Remarkable Ellen

ELLEN PEARSON CHURCH CUMMIN and children circa 1891

(Author's note: Above is a picture put up for sale on the internet. If this were your family, how would you feel? How much more could this picture reveal about who you are or who you've come from?)

As always, AI hates my style. (Graded B+) lol. ;)

I.

This post isn't really about Ellen, though in truth, I suppose it should be. You see, it was Ellen who got me started on this, or rather, the lost and "up for sale" 1891 photograph of Ellen Pearson (Church) Cummin and her children that somehow uploaded itself to the genealogical site Familysearch.org. Now you see, if you're like me, you very much dislike seeing family photos being hawked at garage sales, online, on Craigslist, or wherever people go to sell off someone's family memories. It just feels wrong. And while in the end, this sort of "sale item" will likely happen to us all (if we are lucky enough to be remembered at all), it totally sucks.

I mean, what did Ellen ever do to get put out in the yard sale?

Anyway, I digress. As Ellen is a member of the Church family - a family I've recently researched for Mayflower origins, I feel like I have a personal interest in her photographic safety. I don't know that I will ever be able to find the vendor of her sepia-tone image, but that doesn't mean I can't look further into Ellen's life. You know, maybe dig up a couple of more interesting or unusual things about Ellen or her ancestors along the way.

                    

Above: Citations for this branch through Mary Shepard and Isaac Wheeler, as shown above, are given in the August 6 post "Of Rabbits and Dragons..."

I guess I'd better confess that my slightly better-than-average working knowledge of the Church side of Ellen's kinfolk might have a leg up on all of this. And I need to confess, too, that Ellen's kinfolk are some of the most incredible and interesting people I have ever discovered in absolutely any family tree. Quite honestly, you have only to look in any corner of Ellen's many adjacent branches to see some pretty incredible folks.

So I took a gander, and the first guy that fell out of Ellen's tree this time was the Reverend Jeremiah Shepard (1648-1720). At first glance, he was just another name on a pedigree chart, this XXXX great-grandfather of Ellen's. However, once I slowed down long enough to look at "Old Jerry," I was amazed at what an interesting dude Ellen had lodged up in her branches. You see, the Reverend Jeremiah Shepard was a prominent Puritan minister, and also one of the prominent ministers who was accused of wizardry himself during the height of the Salem Witch trials.

              

Now I won't bore you with a lot of the ins and outs of Old Jerry's tale. He was, by all accounts, a bit of a humorless fellow but who was really quite pure when it came to his Christian Faith. I guess because of this, the witchcraft charges didn't stick. Yes, there were a lot of sides to Old Reverend Jerry. He even participated in the persecution of witches themselves, notably the famous Anne Marbury Hutchinson. Yeah, Old Reverend Jeremiah Shepard was a complicated sort of guy.

                     

 

I don't know why I'm mentioning him—it just seems like that in light of trying to muster up some magic to buy his descendant Ellen's photograph off some genealogy website, and in trying to get to know what was up with her 1891 bad self that would hypothetically get her put in the garage sale items of 1903, I needed to know who and where she came from. I guess she can claim the Reverend Jeremiah Shepard.                       

      

             Above: The Trial of Anne Marbury Hutchinson           

   

But dang, Ellen, he sure doesn't look like a lot of fun.

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II.

Okay, the next guy that fell out of Ellen's branches was actually Old Jerry's father-in-law, a guy named Francis Wainwright (1620-1692). I don't know that "Frank" was that much more fun, but at least he got out there and got business done around the colony. He was notable in taking scalps during the Pequot War. Granted, that's kinda gross, and we hope he had really, really good reasons for doing so. But nah, it isn't all that scalpin' business about Francis Wainwright that caught my eye. It's more about what he's been up to today.

          

        

Say what?

Yeah, Francis Wainwright has been active—even as we speak.

You see, I guess one of his descendants has somewhat liberally taken advantage (?) of his character, image, visage, etc., and has woven it into a series of small YouTube-style novellas. These missives come in chapter form and are called:

"The Lost Treasure of Francis Wainwright."

I don't know about you, but I thought it was pretty cool. None of my ancestors has their own YouTube mystery video podcast shows, even if only fictionalized accounts. See what I mean? Francis Wainwright is still getting around to this day. Yeah, maybe he isn't exactly a household name, but the dude has his own YouTube channel thingy going on. 

Can your grandpa say that?  

Yeah, mine neither.

Anyway, as I set about in my attempts to find Ellen and release her and her photograph from the purgatory of whatever online yard sale she has fallen victim to, I thought you all might like to meet these two interesting dudes in the recesses of her Ye Olde Branches. I know that it's not a lot, but hey, they're not exactly bit-players in the scheme of Ellen's life. I mean, you gotta know too, Ellen was not only a Mayflower descendant, a descendant of the Welcome and her sea-faring Quaker kinfolk, a friend of William Penn, but also descended from numerous Revolutionary War patriots, and a woman who would be the fairly recent modern-day ancestor of a Soap Opera star. Dude, does it get much better than that?

And like most of us, worth mentioning.

And, again, like most of us and Ellen, I sure hope we don't end up at some jamoke's online garage sale. 

That is so not okay.

PEACE OUT.