My father’s cousin Joyce has a lot of Davis ThruLines:
Joyce and I descend from Mercy Davis. The other lines show six matches. I have not looked at other children of Noah Davis as ThruLines is showing that I need to evaluate those children. I have that Noah was born in Falmouth. I believe that is where Davisville is.
Davis Genealogy
My tree starts on the left with Mercy Davis who married William Parker.
Findagrave.com has that Mercy was burried in the Woods Lhoe Village Cemetery:
This suggests that she may have lived in or near Woods Hole:
Here is a record from 1756:
Mercy was propounded which I take to mean suggested for commuion in August and baptized and admitted to full communion on August 8 at the age of about 22.
According to the Church’s website:
Falmouth’s first meeting house was built in 1700 or earlier near the Old Burying ground off today’s Mill Road in Falmouth. A second larger meeting house, near that site, was completed in 1717. Continued growth of the town led to that meeting house being moved and rebuilt by 1756 on that portion of the original Meeting House Lot which was then laid out and called the Village Green. That meeting house was replaced in 1796 with a fourth building in the style of a church, erected on the same site. In its steeple a bell made by Paul Revere was placed. That bell continues to ring out over Falmouth. Its inscription reads: “The living to the church I call, and to the grave I summon all.”
Here is where the original Church was:
Here is the current church location:
Mercy’s husband William Parker served in the Revolutionary War. On my Parker web page I note:
William also served in the Revolutionary War as did his son Isaac and other Parkers. He was at Fort Ticonderoga. He became ill during the war and died soon after.
As William died in 1778, his wife Mercy was a widow about 42 years. I assume that she lived with one of her children:
My assumption is that Mercy was born perhaps in the Davisville area of Falmouth. She has 6 children. The first dies young. Her husband dies due to complications of an illness during the Revolutionary war. She remains a widow for 42 years. She likely lives near the end of her life in or near Woods Hole. Perhaps her child was involved in the area of navigation as Woods Hole was an important pass through place between New Bedford and the Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. This is a guess as Mercy’s son Isaac was in the ship repair business on Nantucket. William’s brother Silas Parker was a Captain who sailed between Nantucket and New Bedford.
Dolor Davis and The Great Migration
One of my favorite sources for early Massachusetts genealogy is in the Great Migration Publications. I see this on page 292:
It looks like Dolor moved around a bit. According to Wikipedia:
Falmouth was first settled by English colonists in 1660 and was officially incorporated in 1686.
I am guessing that Dolor’s trade of house carpenter was much in demand.
Dolor’s son John who is also in my tree is mentioned above.
It seems odd that Dolor would live in both Concord and Barnstable. Summering on the Cape?
My tree shows that John Davis married Hannah Linnell. I will change that to Linnett based on this.
Of interest to me is that John came to the New World in 1635 with his mother and two younger sisters when he was nine years old. According to an 1881 ‘sketch’ of Dolor Davis:
John Davis
Further from, “Dolor Davis, a sketch of his life, with a record of his earlier descendents”:
This brings us to my ancestor Noah Davis #12 above. We also learn that John, father of my ancestor Noah moved to Falmouth about 1710.
Back to ThruLines
I would like to start with JB:
JB’s Ancestry tree follows the ThruLines as far as her tree goes:
I note that I also have Hatch ancestors.
I added JB to my tree as a floating tree. I quickly move on to JB’s paternal grandmother. Eleanor’s father was a master mariner:
However, I want to follow her mother Abbie. The couple were married in Boston:
Here is Abby’s family in 1850:
Abbie’s death record has a lot of information including her whole name, her parents’ names where she was born and where her parents were born. Abby and her mother Eleanor who I am tracking were said to be born in Woods Hole.
Here is the 1827 marriage record in Falmouth for Eleanor and Ervin:
Here is Eleanor’s grave marker:
Eleanor’s parents are listed on the Falmouth Death Records:
The last name is transcribed Jenny, but I can also see Young. I am following Andrew next:
Here is the 1797 marriage:
I have two more steps to go. I need to get back to Mehitable Davis. I see her marriage:
However, I need to link her to Andrew Young.
