David Hackett Fischer, in his marvelous book Albion's Seed, estimates that there are 16 million Americans who can trace their ancestry to one or more of the 20-25,000 Puritans who came to this country during the Great Migration. In my studies over the last two years I've discovered, by rough count, about 30 ancestors who were Puritan emigrants, and many of them involved in the fascinating beginnings of this country in New England.

   One of the reasons I invested in a computer was to use it to organize the papers and findings of my Great Aunt 'Bessie', a woman I was always scared of as a youth, but who did a lot of study on the origins of her Mott name and left me a starting point for further research.

   Putting these ancestors into the historical context of their time is the most interest I get out of these studies, and so I have sought to document as much as possible, and to read and search the local histories of the places they came to and lived in. Besides Puritans I've discovered German Palatine emigrants to the Hudson River Valley who almost starved to death their first winter here in 1710, four of my ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, one who set up the first 'fulling-mill' in America in 1643 before the British made it illegal to 'do' textiles in the colonies, and two who were in the Civil war, one a surgeon. Perhaps there were more, for the search goes on, and there are many limbs of my family tree that I just haven't seen yet. I hope you enjoy these pages.

Special interest for me:
Mail me if you are interested in these places, and/or people:

• John Mott, the Revolutionary war patriot. See the page on John Mott of New Jersey in the Revolution.
• His father, Ebenezer, whose origins have been speculated on by many people.
• Early Martha's Vineyard: Governor Thomas Mayhew, his daughter Hannah, John Pease, and John Doggett.
• James Spicer - For too many years very vague information about him that was clarified by the research of my cousin in England, Nigel Gale, who also added a few generations before James.
• Mary Wager - I'm especially interested in contacting anyone about the Wager name.
• The Palatine immigration to the Hudson River Valley - if you're interested in this, let me know, and see my link to it with Conrad Ham.
• The DuBois Family - Some say that Chretien DuBois was descended from Charlemagne.....The last DuBois in my line was Charity DuBois, my Great, Great Grandmother.
• Medad Porter, Charity's husband - I know nothing of the Porter families, but suspect that there is more out there.
• Willem Traphagen, the fiery Dutchman who help found a town in 1661 only to get kicked out 4 years later.
• Southampton, Long Island: One of my ancestors, Thomas Sayre, was one of the founders. There's a neat biography (if I do say so myself) with a good story of some early Puritan colonists who had little regard for the Dutch in and around New Amsterdam.