A Fuller Madness

                                   PART TEN

(Authors note: Genealogy is a cruel master. It expects much. It hides much. It parlays its answers in the most ubiquitous of places - in the past. It courses against us. It nags; sometimes relentlessly.  I serve that troll-under-the-bridge master for now, at least until my own madness washes up on the shores of oblivion.)

This is a continuation of my "unfinished and unprovoked" genealogical worksheets, as I attempt to fill in the Mayflower ancestry of Ruth (Fuller) Francisco. As always, good luck with my edits...

I.

For those of you that have been following this journey of mine to identify Ruth, wife of Old Henry Francisco since Part One, I commend you for hanging in there. Laboring through the "Fuller Madness" of somebody else's genealogical efforts isn't always an easy task. In Part Nine, I discussed my "post-article" submission hiatus in "looking back" at the things I might have done better in identifying Ruth. 

In that post, I explored the identity of Ruth's sister, Freelove (Fuller) Vine. Immediately prior, I realized that I'd been doing my research a disservice by prioritizing Ruth's brothers at the expense of her sisters. That's what brought me to Freelove, to Freelove (Fuller) Vine, wife of Solomon Vine.

I believe, Freelove and the "Fuller-Vine" connection adds a lot of ancillary information, if not an after-the-fact form of anecdotal verification of Ruth herself.

To be honest though, there's been something else that has nagged at me a bit. 

Now don't get me wrong; I'm still quite certain that Old Henry's wife was "Ruth Fuller, daughter of Aaron Fuller and Ruth Sawyer" and a descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller. However, for a moment, I'd like to go back and revisit (post article submission) Old Henry Francisco himself. 

You see what's bothered me the most is Old Henry's actual arrival date at Whitehall, or as it was called then, Skenesborough.

Now there's no doubt that Old Henry lived at Whitehall, Washington County, New York. We aren't even gonna "go there" as they say. However, all I've basically had to rely on to place Henry Francisco at Skenesborough was Doris Begor Morton's "reconstituted" Skene's Tenants list. This list names Old Henry Francisco -  along with pretty much every male Fuller worth mentioning in town. Morton's list is a little open-ended. It covers the fluid tenants list for the years 1759-1775. Now I have absolutely no reason to doubt Mrs. Morton. By all accounts she was a meticulous historian. 

However, given the span of years presented in her list, it begs the question of when did Henry Francisco actually arrive at Skenesborough? If Morton's list is correct, he was certainly there by 1775.

This may not matter. 

However, operating under the belief that Henry's wife Ruth Fuller was related to those very Mayflower Fullers of Whitehall, and given the birth year of their (Henry and Ruth's) son Solomon Francisco in 1768, it is only implied that Old Henry arrived there before 1775. Yet there is nothing, outside of Morton including him in her list of Skene's tenants, to argue or augment that.

So I've decided to go back and revisit a couple of things about Old Henry. 

These aren't earth-shattering bits of new information. However, as with the elucidation of Freelove (Fuller) and her husband Solomon's "land ties" ties to Ruth's (and Freelove's) brother Aaron Fuller, Esq., I think as far as Old Henry Francisco goes, they help complete the story. (Keep in mind too that Old Henry and Ruth (Fuller) Francisco's son Solomon was also Solomon Vine's sister Rebecca's grandson.)

As they say, "the ties that bind..."

So let's talk about Old Henry.

One of the best places to start is back with Old Henry's Revolutionary War pension application. There are a couple of really interesting things here that I might not have emphasized as much as I should have. We can certainly talk about his muster rolls placing him at Washington County in 1777. We can talk about the battles he was in, or his supposed Ft Edward tavern that was burned out in July of that year, and about his recollections regarding the murder of Jane McCrae by the Tories. 

But later on all that. Right now, I want you to meet a new guy.

Oops...before I forget:

(Old Henry's muster rolls also show he deserted a day after this event shown below. But "deserted" meant something different then than it does now.... it meant his home and family were in peril and he had to return home to protect them.)

Yeah, first I need to you to meet Tom.

And yes, I hate to introduce you to new character actors this late in the storyline, but I think as you read on it will make more sense. Here is an affidavit contained in the 1818 RW pension file for Old Henry Francisco. The affidavit not only attests to Henry's military service, but also states how long the person making the statement has known Henry. Let me introduce you here to Thomas Lyon, of Whitehall, Washington County, New York, acquainted with Old Henry Francisco since 1777.

That is well over forty years.