Mehitable Davis
I was able to find a Mehitable in Noah Davis’ will. This will is referenced in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (NEHGR):
Fortunately, FamilySearch has the Barnstable County Probates online.
Noah names several children:
- Son Francis Davis
- Daughter Mercy Davis – my ancestor
- Daughter [Lavinia?] – the name appears to be behind tape.
- Daughter Mehitable
- Daughter Anna
- Granddaughter Susannah Parker
According to WikiTree:
The will of Noah Davis of Falmouth was dated 12 February 1780 and proved on 16 August 1787[8] in Barnstable. He mentioned his wife Mercy, and his children, Mercy Parker, Francis Davis (executor), Susanna Swift, Mehitable Davis, Anne Davis, and his granddaughter Susanna Parker.
It is interesting that a Susannah Parker is mentioned. I do not have a record of my ancestors William Parker and Mercy Davis having a daughter Susannah, so perhaps she was the daughter of the Hannah Davis who married Benjamin Parker mentioned above in the NEHGR.
However, Mehitable should have been married by 1780. The fact that she was not called Mehitable Young does not necessarily mean that these are two different Mehitables.
So what I am trying to connect:
- Noah Davis has a daughter named Mehitable who was alive about 1780.
- Noah was born in 1707 and probably having children in the 1730’s and 1740’s.
- There is a Mehitable Davis of Falmouth who marries a Simeon Young of Chatham, Connecticut in 1768.
- Andrew Young marries Marcy Hatch both of Falmouth in 1797
In this Ancestry Tree, it would appear that Mehitable gave birth to all her children in Connecticut:
Andrew father dies the same year Andrew is born and Mehitable remarries. Andrew makes his way back to Falmouth. Under this scenario, Mehitable’s second son is named for her brother Francis. The Connecticut Abstracts reinforce that:
For me, this record tips the balance of evidence for me to add JB’s Line to my tree.
I think the date of Mehitable’s birth is a bit late. However, it could be. She would have been about 20 at the time of her marriage.
My First Davis DNA Tree
I used to call these DNA/Genealogy Trees, but have just shortened the name:
It took a lot of work to convince myself that this was real. The only question is the two Hatch connections. However, these would go back quite a bit further than 1707.
Joyce and Robin
It should be much easier checking this connection:
Robin is a shared match between Joyce and JB above. Robin has her maternal grandfather born in Falmouth which is hopeful. Robert Hamblin’s family is mentioned in an American Histories book which even has a photo of Emily above:
In Emily’s death record in Falmouth, her mother is transcribed as Eleanor Foung, but I am quite sure it should be Young. Here I’ve already gotten ahead of myself:
I’ll delete Erving and Eleanor Young and then Connect Emily to my tree.
Now I just need to add Robin to my DNA tree:
This also gave me a chance to correct my tree. Previously I had Eleanor Young and Erving Robinson reversed. This shows that JB and Robin should be 3rd cousins to each other. The only odd thing is that Joyce and Robin show as a paternal match and I match Joyce on her maternal Hartley side. However, I assume this could be wrong or pointing to another relationship.
Joyce and Debra
This will be the last ThruLine for this Blog:
Debra is also shown as a paternal match to Joyce. Mehitable Young already shows in white above which means that she has been added to my tree. The maternal side of Debra’s tree does not include the Young family which is suspicious:
Who Was the Mother of William James Tyron?
I see another problem. Or perhaps two. Augusta Anthony would have been 16 when she gave birth to William James. More improbably, Martha Amanda Young would have been about 59 when her William James was born.
Summary and Conclusions
- I was able to trace the ancestry of one of Joyce’s DNA matches back to Noah Davis and Mercy Prence or Meigs
- After that another third cousin of that match was easy to trace back to the same common ancestors.
- The excercise gave me a better feeling for the Davis family of the 1700’s.
- I tried to trace another of Jocye’s matches who had a potential descent from Mehitable Davis (the Daughter of Noah and Mercy Davis). However, that descent was not clear and seemed unlikely based on the age one woman would have to have been for this to be right.
- There are three more Davis ThruLines for Joyce. However, one of the lines is from a child of Noah that I am not aware of which makes me suspicious.