family. And the National Archives for copies of my Grandfather’s Civil War Records and those employees who offered personal assistance and interest in helping me regarding them when visiting in Washington, DC. Lastly my beloved husband without whom this would never have been accomplished. ix x PROLGUE few minutes past one a.m. of the last day of summer in 1928 an infant female took her first Abreath. It was in an upstairs bedroom in her maternal grandparent’s home at 621 Baker Street in Lansing, Michigan. Did she cry? I do not know but she was lovingly washed by her grandmother with readied heated water and wrapped in a warm blanket. The family doctor, after filling out a birth form, packed his black bag and departed to get some needed sleep in hopes he would get no further calls that weekend. That was not the last family service he would provide. What lies ahead for any newborn is unknown. At some time in an infant’s life familiar voices and faces come into focus. Her parent’s home at the time was located next door to her father’s parents. Her grandfather had built it as well as the one where they lived. She never met this grandfather because he died the year before she was born but she would get to “know” him through family photos, stories about him, the letters he left behind, and her genealogy research. She often spent time during her early years with this Grandmother playing cards, learning how to crochet, and watching her “talk” with her yellow canary named Billy. Each morning Billy took his bath, then she let him loose to fly about the house as she cleaned his cage and gave him new seed and water. He obviously adored her as he would happily continue singing when back in his cage. A few weeks short of her 5th birthday it was time to enter the big world of kindergarten. The next older sister was put in charge of getting her to school. She and her neighbor girlfriend always walked to school together. With new Buster Brown shoes and a rag rug tucked under her arm she was off for the big event of a half day in kindergarten. The three trekked home for lunch. On the way her sister said now that you know the way to school, you are on your own, but “don’t tell Mother.” And that’s how it was. The next year her Grandmother died in April. It was 1934 and the family moved into her much larger home. Month’s later Billy was found dead in his cage one Sunday morning. He missed Grandmother also. A day at a time, year after year, life unfolded. But it was her father’s tales that started her on this family research venture. Her father liked to read for relaxation after a late dinner due to his business. Donning his worn brown leather slippers, he would sit in his favorite chair located in front of a tall walnut secretary his father had built. On a stand beside him sat a radio. It occupied the space where large carved oak doors had once separated the parlor from the living room. He usually read until he listened to the 11 pm news. Then he was off to bed. On the opposite side of the archway was his mother’s more petite desk. Located near it was a register in the floor through which heat from the coal furnace in the basement barely warmed the house in winter. The brick exterior however kept it cool in summer but its large windows added to winter’s coldness. Lying on the floor by her grandmother’s desk was a place to gather some heat while reading or drawing pictures. Occasionally her father would chat about the family ancestry, saying we were Scotch, English, Irish, Dutch and Danish. After my research, others could be added. When the mood struck, he would talk about his father’s youthful days growing up in Ohio or fighting in the Civil War. He and his older cousin Seymour A. Ayres had made a trip to Ohio to visit relations there. Seymour was gathering information on the family among which was information copied from a letter written by her grandfather, Charles Wesley.