Above: National Archives Catalogue: Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant S. 44,864, Henry Francisco, Continental...image 8/39

Okay, Okay, I thought it was pretty cool. 

But it's not  totally cool because it does not place Old Henry in Skenesborough/Whitehall before 1777, and it does not say exactly where Thomas Lyon met Old Henry or exactly where he knew him from, but still, it's primary proof. 

So I had to ask myself who was Thomas Lyon? And, more importantly, who was Thomas Lyon in relation to Henry beyond this statement?

As usual, I need to stop here for a second.

I need to mention that Old Henry was associated with a couple of guys by the names of Colonel Seth Warner and Captain James Burroughs, and a band of RW patriot fighters known as "The Green Mountain Boys." However, that's an aside right now that I will need to revisit (in relation to all of this) a bit later. Their flag is shown below:

Let's take another look at Thomas Lyon through the eyes of somebody we've already met.

Yes, Solomon T. Vine. (Featured in Part Nine)

Solomon knew Tom. Old Henry knew Tom.

Above and below: National Archives Catalogue: Revolutionary War Pensions and Bounty Land Warrants

And oddly enough, this too:

And Tom knew Solomon.

So I think it's pretty safe to say that these guys knew each other for over forty years. Now just for context and texture, I'm going to through in a couple of more images here just because. They give it a little more context - here's the guy they all worked for:

Here's some connections you can find at the D.A.R.:

(Keep in mind that Skeneborough become Whitehall in 1784.)

This is kinda where those tribunals that govern genealogy get stupid as Hell. Old Henry's D.A.R. record has been put on hold because he said he was 130 years old in his pension application. Like this diminished his service??? They have his muster rolls and the affidavits of two men well aquanted with him.

Yeah, that's when lienage societies start to suck. Why do they gotta mess with Old Henry???

As usual, I'm off topic.

Suffice it to say that April 15, 1818 was a busy day at Whitehall, Washington County, New York. It must have been fun for these old timers (especially Henry) to get together and remember 40 odd years ago. Who doesn't like to remember when?

               

Above: Your author "remembering when" with an old friend...

However, this shows something else too... Remember Freelove? 

Remember she is the wife of Solomon Vine. Remember she was "Freelove Fuller," Ruth (Fuller) Francisco's sister? I just thought it was interesting that two of these three old men (Solomon and Henry), basically old friends since 1777, also happen to be brothers-in-law. (Plus a whole lot of other in-law and out-law relations going on.)

Remember that 1784 land transaction??? You know the one from Part Nine involving a description of Solomon Vine's (and his brother Ebenezer's) land bordering that of Aaron Fuller, Esq, the brother of Ruth (Fuller) Francisco and Freelove (Fuller) Vine?

See what I mean?

So I added this Whitehall military history - it just adds context and luster to the story.

          

                                            

And while I get it that none of this places Old Henry Francisco in Skeneborough/Whitehall ante 1777 the infor these statements contain implies that the presumed marriages and relationships pre-date the military history and or events surrounding it. In the end, we my only have Morton's reconstruction of Skene's tenants list to rely on. However, in light of these "forty year friendships" though it's making any suppositions look like a dang preponderance of evidence. 

I know....whatever, Troll Jeff...

AND...

I'm probably relying too heavily on these 1790 U.S. Census images, but for me they say so much:

Above: Solomon Vine living next door to Aaron Fuller, Esq. - His wife's (Freelove's) brother.

     

And just a couple of house away from Thomas Lyon...

Old Henry Francisco "Sisco" just the next sheet over... across the field away.

These were people that more than knew each other. 

They were family.

I've written to the New York State Archives to see what they have about Aaron Fuller, Esq's service under that Charlotte/Washington County militia. I don't know that it will shed much light on any of this but as the "Fuller Madness" takes hold one must certainly over turn every stone and look under every rock.

I'll be back.

To be continued...

☮

 

The Argument for Freelove

THE MAYFLOWER ANCESTRY OF RUTH FULLER FRANCISCO                                                  

                                    PART NINE

(Author’s note: This is an unfinished genealogical project. A worksheet, if you will, as I muddle through the proofs and my own personal progress. It starts with Part One and winds it's way here. If it's not your cup of tea you should bail out now. No harm no foul. Peace out.)

Unapologetically, unedited in the heat of the moment.

I. 

It sucks when all you can do is wait.

