Letitia "Tish" Richardson

Pilgrims, Puritans, and Heretics: 1620-1700 tells a story of North American settlement through the lens of one extended family.  Using historical events as a canvas, Pilgrims explores the intimate stories of several individuals and the struggles and triumphs they faced in colonizing a land previously unknown to Europeans. The manuscript unfolds as a series of short stories about American settlers and the notable, notorious, and unsung events that altered their lives. 

 

Beginning with the arrival of the Mayflower and the eight family ancestors who sailed on her, the stories continue through the 17th century, ending with the Salem Witch Hysteria of 1692. Throughout, Pilgrims weaves personal stories of family ancestors into notable events such as the settling of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Haven Colonies.  The stories appear chronologically, describing historical events and moving from character to character, allowing each to shine in his or her moment.

 

Click on the title above to read a more thorough synopsis.

 

 

Grissell (Fletcher) [Jewell] [Griggs] [Kibby] [Gurney] Burge was either the unluckiest woman when it came to marital longevity, or she had an uncanny ability to marry men destined to die soon, or she was a femme fatal, luring men into marriage and then helping them move on to their "greater reward".

 

Member of a well-documented Concord, Massachusetts Bay Colony, family, she married first a man from Braintree, whose records were scarce to non-existent.  Subsequent marriages shed little light on her life.  She was the subject of an in-depth article by Mary Lovering Holman, and her family history was investigated by Winifred Lovering Holman.  Both historians shed light on the events surrounding her life, but neither could answer the many questions surrounding the why's and how's.

 

I attempted to do just this, and while I was able to greatly amplify her life story, I was unable to tackle those pesky why's and how's.  

 

Nonetheless, I am happy to submit my work to the public record in the hope that other genealogists and historians can use it to shed light on this most enigmatic woman.

 

Click on the title above to read the article.

In honor of Women's History month I've written "The Law of Coverture and the Erasure of 199 Female Ancestors".  I developed the idea after conducting extensive genealogical research into North American family ancestors and discovering that out of several hundred ancestors, at least 199 women have been lost to history because either their first and/or last names were never recorded anywhere. 

 

The first woman to suffer this indignity was "Mrs. Chilton" who sailed on the Mayflower with her husband James and daughter Mary.  No historical source documents her name, and so despite having run into legal trouble in England for conducting unorthodox burial rites and despite sailing on one of most famous ships in history, no one can identify her other than as the wife of James Chilton.

 

The article begins with a general description of how women's names were kept out of historical records, follows with a concise description of the law of Coverture, under which a woman's legal existence was subsumed by her husband's, and ends with a list of 199 women whose unmarried identity was lost to history.

 

Click on the title above to read the article.

 

Lost to history. What happens when a young woman's surname is not stated in her wedding record, her children are only recorded under their father's name, her death goes unrecorded, and her tombstone disappears? To find her, I combed through records of every woman named Grace born in central Massachusetts. I disregarded women who were too old or too young, who married others, and who just didn't fit the known facts and probabilities. Along the way I spoke with historians, neighbors, and family experts. Eventually, I concluded that our Grace was Grace Fairbanks and solved a 340-year-old mystery.

 

Click on the title above to read the article.

Registered members of the New England Genealogical and Biographical Society can access the published version here: https://www.americanancestors.org/DB202/i/62067/167/0.