From the Mayflower to Today

Family legend has always been that my Gramma's side of the family are descendants from the Mayflower.  Family lore is great and everything, but I prefer to work with information rather than hearsay.  Though I am still doing my own work into this, I appreciate the work that Dr. Stout has down in regards to our family lineage.  Since this is important to many of us, I have decided to put the family lineage from the Mayflower passengers down to my Great Grandmother (since she has passed).

William Brewster (1567 - 1644) father of
Love Brewster (1611 - 1650) father of
Sarah Brewster (1639 - 1691) mother of
Ichabod Bartlett (1666 - 1716) father of
Elizabeth Bartlett (1708 - 1755) mother of
James Ford (1734 - 1824) father of
Love Ford ( 1758 - 1786) mother of
Stephen Wells ( ) father of
George Wells (1810 - 1896) father of
Henry Stark Wells (1836 - ) father of
Lucy Mariah Wells (1872 - 1958) mother of
Nelle Dunkin (1911 - 1999) my great grandmother.

William Brewster and Love Brewster were both passengers on the Mayflower.  Interestingly, Love married Sarah Collier, whose father also helped with much of the Mayflower effort.

While I find this attachment to American history amazing, I am more excited to look at the revolutionary period to see what James and Love Ford did during that period of time.  During the Civil War, we know that Henry Stark Wells served the Union and I am excited to look into that time period as well.

Hope this helps someone who is also doing research!

Information Written on August 19, 1970 about the Wells Family

An interesting link I found from the Unionville Republican archives about the Wells family.  The article was written in 1970 but discusses the family going back to the 1860s.

One Hundred Years Ago in the Wells Family

Volumes I & II Antecedents and Descendants of Rev. George Wells 1810 - 1896

One of my big worries about the books that have come into my possession from my grandmother is (knock on wood) something happening to the books.  While I hope and pray that nothing ever will, I did a search to see if there are copies available anywhere else.

There are copies available in libraries, so thank god for that.  The Library of Congress included.  So if worst comes to worst, we will always have a copy there.  It also appears that the Latter Day Saints have a copy.  It appears that there copy may be digital which is also fantastic.  Now if I could just have a free to use digital copy.

Regardless, here is the link to the Worldcat listing, in case we ever need it (hopefully we don't!)

Antecedents and Descendants of Rev. George Wells

Update

Hello, everyone!

I apologize for not posting in a few months.  I tend to start a project and keep with it for a little while, but life got in the way this time.  Since my first post I have packed a house, moved, gone on a vacation, and had a major change at work.  Life is just moving a million miles a minute around here!

Mike and I are still living outside of Austin.  We moved a little further out in to suburbia.  Which is great for us.  It is pretty quiet out here and our friends are close by.  Which is nice to have.

At the end of June, there was a small family reunion with my Mom's side of the family.  I was able to see aunts, uncles, and cousins I haven't seen in a while.  I spent time with my lovely Gramma, who I love so much and haven't seen in a long time.  While catching up with Gramma, I was granted access to her picture collection.  There are fantastic photos from the 1940s to the early 2000s in her collection and I was so happy to look through them!  We decided as a group that we would like to archive the pictures into a digital format.  Guess who decided to take on the responsibility?  You guessed it!  I am super excited to give it a try.  I will be ordering a scanner next week during Amazon's Prime Day sale.  It will take some long hours of work, but I can't wait.  My cousin has already worked up a website to upload everything to.  I just have to get organized on that front.

What I am most excited about receiving from Gramma are two volumes of genealogy books for the George Wells and Lucy Stark-Wells family.  George and Lucy are my 3rd great grandparents on my mothers side.  Back in 1974, Kemble Stout collected information on the ancestors and descendants of the Wells and published two volumes with her findings.  Kemble used information from family historian Stella McWilliams Wells and other books and information.  These volumes go back EIGHT generations from George and Lucy Wells, which means I have access to information from the mid 1500s on this side of the family.  I also have information from George and Lucy Wells down to my mother's generation, this includes so many second and third cousins that we never knew about before.

I am more excited than ever for this project now.  I will keep everyone updated as I forge on!

Have a good evening!