It sucks even worse when you have—in a fit of hubris—attached your "twentieth-or-so" absolute "best" version of your article submission, Identifying Ruth, into the compound fracture of an email and vaingloriously hit send. Yes, you’ve gone and volleyed it off to the ivory towers of an editorial desk; a desk you likely should have known better than to have ever personally aspired to. 

And then... you sit.

What happens next, as you wait and wonder, is that you inevitably go back. You go back and revisit that "twentieth-or-so" version of it all—you know, that hard-wrought submission you labored over for months. The one that you labored to glean every possible proof for, crossing every "t" and dotting every "i," screaming at every typo in your superscripts that wouldn't seem to follow your direction, or your damnable run-on footnotes. You look back, and the questions begin to puddle, running like a faucet left on inside your brain: 

What did I miss? What would have made it better?             

                                

You already know the shortfalls, even though you know damn well that Ruth (Fuller) Francisco can be none other—and only—the woman you’ve argued and identified her to be. You know it in the heart of your celestial and genealogical soul, as if her ghost had whispered it right into your ear. But you also know the committee meetings inside your head and that "peer review" crowd in your imagination—and those in reality—will give you no peace, sleeping or waking. That’s if they, those real peers and those editors you aspire to, will even bother to entertain your private perfection: that your own "private" Ruth Fuller was indeed the wife of "Old" Henry Francisco.

So, you wait.

And then, it surfaces. Yes, she does.

Yes, who exactly?

She arrives in the form of an answer beyond Ruth. She reveals herself out of an ether which might have made that "twentieth-or-so" version a hundred times stronger. But it’s too late. It’s gone. You missed the genealogical trail and the favor of the genealogical trial. You've succumbed to the question of whether those grand folks of the tribunals will notice your oversights, and it becomes a heavy reflection—not just on your academic acumen, but on yourself. 

And worse, a reflection on poor dear Ruth.

But she was there anyway, that other reflection of Ruth, so what could you do except go down the rabbit hole? What could I do once you realized you'd lacked the skill to discover her in the first place—that is, until it was "after-the-fact"?

What could you do when I finally discovered Freelove?

II.

Genealogy is, after all, a man’s world in a lot of ways. You see, being a bit of a doltish man, it took me a while to see that while I was hunting Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, I was concentrating almost exclusively on the male-line Fullers to make my case. I’d studied Ruth's father and brothers: Aaron Sr. and Jr., Judah, Gershom, Henry, and Ephraim. I had tracked her grandfather, her son, and her grandson: Moses Sawyer, Solomon Francisco, and Solomon's Cincinnati-bound son, John.

Then a little light went on in the back of my brain: Duh, Jeff. What about the women?

The published genealogical literature traces the men. It favors them, as it always does. I had diligently been working to prove out Ruth as the sister, daughter, niece, and wife to a dozen different patriarchs. But what about Ruth's sisters? What about the women in this misogynistic genealogical scheme of things?

It makes sense, doesn't it?

It makes sense that if I might be able to verify even one thing about any of Ruth’s sisters—beyond what the Silver Books tell us, or in addition to any one of "those dudes" in her family tree—I’ve essentially built a fortress around Ruth herself. If her brothers were married to the "Real Housewives of Whitehall," surely the sisters left a footprint in the New York soil, too.

And then, through the sagebrush surrounding the Whitehall Fuller family tree, I saw her.

I saw Freelove.

III. 

I'm not sure when I first noticed Freelove. 

I guess I'd had some mild genealogical epiphany about Ruth, and the lack of literally anything about the women in her immediate family. And while her mother's lines were interesting, they were and are those of her sisters that drew me in. More like a gambler at a roulette wheel than an actual game of "genealogical clue," I took a chance and dove down the rabbit hole. 

It was there that I met Freelove Fuller, kid sister of Ruth (Fuller) Francisco.

Why I chose to look after Freelove, rather than any one of Ruth's or Freelove's other sisters I really can't say. I can say though, that indeed, I'm glad that I did.

Now there's a lot to unpack here but I guess I need to start with saying that for everything any naysayers may come up with as far as my Identifying Ruth goes, there is a near equal amount of obscurity for Freelove.  However, and again, before I get to far, let me just introduce the first bit of information that swam to the top of that puddle when I queried after our dear Freelove:

It was her name of course: Freelove Fuller, wife of Solomon Vine.    

Yes, it was attached to a FindAGrave cemetery record for she and Solomon. While there was no headstone image, the source read: 

Ref: Burial records found in: "Cemetery Records" Town of Whitehall, Washington County Historical Society - 1998, pg 198."

Wait - wife of Solomon Vine? 

