Relations: A story of 2 VERY Distant Farnsworths


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 pretty accurate in most cases. 



England
Bernard Hilton Farnsworth
Alice Farnsworth (Brown)
Birth:
1492
Birth:
1492
Where:
Chorley, Lancashire, England
Where:
Chorley, Lancashire, England
Death:
Unknown
Death:
Unknown

Hugh Farnsworth
Margaret Farnsworth (Marshe)
Birth:
1525
Birth:
1528
Where:
Chorley, Lancashire, England 
Where:
Eccles, Lancashire, England 
Death:
October 10, 1598
Death:
April 1593
Where:
Chorley, Lancashire, England
Where:
Eccles, Manchester, England

Elizeus Farnsworth
Margreta Farnsworth
Birth:
January 1561
Birth:
1560
Where:
St Mary, Lancashire, England 
Where:
Lancashire, England 
Death:
circa 1589
Death:
1584
Where:
Eccles, Lancashire, England
Where:
Eccles, Lancashire, England

Richard F. Farnsworth
Elizabethe Marshe Farnsworth
Birth:
1584
Birth:
1 Nov 1584
Where:
Eccles, Manchester, England
Where:
Eccles, Manchester, England
Death:
12-Jan
Death:
unknown
Where:
Eccles, Manchester, England
Where:
Unknown

Emigration
to
USA
Matthias Farnsworth
Mary Farr Farnsworth
Birth:
20 Jul 1612
Birth:
1626
Where:
Eccles, Manchester, England
Where:
Lynn, Massachusetts, USA
Death:
21 Jan 1688 (aged 75)
Death:
7 Jan 1717 (aged 90–91)
Where:
Groton, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Groton,  Massachusetts, USA
Burial:
Old Burying Ground
Burial:
Old Burying Ground
Where:
Groton, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Groton, Massachusetts, USA

Jonathan Farnsworth
Ruth Whitney Shattuck Farnsworth
Birth:
10 Jun 1675
Birth:
24 Jun 1668
Where:
Groton, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Watertown, Massachusetts, USA
Death:
16 Aug 1748 (aged 73)
Death:
16 Jun 1748 (aged 79)
Where:
Harvard, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Watertown, Massachusetts, USA
Burial:
Harvard Center Cemetery
Burial:
Unknown
Where:
Harvard, Massachusetts, USA

Reuben Farnsworth
Mary Holden Farnsworth
Birth:
28 Apr 1705
Birth:
28 Apr 1706
Where:
Harvard, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Watertown, Massachusetts, USA
Death:
1755 (aged 49–50)
Death:
1732 (aged 25–26)
Where:
Harvard, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Watertown, Massachusetts, USA
Burial:
Unknown
Burial:
Unknown

Reuben Farnsworth
Anna Kellogg Farnsworth
Birth:
4 Jun 1751
Birth:
2 Dec 1755
Where:
Harvard, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Maryland, USA
Death:
18 Aug 1813 (aged 62)
Death:
7 Dec 1838 (aged 83)
Where:
Burlington, Vermont, USA
Where:
Dorset, Vermont, USA
Burial:
Maple Hill Cemetery
Burial:
Maple Hill Cemetery
Where:
Dorset,  Vermont, USA
Where:
Dorset, Vermont, USA


Reuben Farnsworth, III
Lucinda Kent Farnsworth
Birth:
1 Apr 1787
Birth:
11 Aug 1785
Where:
Harvard, Massachusetts, USA
Where:
Dorset, Vermont, USA
Death:
30 Dec 1847 (aged 60)
Death:
20 Jul 1829 (aged 43)
Where:
Plymouth, Indiana, USA
Where:
Burlington, Ohio, USA
Burial:
Unknown
Burial:
Unknown
Reuben Farnsworth, III is the first Farnsworth associated with the LDS Church

A couple of infamous (and, thank God, distant) relations

Just as in the Batty side of my family, there were some pretty colorful and noteworthy distant uncles I found out about in my research.  One of them was a 9th cousin, David Farnsworth.

David Farnsworth was a Colonial-era American Loyalist. He joined up with Patriot forces in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 15 in 1775, serving as a drummer and participating in the Battle of Bunker Hill.  He was a British agent during the American Revolutionary War. George Washington had him hanged for his involvement in a plot to destroy the American economy by placing counterfeit money into circulation.

The use of counterfeit money had been used as a strategy in warfare for centuries.  The idea was to flood the enemy's economy with fake money, thus devaluing the real money and causing an economic collapse, rendering the enemy unable to fund their side of the war. During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress decided to create a new Continental currency to fund the war. Among the people enlisted to print this new currency was Paul Revere.

To counter this, Great Britain enlisted teams of counterfeiters to travel throughout the American Colonies, placing their counterfeits into circulation in the hopes that it would cause an economic disaster. These counterfeiters were known as "shovers," presumably for their ability to "shove" the fake money into everyday use.

David Farnsworth and his partner John Blair were among the best-known of these counterfeiters, having been caught with over $10,000 in fake Continental dollars in their possession.

On October 8, 1778 in a court-martial held in Danbury by order of General Horatio Gates and Brigadier General John Paterson, David Farnsworth and Blair were tried for, and convicted of, "being found about the Encampment of the Armies of The United-States as Spies and having a large sum of counterfeit Money about them which they brought from New-York". The sentence of execution was prescribed by a two-thirds vote. On October 23 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Commander in Chief George Washington approved of the sentence and ordered their immediate execution upon their arrival at General Gates' division. Farnsworth and Blair were executed in Rocky Hill, Connecticut in Hartford County, Connecticut on November 3, 1778.

I found another very distant relative, John Semer Farnsworth (August 13, 1893 – November 10, 1952), who was a United States Navy officer who was convicted of spying for Japan during the 1930s. You can read more about him here.


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