Raices y Ramas

Unlike the stories of very distant and traitorous relatives that I wrote about yesterday, it’s good to balance that with stories of the heroism and visions of more direct ancestors. Patriot (and ‘Minuteman’?) Rueben II was the son of Reuben Farnsworth and Mary Holden.   He married Anna Kellogg, in 1773 in Cambridge, Middlesex, MA. They had 16 children. It is stated on his grave marker that he was a ‘Patriot of the American Revolution’.   The best information I was able to find out about him was that he was a private in the Massachusetts Militia.   Since Rueben lived and farmed in and around Worcester County during the Revolutionary War, he most likely was a ‘minuteman’ member of “Cushing’s Regiment of Militia”.     Militia were men in arms formed to protect their towns from foreign invasion and ravages of war. “Minutemen” were a small hand-picked elite force which were required to be highly mobile and able to assemble quickly. Cushing's Regiment o...

I’ve been able to trace my forefathers with accuracy back to the same year Columbus landed in the New World.   Of course, record keeping wasn’t as good back then as it is today, but I can give a pretty good guess at certain milestones like when our family emigrated to the U.S., when they converted to Mormonism, etc. This red circle on this map shows the area of England where the Farnsworths were in England.  Family folklore has earlier ancestors coming from the Netherlands (Denmark, specifically) and looking at the map, I can see the logic in that folklore.  All of the towns, villages and shires on my list below fall within the red circle on the map.  Within the circle is also the modern day town of Farnworth. There were lots and lots of children born to each of the men on the list, but I only included the sons and the women they married that directly led to my father’s existence. This list is drawn from sources that were compiled by the LDS Church, which is p...