Now we all know that FindaGrave.com records are a lot like playing the genealogical lottery. The headstones are invariably missing and or the genealogical information is just plain shite, fabricated, or wrong. True enough too, is that I haven't yet been able to access the actual cemetery records of the town of Whitehall, Washington County, New York. (Hidden behind some paywall or in Salt Lake) 

However. sometimes, just sometimes, those FindAgrave.com records actually do tell the truth. In this instance, I had no reason to believe that the information about Solomon and especially Freelove was false. I just needed more...

Again, Freelove was married to Solomon Vine?????

If this held true, that meant that "Old Henry's wife, Ruth (Fuller) Francisco's sister Freelove's husband Solomon was likely a close kinsman to Henry and Ruth' son Solomon Francisco's wife Mary Freeman. You see, Mary [Maria] Freeman's, parents were John Freeman and Rebecca Vine.

And if the following account is correct Solomon T. Vine and and Rebecca Vine were brother and sister.

Above: Horace Holmes Wall, Various Vine Families, A Manuscript, vol. 1, published by the Daughters of the American Revolution, San Francisco, 1951, online, file FamilySearch.org

Do you get all that? Yeah, me neither - but I'm working on it. I have noticed some errors in tha above manuscript but I'm gonna go with it for now...

Just how Ruth's brother-in-law Solomon was related to her son's mother-in-law isn't quite clear (or veried by any primary document) yet, but hopefully, I will get there. 

There have been a few other things I've wanted to clear up first.

The first thing being: Do I have the right Freelove Fuller? 

On the surface it sure looks like I do. 

However, knowing I can't rely on a transcribed cemetery records from FindAGrave.com, let alone one I haven't even seen yet, I knew what I could do was to go back and start from scratch. I needed go back to the Silver Books. There, where lo' and behold, was our dear heroine, Freelove Fuller, humbly cropped and submitted last in this image from author McGunnigle's book. 

So far so good - the Freelove (Fuller) Vine in the FindaGrave.com records and via the unseen cemetery transcription appeared to be an exact match.     

However, I've been down this road before.

I don't want to look at a dang "false positive" identification for Freelove. Yeah, I'm gonna need something more. So I looked at what was out there. If those tribunals at Plymouth have taught me anything, it's that one had better be damn sure.

So moving on, I found this in History of Cornwall:

               

Freelove! You are there!

Okay, this wasn't perfect either - it's an older compilation of the "second half" of Aaron Fuller and Ruth Sawyer's children, those born a Cornwall, Conn., as opposed to the first half (Ruth's half) born at Colchester. But it was ok, even with a funky date of birth for Freelove of:

 "April 31st."

There was though, something that was still bothering me about all this. 

It needed to be resolved before I could even get into the whole "wife of Solomon Vine" part of this tale, or at least to where I could lead up to it. You see, in the FindAGrave.com notes there was mention that Freelove's maiden name might not have been "Fuller" at all. 

No! Shut the door!

She may have been "Freelove Allen" or "Freelove Wells."

Oh. Good Lord, not a dang "Wells." Those folks are always nothing but trouble. LOL.

Say what?  Yeah, "Allen or Wells" definitely does not work to link Mrs. Freelove Vine to "Ruth Fuller" or to any woman resembling a "Ruth Fuller's sister,"  -who was married to Solomon Vine - or not.

Egads, that's thick as mud. (Well, what do you want from an old man?)

So I decided to take a chance and see what there is/was in the way of D.A.R. records on old Solomon Vine. Sure enough, old "Solomon T. Vine" was a patriot, and there were two D.A.R. members who claimed descent from him and, wait for it, the lovely and talented, Freelove. 

Go dog, go!

Yeah, I had to get my hand on a copy of those D.A.R. records. 

So I ordered up the first lineage application on old Solomon T. Vine - thinking the most recent one would tell me more than earlier ones. (Dumb move) I gotta say, it was a little disappointing. The proofs in the file were (to be kind) extremely lacking. The file itself was from 1976 when I guess they didn't require much in the way of solid verifications, if any. It was the old "my granny said so" so it must be true kinda verifications.

Anyway, the member's lineage application looks like this below:  

Ancestor: A118918 

Member Number: 606984

Well, that was disappointing. 

I could see where Freelove's alternative last names (those of Allen and Wells) had come from. (Yeah, etching in any "maybe names" - that SO wouldn't work in 2026).  It bothered me too that Freelove's date of birth was recorded in the application as "May 1, 1760" and not April 30, 1760 as in the Silver Book for the family of Aaron Fuller and Ruth (Sawyer) Fuller. 

