The Killing Root           

The Execution of Mayflower passenger John Billington

(Author's note: The following is straight-up wannabe genealogy. It's my attempt to garner some sort of understanding for the incomprehensible "ancestrally." My style here is visual. My style may be unsourced. If it's not your cup of tea, you should tune out now. Settle in. This is long-winded and you're gonna want some snacks and an adult beverage or two to go with it.)

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"Murder is a crime. Falling in love is not."

                                                         ~ P.T. Huedlach

                 AN ANCESTRAL ANALYSIS   

       A myriad of images to tell the tale of two men.   

Like most of us, I just wanted to make sense of it. I knew in the end it wouldn't. I mean, it couldn't. How does one make sense of a twenty-two-year-old man sneaking into a university in Utah to assassinate a young husband and father with whom he disagreed on politics? I suppose the wannabe genealogist in me just couldn't take another 'Well, these things happen in today's world' moment.' The slaying of Charlie Kirk and the shattering of Tyler Robinson's family? Eeeeew. How could two men who seemed so much alike end up so very opposed?

I have no way to reconcile this in my mind. So, not that I needed to, I decided to fall back and to examine the situation in one of the only ways I know how: genealogically. Weren't they actually two men who might have otherwise been friends? I needed to see who they were. I wanted to glimpse some of the forces that had made them "in time." Were they just some "conservative commentator" gone up against a young kid who'd fallen in love with a trans person? How the flock does that happen?

Where had "all of this" come from? And more importantly, did they share some sort of common ancestry?

It's one of the first somewhat incredible things that you learn when you start out in genealogy - shared ancestry. It almost seems too fantastic, but as you work through all our many branches, you find out that, yeah, it's very true. So I wondered what ancestors Charlie Kirk and Tyler Robinson might share. Who might they both call "grandfather?" And then the utter geek in me had to take it a step further. Was it possible that they might have a common Mayflower ancestry? (Hey, there are a lot of us out there hidden amongst the leaves.)

So, as any aspiring genealogical wannabe might do, I dug in. I toggled back and forth between the pedigree charts I put together for the two men—first Charlie, then Tyler, and back again. Honestly, any genealogical information out there on Charlie Kirk has been scant. And while I had some better luck in resolving clear and direct lines for Tyler Robinson's ancestry (largely due to his LDS connections), there were some bumps on the road of discovery there, too. Believe me, there are major gaps in the information I’ve been trying to put together, and there hasn't been enough time for me to vet the twists and turns of two family trees, but if even half of what I am finding is verifiable, as Jerry Garcia once said:

"My, what a long, strange trip it's been."

By the way, please chime in here and correct me if I am wrong. I am no advocate of the "copy-and-paste" methodology. I make plenty of mistakes, genealogical and otherwise.

However, I did find them—their shared common ancestors - those of Tyler Robinson and Charlie Kirk. I'll admit that I didn't pay a lot of attention to the usual suspects, those being what I call the 'supra names' or progenitors you see in most everyone's family tree sooner or later. I mean, this was great and all, but...

It was, however, then that I saw it. I saw it in Tyler Robinson's tree. The name was Francis Billington, who is the son of John Billington. 

And it looked like this:

Below is an anecdotal line of largely uncited published sources connecting Tyler Robinson to America's first convicted murderer, Mayflower passenger John Billington.

                     

                          

Above: John Billington to Francis Billington

Above: Francis Billington to Mary Billington to Israel Sabin

  Above: Beulah Sabin's line back to Samuel Sabin, Sr., who married Mary Billington                     

                  Above and below: Lucy Hoyt, daughter of Beulah Sabin who married Reddick Allred

        Above and Below: Lucy Adeline Allred, who married in a plural marriage, Henry B. Stevens

                  

       

                        Below: Their daughter Lucy Amilla (Stevens) Tilby

Below: Their daughter, Delilah Tilby, who married Lorenzo Sudweeks

   

Below: Their daughter, Mary Ruth Sudweeks, who married Glen Gilson
     

       

                     

 

     Below: Their son, Buddy Dean Gilson, who married Winnie Viola Carlson

 

             

Above: Their daughter, Linda Gilson, who had a daughter with Jeff Jones
    

                    

Below: Linda Gilson, who became known as "Linda Haligarda"

               

                 

                                    
                        

          

Above: Amber Jones, daughter of Linda Haligarda and Jeff Jones, who married Matt Robinson

Below: A further confirmation of his family:

          

Above: The parents of Tyler Robinson
                  

                                         

Okay, no disrespect to the Billington clan, but doesn't it just figure that John Billington would show up in Tyler Robinson's family tree?

John Billington, of the Mayflower, and the first person of Plymouth Colony to be convicted and executed for murder.

Yeah, it does kind of make sense.

Don't get me wrong here. I also see hints of Mayflower passengers William Bradford, William Brewster, and Henry Samson in Tyler's tree. And again, I haven't proven any of them. They're just sitting out there among his branches. It's interesting to me that Tyler Robinson should have the possible descent from five Mayflower passengers.

