Mark Wing's Genealogy Mind Dump

Abel Wright was my 9th great grandfather. He was amongst the earliest settlers of Springfield, MA. A group led by William Pynchon first settled in Springfield in 1636. The first official record of Abel was a land grant in 1655. Prior to this record, there doesn’t appear to be any solid information on Abel, how he came to Springfield or his parentage. One theory is he may have been related to Deacon Samuel Wright. Samuel Wright was also part of Pynchon’s group. His children are well documented, so it seems clear that Abel wasn’t his father.

Abel died in 1725 at the age of 94. He is interred in Springfield Cemetery and his headstone is in excellent condition. He was initially interred in Springfield’s Old Burying Ground. This cemetery was located somewhere between Old First Church and the Connecticut River. It was relocated in 1848 to make way for railroad tracks. Most of the graves were moved to Springfield Cemetery, but some were relocated to West Springfield. The only other Wright headstone that seems to have survived from this period was that of Abel’s son, Benjamin (my eighth great grandfather). I would speculate that his other family members were also interred in Old Burying Ground, but either didn’t have headstones or their headstones didn’t make it through the years. Because of its proximity to the Connecticut River, Old Burying Ground was susceptible to flooding and this may have contributed to the loss of headstones.

Abel married Martha Kitcherel in 1659. Martha was the daughter of Samuel Kitcherel of Hartford, CT. Based on vital records, they had 13 children with 10 surviving until adulthood. Martha died in 1708. She and some other members of her family were victims of an Indian attack during King Philip’s war. She survived the initial attack but had been scalped. She died as a result of her injuries two months later.

When I started my research on Abel in earnest, I acquired a copy of Genealogy of Lieut. Abel Wright of Springfield, Massachusetts by Rev. Stephen Wright. It was published in 1881 and it appears to be the earliest research available. This publication was only nine pages long, but does cover the first and second generation male lines fairly well. It does extend some lines out to the sixth generation, but this is far from complete. I suspect the author’s lines were amongst the lines that were expanded more fully. At the end of the publication, there is a note from the author stating that he had additional research and intended to include future generations, but was limited by space. I haven’t been able to locate subsequent publications from Steven Wright, but I must admit, I haven’t looked too hard.

I have expanded my genealogy database to include all the entrants in Steven Wright’s publication. In many cases, I was able to back up the information with primary resources. I have also expanded upon this work. I believe I had the first three generations including female lines mostly complete and I have a lot of good information on the following three generation. Right now, I am limited my scope of work to the first six generations in order to keep things manageable.

I have added some new entries to my Famous Relatives page. William White and Susannah Fuller were my 11th great grandparents. The Whites and their five year old son, Resolved, were passengers on the Mayflower. William was a signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Susannah was a couple months pregnant at the start of the journey. She gave birth to a son (Peregrine) on the Mayflower on November 20. 1620 while the ship was located just outside the tip of Cape Cod.

William died on February 21, 1621. Susannah remarried fellow Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow. Edward’s wife Elizabeth had also been a pilgrim and died. Edward adopted both the White children and made them his heirs. Edward later served as the governor of Plymouth Colony.

I am a direct descendant of Resolved. I discovered this connection about a month ago when researching my sixth great grandmother, Miriam (Goss) Wright. Because there is a lot of bad research out regarding Mayflower lines, I wanted to make sure my information was solid before publishing it. To be honest, I half expected it to fall apart. I have already had that experience more than once.

The first five generations of the Mayflower descendants are fairly well established. My research is solid up to Miriam Goss. This gave me about a two generation gap to fill in. Most of the information was readily available online, but I was having trouble with the marriage of Timothy and Miriam. I found two marriage records. One was from Springfield and put their marriage as December 14, 1759. The other was from North Brookfield and put their marriage at February 6, 1761. This had me concerned that I was mixing two similarly named couples. The distance between the two communities (about 40 miles) amplified this concern. When taking a second look at it this week, a scan of the microfilm for the marriage record in Springfield was online through familysearch.org. I don’t know if this is new or I missed it previously. The first record was not a marriage record, but a intention of marriage. Furthermore, it identified Timothy as being from Springfield and Miriam as being from North Brookfield.

The family of Timothy and Miriam outside of my own lines is still mostly a mystery to me. After marriage, they settled in Ludlow, MA and had at least 9 children. With the exception of my fifth great grandfather, the family seems to have left Ludlow and gone somewhere else. Where they went isn’t clear to me yet.

My third great grandfather, Solomon Wright, was one of twelve children. I know the number is twelve because I have an old letter with a list of names and birth dates. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to all twelve children.

A couple days ago I had a research break through and located the youngest sister, Jane Almira Wright. She had moved to Illinois, married Calvin D Scott and had four children: Eugene, George, Cora and Edwin.

Jane’s mother was living with her in Illinois in the 1860 Federal census. Her father is absent. He did appear with his family in the 1855 Massachusetts census. I had initially assumed he died before 1860 and this seems to help support this assumption. Unfortunately, the 1860 census doesn’t include marital status.

All of Jane’s children married. Eugene had one child, but she died as a young adult. George and Cora married, but didn’t have children. Edwin married and divorced. I don’t know the name of Edwin’s wife or if they had children. Unless Edwin had children, this line is a dead line.

This is a picture of a great grandmother, Gertrude (Finley) Lever. I actually have quite a few photos of her, but this one is one of my favorites. The pitcture is less than an inch square. I had thought about attempting to remove the photo from the border so I can see more of the photo, but I am afraid I would damage it.

Recently, I located the gravesite of Francis (Frank) J. Beauregard. He is interred in Calvary Cemetery in Holyoke, MA Frank was the brother of my 2nd great grandfather, Napolean Beauregard.

The inscription on his headstone reads:

Frank J. Beauregard
(1868 – 1931)

Margaret C. Smeddy His Wife
(1874 – 1918)

The headstone is larger and more ornate than the other lots in the same section. Furthermore, the lot has a stone border, which is a feature not present in other lots in the same area.

I had expected to see other names on the headstone. Lots in this area typically have room for four or eight burials and my information had some of the children of Frank and Margaret at Calvary. Furthermore, I couldn’t find the other Beauregards. To get some answers, I called the cemetery office. Their records had the following additional people in this lot:

Grace A (Beauregard) Wilson (1891 – 1955)
Beatrice C. (Beauregard) Johnson (1893 – 1979)
Francis M. Beauregard (1895 – 1971)
Marion A Beauregard (1897 – 1975)
Raymond Beauregard (1902 – 1963)
Ira A. Johnson (? – 1933)
Pierre Smeddy (? – 1943)

Ira was the husband of Beatrice and Pierre appears to have been the brother of Margaret. The rest were the children of Frank and Margaret. According to my research, they had one other child ( Lucy) who was born in 1890 and died before the 1900 census.

After Margaret’s death, Frank married Delia Pauze. Delia was born in French Canada in 1891. Their only child was named Norman and he was born in either 1920 or 1921. Unfortunately, their marriage was a short one as Delia died in Holyoke Hospital on September 29, 1921. She is interred in her family’s lot at Notre Dame Cemetery in South Hadley.

I have very limited information on Norman. Norman survived Beatrice and was living in Florida at the time. I found a Norman E. Beauregard who was born in Holyoke in Jan 1921 and died in Florida in 1987. This feels like a match, but I am not completely certain.

To my knowledge, Grace and Francis had children and Beatrice, Marion and Raymond did not. If my Norman is the correct Norman, he also had children.

I do find it interesting only Frank and Margaret are listed in the family headstone. I have to wonder if this was because of the cost, disagreement over the arrangement of the names in a limited space or something else.