It was just enough to be off. 

Ugh.

And yes, I know that even a year of variance isn't uncommon in following a line through for the Genealogical Proof Standard (I mean look at the variance of birth year for Freelove's big sister Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, that of 1746-1747) BUT given that I also had been introduced to two alternative maiden names (Allen and Wells) which would now also have to be addressed and ideally disproven, it complicated matters not to have an exact date of birth match. 

As an aside, and before I get too much further here, I thought I would share a bit of the curious anomoly and unverified genealogy on a subsequent page of this same D.A.R. application:

Francisco????

Like "Old" Henry Francisco? - Ruth's hubby?

Who the heck is Rachel Francisco?

The D.A.R. records indicate that Solomon T. Vine was married twice, first to Freelove and then to Rachel. It also says that neither of his wife's maiden names are known. So as I'm searching here to verify that Ruth (Fuller) Francisco's sister was Freelove (Fuller) Vine - the Vine family having married into the Francisco's via Old Henry's son Solomon Francisco marrying the daughter of John Freeman and Rebecca Vine -  now I'm also "confronted" with the possibility that Solomon T. Vine himself married a Francisco daughter, widow, or wife?

I'm not even going to mention that Old Henry Francisco and Ruth spent their Golden Years living with their daughter and her husband, the family of Robert Willson. Is there a connection here to Freelove and Solomon's daughter, the lovely Lucy Vine - who married a Thomas Wilson?

These people need to get out way more. (Note to Whitehall folks: There's people in the next town over...)

Aha! But back to Freelove. 

A couple of things to note here. 

Even as disappointing as this D.A.R. record has been in terms of proofs or documentation, I did notice two things. The first is that being prepared in 1976 precluded a lot of information now available. (Um, duh, Jeff...) I also noticed something. 

The notation over Freelove's date of birth on the lineage application. There it is says: 

"g.s. calc" and "68 years, 8 months 28 days"

So this tells me that whoever did the transcription of the gravestone (or transcribed the Whitehall cemetery records) used a "gravestone calculator" to figure Freelove's date of birth backwards. Check out what a modern day "gravestone calculator" comes up with for a date of birth for our gal Freelove:

The very curious and albeit impossible date of "April 31st" pops up again for Freelove - just like in History of Cornwall. 

The D.A.R. record shows Freelove's (unverified) date of birth as "May 1, 1760." 

May 1st and April 31st (however impossible) are in fact the same date.

I think it's pretty safe to say that we have eliminated the date of birth issue. 

As the Silver Book records Freelove Fuller's date of birth as "April 30, 1760," and as the Whitehall cemetery transcription records it the same, and as these D.A.R. records generally concur and coincide with the notations about the birthdate of Freelove (Fuller) Vine in History of Cornwall, it seems a pretty safe bet (pending a copy of those cemetery transcriptions or a gravestone photograph) that we have "captured" dear Freelove.

I suppose the competent genealogist would say I am getting ahead of myself. (Whatever...)

I mean I haven't yet proven that there wasn't a "Freelove Allen" or that there wasn't a "Freelove Wells" that married Solomon T. Vine, now have I? They would argue that it is equally as possible that there was a "Freelove Allen" or a "Freelove Wells" born April 30-May 1, 1760 who could have just as easily "fit the bill" for or as a wife of our hero Solomon T. Vine.

In terms of the Genealogical Proof Standard they would be right. 

Ugh.

Yeah, I don't think so either, but.... I need to do a better job here. (You know how those Tribunals at Plymouth can be.) 

To do so, I at least need to better link the Fullers to the Vines.

IV.

Ugh (yet again...)

So I went back in. I decided to order up some of those other additional D.A.R. records. This time, I got a bit luckier. You be the judge.

Ancestor Number: A118918

Member Number: 52551

And this was in the second file:

Above: 1808 Whitehall, Washington County, New York, Assessment Roll - A transcript

Okay - I'm good here without seeing the cemetery transcription off of the FindAGrave.com record. This transcript of the 1808 Assessment Roll for Whitehall actually works better and is just fine to verify Solomon and Freelove's ages at time of death. There's some great backstory too, about the "Allens and the Wells" living in such close proximity to Solomon - which (kinda unfortunately) matched the hearsay on the D.A.R. lineage application. 

There's even mention of Solomon's late in life wife Rachel (.......) Vine. 

All good.

