A couple of weeks back, I became bored with my genealogical research. So, I decided I would research the family of my two closest friends, who happen to be sisters. After a couple of hours, I had made it back to the late 18th century on their Porter line. Stuart Porter married Phidelia Williams, who was the daughter of Daniel Williams and Lavina Hovey.
Hovey?
The name was known to me because it was in my own family tree. I wouldn’t say “Hovey” is a common name, so I wondered if I could be related to D & H. Then I saw that Lavina had been born in a town with a familiar name: Mansfield, Connecticut. That was where my Hoveys were from! We had to be related, right?
On page 22 of The Ancestors and Descendants of Deacon Daniel and Lovina Hovey Williams of Wethersfield, Connecticut, Whitestown, Lima, and Rush, New York, and Grand Blanc, Michigan, 1647-1964 : and Their Collateral Kin, Lavina’s parents were listed as Daniel Hovey, born September 8 1736, and Keziah Randall, born March 14, 1743. I went to peek at my own tree. Nope, I did not descend from Daniel & Keziah. I figured I would need to go further back. And, according to the book, for that I would need to look in the appendix, which followed the index.
I could not locate an appendix, however. The copy I had available to me ended at the index. I wanted to see if I could do this another way. So, I went to my own tree to have a look at my own Hovey line, which I had traced back as far as James Hovey at that point. I started doing some additional research on James and came across The Hovey Book, Describing the English Ancestry and American Descendants of Daniel Hovey of Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Upon discovering this book, I immediately checked the index for any Daniel Hoveys that might be D & H’s Daniel. The Daniel Hoveys contained in The Hovey Book were almost as numerous as the stars in the sky. There was no way I had the attention span to comb through all of them. Instead, I took a shortcut by looking for Daniel’s wife, Keziah Randall. She was not listed. Since that was a dead end, I decided to look at my Hoveys in The Hovey Book.
Page 30 listed James, my 9th great-grandfather, who had been born in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1650. He later married Priscilla Dane in Ipswich in 1670.
James and Priscilla had three children, which included my 8th great-grandmother, Priscilla. Besides Priscilla, they had two sons: James II and Daniel. Wait. Daniel? It couldn’t be!
And it wasn’t. This Daniel had been born in 1672, while D & H’s Daniel had been born at least a couple of generations later, in 1736. Drats! But I did wonder if Daniel might be a family name. I would keep looking.
According to page 64 of The Hovey Book, Daniel (b. 1672) had his own son named Daniel who was born 1702. Well, now we had two generations of Daniels. Could I be on to something? So I looked for Daniel II’s children, and unfortunately there were no Daniels born in 1736. Back to the drawing board.
I knew that D & H’s Daniel couldn’t be descended from my 8th great-grandmother, Priscilla. I had thought there was a chance he was descended from Priscilla’s brother, Daniel, but he wasn’t. There was one sibling left, however: James II. I may as well rule him out too.
James Hovey II had been born in Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1674. He married Deborah Barlow circa 1694. Together, James & Deborah had 11 children including a son, Daniel, born December 7, 1710. D & H’s Daniel was born in 1736, so they obviously couldn’t be the same man; however, they were only separated by one generation. Was there any chance they could be father and son? It was a long shot, but I had nothing to lose.
Daniel (b. 1710) married Elizabeth Slap on December 6, 1732. Together Daniel & Elizabeth had ten children, one of whom was a Daniel born September 8, 1736!
I immediately went looking for family number 322 and found them on page 194. It turned out that the reason I hadn’t found Keziah Randall in this book was because she was listed only as “Kezia.”
And there was Lavina too! She had been listed as “Vine” in the book.
I had just confirmed that I was related to D & H! We are 10th cousins! We share a 9th great-grandfather: James Hovey.* For some reason, I was more excited about this than finding out that I am related to Abraham Lincoln and FDR. After all, I had known these two sisters my whole life. We lived a few blocks from each other in the same small Michigan town, which was far removed from Massachusetts and Connecticut. Also, we couldn’t look more different. They both have dark hair and brown eyes, while I am blonde with blue eyes. And yet somehow we descended from the same two people. [Why then was I not invited to D & H’s family Thanksgiving yesterday? I’m going to need to have a family meeting with these so-called family members! Hmmph.]
Despite the fact that we probably don’t even share any DNA, this was a fun discovery. And this is one of the reasons why genealogy is fun in general; you just never know what you’re going to find out. Even after 20 years of researching my genealogy, there’s still plenty for me to stumble upon. I wonder what I will unearth next.
*As far as our 9th great-grandfather, James Hovey, he met a violent end when he was killed by Indians on August 2, 1675.