But what about Charlie Kirk?                    

Does he have Mayflower kin too?    

It's kinda weird today that a FamilySearch.org family tree submitted for a "Robert Willard Kirk" (and the presumed father of Charlie Kirk) and one that I accessed (and bookmarked) just a day or two ago now shows up today (9/15/25) on FamilySearch.org like this:

    

(Genealogist Chris Child tells me this just means they deleted a date of death - and that "the dead" will still show up...eventually. I suspect he's right. He's a pretty smart cookie.)

It does make me wonder, though...

Is any one out there is hiding this web page of info, or trying to protect Mr. Kirk's family from nosy journalists and or wannabe family historian/genealogist types like me? Or maybe "they" put up bunk facts and genealogy, or, perhaps "they " are the Great Powers in Salt Lake City and Washington D.C. colluding to keep it all (beats me) under wraps....

Talk about gender neutral pronouns. Lol. (Sorry, poor joke.)

(Well, sucks to be whomever they might be because I copied the information out of the tree first. :) 

Yeah, that's what we wannabe genealogist types do. I have no intention of inflicting harm or emotional distress on Mr. Kirk's family; however, who or where his great-great-grandfather was in the 1860 census or who Mr. Kirk is in relation to the Mayflower is hardly earth-shattering information.

I am sorry for your loss.

But...

Here was one proposed line from Mayflower passenger John Alden to Charlie Kirk:

And yes, if you must know, it (this line from John Alden to Charlie Kirk) pretty much sucked. 

I could not prove sh*t.

Obviously, the lines have been harder to follow here for Charlie Kirk. Somehow, much of Charlie Kirk's ancestry has been obfuscated, at least so far as my meager wannabe genealogist efforts go thus far. I did track him into these hints of Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, and also to Stephen Hopkins and John Howland - that is, before he went all "page not found." And that is before the line seemed to all fall apart. If my memory serves me, there was even a MP Richard Warren line in there somewhere, too.

(Kinda weird since I am also a Howland and a Hopkins descendant, making Charlie Kirk my kin too.)

I kept thinking how utterly ironic it would be to discover that they (Charlie and Tyler) shared ancestry from the same MP?

Or that I might share Mayflower ancestry with each of them separately.

Try as I might though, I still can't get this Mayflower line from Charlie Kirk to John Alden to work. It doesn't want to verify. I'm hoping that whoever submitted it hasn't just posted up a bunch of the usual wishful thinking, or in other words, utter genealogical crap.

Go figure, right??

So onto the next line. This would be a connection between Charlie Kirk and Mayflower passenger John Howland - my own ancestor. 

Here, I had better luck.

Below is an anecdotal line of largely uncited published sources connecting Charlie Kirk Robinson to Mayflower passenger John Howland:

     

  

Above: John Howland of the Mayflower to his son John Howland II

                       

 

Above and below: John Howland II to his daughter Experience Howland, who married James Bearse

  

   

  Below: Their daughter, Priscilla Bearse who married Josiah Bourn

                     

      

    

     Below: Their daughter Rebecca Bourn, who married Increase Robinson               

      

Above and below: Their daughter, Priscilla Robinson, who married John Keen

        

        Below: Their daughter, Jerusha Keen, who married Hiram Stanchfield

                 

Above and below: Their daughter, who married Albert Henry Norcross

  Below: Their son, James Hiram Norcross who married Sara Cosgrove         

                               

                                  Above: Their daughter, Essie Norcross, who married Robert Cook

Above and below:   Their daughter, Mary Kathleen Cook, who married Randall Willard Cook      

                   

 Above and below: Randall W. Kirk, who married Mary Kathleen Cook, daughter of Essie Norcross Cook and father of Robert Willard Cook, father of Charles James "Charlie" Kirk         

And no, this genealogical work is not 100%. I cannot seem to verify Charlie's mother's ancestry. Like much of his family tree - it's been blurred -somehow hidden. The information out there doesn't quite fit the bill - and the Kirks (like the Robinsons) seem to have been plagued with a lot of divorces.

Again, go figure.               

I guess "all of this" was foolish on my part. Maybe it was just macabre wishful thinking that this modern-day Cain and Abel story would somehow make sense ancestrally. But while I haven't thus far found a common Mayflower line for the two men, I guess you could say that I found something more important.                                        

I found two men whose ancestors came over together on the same boat that mine did. Yes, they all came over together seeking freedom and a better life. I wonder too if maybe they'd just each been given a chance if things might have gone so very differently for each of them???  

Maybe if Charlie had found a gentler rhetoric. Maybe if Tyler had learned to participate in the process of discourse and honest debate. 

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-black-women/

Yes, I know, understanding all this is somehow pointless now, yet also somehow so urgently relevant. And yes, maybe in this instance, "understanding" is such a useless word.

Yes, that simple concept of understanding that...

Indeed, we are all in the same boat.

Rest in peace, Mr. Kirk.

Find some peace, Mr. Robinson.

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