While I can even see (or at least surmise) how all of that "Freelove Allen"and or "Freelove Wells" posturing business got started, to over ride such falderal I still very much need something that links Freelove to the Fullers -  and well past the date of birth record for Freelove Fuller matching pretty much exactly to the calculated date of birth for Mrs. Freelove (Fuller) Vine.

Yeah, I know, that's some thick ass stuff.

I need to have a preponderance of evidence proving Freelove Fuller and Freelove Vine are one and the same person. 

Okay, let's start with basics:

We know that Solomon married Freelove. (Duh, Jeff....)

Above: Cropped images of United States Bounty Record, Family Search, FIlm 004172726 image number 406/1014 for Solomon T. Vine

All good here. So I moved onto looking elsewhere...

And fortunately, it was about then that a friendly old name began to surface.

"Aaron Fuller, Esq."

YES!!! 

Ruth (Fuller) Francisco's brother Aaron Fuller, Esq. (AKA, Aaron Fuller, Jr.).

Aaron Fuller, Esq., who performed the marriage of Solomon Francisco and Mary Freeman. Aaron Fuller, Esq, who if this all holds water, was a very close relation to both the bride and the groom.

And this is why...

Check it out:

Above: New York Land Deeds, 1630-1975, Washington County, 1744-1793 (cropped) Family Search, Film number 007138516, image number 284/448

Now for any of you slackers who haven't been paying attention all the way back since Part One, that name above, "Aaron Fuller, Esq."  is he ("one and the same) whom we have more than amply shown to be the brother of Ruth Fuller, AKA Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, and, (wait for it) alongside the description of property lines next to Solomon T. Vine - and also Solomon T. Vine's brother the talented Ebenezer Vine. (See Vine family image above)

AND, Aaron Fuller, Esq. who is...

...also the brother of Freelove Fuller. 

These land records from 1784 show that Solomon Vine (not to mention Solomon and Rebecca (Vine) Freeman's brother Ebenezer shared a property boundaries with Aaron Fuller, Esq. (Aaron Jr.) and indeed (not shown) also with Aaron Fuller's son Robert Fuller.    

That means three of the Vine siblings (Solomon, Rebecca, Ebenzer) shared property lines with Aaron Fuller, Esq. and Aaron's son. 

Holy whatchamacallit!

Above: Ward J. Roylance, Remingtons of Utah... Salt Lake City, 1960, page 61 (cropped)

  Now, I guess you could say that I have two things for "Mrs. Freelove Vine," no, make that three. (1.) I have an 1808 Tax Assessment roll that confirms her date of birth as the same as the same date of birth a Freelove Fuller's in McGunnigle's Silver Book on the descendants of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller, (2.) I have a concordance of Freelove's date of birth in History of Cornwall, (likely taken from the same sources) and, (3.) I have a deed that places her husband's (and her husban's brother's) property lines adjacent to Aaron Fuller, Esq who is named as Freelove's brother in the Silver Books, and all this, alongside one of Aaron's sons - Robert.

I'm not seeing a lot of "Allens" or "Wells" connections here for Freelove. I do see the understandable Allens and Wells hearsay in this later newspaper account on the history of the Vine family and of Solomon T. Vine. 

But let's look at Morton's transcription of Skene's Tenants list for Skeneborough (Whitehall), New York

The Vines definitely lived alongside the Fullers and Old Henry Francisco 

I don't know about you, but I don't see any Allen's or Wells... just sayin'...

  

   

AND, however, as valuable and as interesting it is that Solomon T. Vine had a small farm on the "opposite side of the road from the Allen Farm," this hearsay that he married some Allen girl was written almost a century later and based off some later generation's memory of what had been said by somebody else. (I won't wade into conjecture about "when" Solomon could have purchased this "small farm on the opposite side of the road from the Allen farm.")

 I'm only going to point to the fact that:

1.) In 1784, Solomon Vine's property bordered Aaron Fuller, Esq., - and Aaron's son Robert's

     a.) and alongside Solomon's brother Ebenezer Vine's also...

2.) Mrs. Freelove Vine's date of birth matches exactly that of Aaron's sister, Freelove Fuller.

I will even set aside the numerous unexplored family connection (for now) between the Vines and the Franciscos in relation to the Freemans and the Fullers. I won't even mention that sisters Ruth and Freelove's brother Ephraim Fuller (of Whitehall) named two of his daughters "Ruth and Freelove." 

Above: Roylance, page 55

No, that would be hearsay. LOL.

So I am going to just rest it here that I'm pretty dang sure I have identified Ruth's sister Freelove Fuller as the first wife of Solomon T. Vine. 

There is so much more to go through here, but for the purposes of these work-in-progress blog posts it doesn't make sense to get into it further. I can follow-up with the Freemans and the Vines and how it all connects back to Ruth and Old Henry and on down to my friend Paige at a later date.

I wish I'd had some of this when I prepared the submission for NYG&B, but I didn't. Hindsight sucks, especially while you're waiting for word on whether or not your work cut the proverbial Fuller mustard. I suppose I can always use this data to help beef up my identification of Ruth (Fuller) Francisco at a later date, or should the editor find my work too lacking.

We shall see. For now, I am content with this "preponderance." I am content with this, The Argument for Freelove.

To be continued...

☮

The Genealogy of Quicksand

(Author's note: I was advised not to publish this. I was told that it might flavor the soup against me. Balderdash, I say. If the soup is meant to kill me off, then so be it. Onward! In the end, it must be our only reward.)

As always, "genetically" unedited.

Part of an ongoing research series...

I sometimes get stuck in the wonder of the quicksand — caught in the awe of the rabbit hole, marveling at the strange and beautiful interconnectedness of things. It is an interconnectedness that transcends time. As some forgotten commercial once put it, "It's the fabric of our lives."       

(Okay, come on, that was frickn' funny if you ask me....lol.)                            

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Sometimes it feels like I'm being God-smacked. I mean, I hesitate to give it too much power, for fear that you, dear reader, will think me more daft than I actually am. (Though I can assure you I am quite that, daft, indeed.)

Let me simply lay it out and let you be the judge.

This past week, I completed a submission to the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. It's an article that concerns the identification of one Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, a descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller (d. 1621, Plymouth Colony). I've been working on this piece and this lineage for a while now, really digging in to what I see as a past genealogical faux pas out there regarding dear Ruth in the current published literature — and it's my attempt to set the record straight. I've been doing this not only for "fun," but also for a friend of mine, Paige.                                   

It's been, as they say, a lot of work, and a labor of love. 

Shining any light on problematic lineages is, if nothing else, fun as heck. The NYG&B seemed the logical destination for my submission. "They" felt right to me, if that makes sense. I'd already ventured down the halls of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, who suggested I lacked sufficient primary sources and politely sent me packing. (Whatever...) Really though, do I? I hadn't yet tried the Mayflower Descendant, fearing the same silent verdict.

The august folks at NYG&B seemed my next best hope in the telling of Ruth's story.

Maybe they could hear her saying, "Look, over here. It's me, Ruthie..."

But let's face it, I'm green as... I'm still learning the trade.

So I sent it in, foolhardy and brave soul that I am. 

And now I sit and wait.

I sit and wait for a reply from their editor — one Ian Watson, PhD, an extremely (to put it mildly) astute scholar whose work I have since had occasion to admire. And yes, if you are wondering, I feel more than a little intimidated by the whole process, each aspect of it really from start to finish, and by whatever infirmities as might be contained in my wishful (but well-wrought) submission on behalf of our dear heroine, the noble weaver, Ruth Fuller, wife of Old Henry Francisco.

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Now — hold that thought. Go back in time with me.

I am a sophomore at a mid-range Jesuit university in sunny California. I am studying philosophy under the tutelage of Father Frederick Charles Copleston, S.J. (10 April 1907 – 3 February 1994) — the only philosophy professor who ever gave me an "A" on anything I ever wrote. (Poor old man…)               

                                    "Freddie"

Father Copleston was a dear man, eloquent and kind, a distinguished British Catholic convert and visiting professor at Santa Clara University from 1974 to 1982. He had published a nine-volume masterwork, A History of Philosophy (1946–1975), still considered a monumental achievement. More notably, he had engaged in a celebrated series of televised debates on the existence of God with the eminent British philosopher and atheist Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), broadcast by the BBC on 28 January 1948.    

In terms of twentieth-century philosophy, Bertrand Russell was, as they say, the cat's pajamas.

                 

                       "Bertie"

So there I was — it was about 1975 — learning my trade of "what-ifs" and "what-nots" from one of Bertrand's most formidable intellectual opponents and rivals on the question of God's existence. (I'm rather glad I fell on the "God side" of things, if only for the sake of being, as they say, better off and (hopefully) more "sage.")        

Coming to a theater near you...

That was long, long, ago... on many accounts.

Today I submit genealogical articles.

I know, I know! Imagine the hubris of such aspirations! 

Today I'm engaged in a different kind of Socratic dialectic — the "wannabe better" genealogical motivations behind the interrogation of evidence, the weighing of proof, and the absolute pursuit of what is genealogically true. But being an innately curious researcher, I was compelled — for reasons known only to some higher power, or to Fr. Copleston, or perhaps to the great Bertrand Russell himself — to look into the history of the man who would be reading my submission: Mr. Ian Watson of the NYG&B.

Enter the realm of interconnectedness. Enter the Genealogy of Quicksand — and or, in my case, its addled half-sister, the Genealogy of Philosophy.

It was there that I found this:

Ian Watson, "Mollie, Countess Russell," Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 23 (2003): 65–68.

Say what?!?         

This is where things get peculiar. 

And yes, I know I have only just barely scratched the surface on this very unusual and interesting story — a story that arrived on my doorstep out of nowhere, via Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, and the confluence of events from a philosophy class fifty years ago, my friend Paige, and the chance that my "genealogical editor" would be even remotely connected to my own 1970s memories...

Did you get all that? Maybe you can explain it to me.

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Ian Watson's article concerns Marion "Mollie" Cooke, born in Ireland about 1857–1858, daughter of George Cooke, master shoemaker. She married first, on 7 February 1880 in Glasgow, Scotland, one James Watson — Ian Watson's great-grandfather. That marriage broke down when James Watson joined a utopian spiritualist community called "Shalam" near Las Cruces, New Mexico, departing for America in October 1884 without Mollie. She filed for divorce, which was granted the following year. James Watson eventually settled in Los Angeles, where his son James M. Watson — Ian's grandfather — was born.

(I think I have all that straight...)                 

                                "Wicked Frankie"

Mollie then married George John Somerville, an electrician, on 10 July 1888 in Aberdeen. By the late 1890s she was living near London, where she met Frank Russell, the 2nd Earl Russell — Bertrand Russell's elder brother — in a political context. Frank Russell, as he was known, was the original "Wicked Earl" of Edwardian society, tried for bigamy by the House of Lords in 1901 and sentenced to three months in Holloway Prison. Mollie — ardent feminist, Poor Law Guardian, and secretary of the Hammersmith Women's Liberal Association — was, by any measure, a remarkable woman.                   

Ian Watson went looking for her. That is the article he wrote.

So here is what I ask you to hold in your mind simultaneously, the following anecdotal whatcha-ma-call-its:

(1.) A student of philosophy in 1970s California, taught by the Jesuit priest who debated with his arch-rival Bertrand Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) on the existence of God in 1948, and, who now, fifty years later is…

(2.) …submitting a genealogical article for review to editor Ian Watson, who has published research on the second wife of Bertrand Russell's brother, Frank, 2nd Earl Russell (1865–1931) — who…

(3.) …is the same Ian Watson, who happens to be the great-grandson of one James Watson, whose first wife was none other than our friend Mollie — the very same Mollie who went on to become the second wife of Frank Russell, the "Wicked Earl" himself, and brother to the great Bertrand.

Got all that? That's why they call it "genealogy."

Ian Watson has no direct tie to Bertrand Russell other than the fact that his great-grandfather's first wife, Mollie, was also the second wife of Bertrand's brother Frank.

(That seems like one heck of a lot of "not really no direct tie" at all, if you ask me.)

I have no tie to Bertrand Russell — and more than certainly far, far, less than Ian who actually might be able to post old Bertrand on some ancillary branch of his family tree —  no other tie for me other than studying the existence of God under the guidance of Bertrand's adversary, Fr. Copleston.

But seriously? Who the heck has ties to Bertrand Russell at all?

Is it normal to find oneself at such an intersection?                             

A 1970s California philosophy student. A 1948 BBC broadcast. A Jesuit. An atheist. A bigamous Earl. An Irish feminist named Mollie. A woman named Ruth (Fuller) Francisco — the subject of a 1970s California philosophy student's genealogical article submission fifty years later, written for his friend Paige — Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, who wove cloth in upstate New York in 1819. 

And one editor in New York City who, connected however obliquely to Bertrand Russell himself, as I once might have been fifty or so years ago and before, and a man who has apparently been quietly waiting at the intersection of all of it.

Dude. Can you even make this up?

I rather think Fr. Copleston would call it Providence. Bertrand Russell would call it coincidence.

I am daft enough — to call it both.

Ruthie? Are you still out there?

Beats me. You be the judge.

☮