Here is something for the Jones family to think about on Election Day 2020. Thomas Francis Blossom (1580 - 1633) and his wife Ann Theresa Elsdon (1583 - 1671), our eighth grandparents, are the ancestors of both Presidents George H W. and his son George W. Bush and also President Barack Obama (on his mother's side). Bush and Obama are first cousins 10X removed. Wasn't it nice of the Blossoms to be so bipartisan! Thomas is considered a founding father of America.
BEGINNINGS Thomas and Ann were both born in Cambridge, England. They married on November 10, 1605. Together, they raised five or six children. The family belonged to a Separatist church whose members called themselves Saints and history renamed Pilgrims. Since the only church recognized in England was the Anglican Church, attendance at this Separatist Church was an illegal act during the Reformation Period. To avoid persecution, they sought refuge in the Netherlands in 1609, first in Amsterdam and then in Lieden, where they felt free to practice their religion under the direction of Rev. John Robinson. By 1620, the group had decided to leave Lieden and start a new colony in Virginia. They commandeered two ships: the Mayflower and the ill-fated little Speedwell. Thomas, Ann, and a young son booked passage on the Speedwell, which proved to be unseaworthy and could not make the journey to America. After two false starts, they returned to Leiden. The Mayflower landed in Cape Cod in Massachusetts in November of 1620 after being blown off course by a stormy voyage. For the next nine years, the Blossoms helped other church members prepare for their voyage to a new life. In 1625, Blossom reported the death of their son in a letter to his friend, Governor William Bradford, who was living in Plymouth, "God hath taken away my son that was with me on the ship, when I went back again. I have only two children which were born since I left you." PLYMOUTH, FINALLY! The Blossom family had their turn to sail to Plymouth on March 15, 1629, on the Mayflower, not the original, but a different ship named after its predecessor. The population had grown to about three hundred by then. Other ships had carried passengers to the colony in the nine years between the first and second Mayflowers. The Blossoms brought their three children with them: Elizabeth (1620 - 1713), Thomas (1623 - April 22, 1650), and Peter (1627 - July 1706). Some sources say Thomas held the position of deacon in the Plymouth Church, but other scholars dispute that interpretation of the colony's history. He was a freedman and a farmer who could vote on colony policy issues. In 1633, he died of an "infectious fever" (probably smallpox). Ann married Henry Rowley (1598-1673) on October 17, 1633 in Plymouth and moved with him to Barnstable, Massachusetts. BLOSSOM CHILDREN The Jones family line runs through Elizabeth Blossom and her husband Edward FitzRandolph. She is our 7th great grandmother and Barack Obama's 10th great grandmother. The Bush Presidents are descendants of her younger brother Peter. Their brother Thomas married on June 18, 1645 and had a daughter, but drowned in 1650 off the coast of Cape Cod. Elizabeth married Edward FitzRandolph on May 10, 1637 and raised twelve children. FitzRandolph is an old and prominent family name in England that dates back to the 1200s with ancestors who were instrumental in the signing of the Magna Carta. Edward arrived as a passenger on one of a fleet of eleven ships in March 1630 and docked in Salem. Edward was a freedman and was given permission to vote and to bear arms. He owned eight acres in Barnstable in the Plymouth Colony. He sold that land and bought a 120-acre farm in West Barnstable. In 1669, he sold that farm to John Chipman. The land was described as "120 acres of upland, bounded north by the meadows, east by the Bursley farm, south by the commons, and west by the lands of Mr. Thomas Dexter." Elizabeth and Edward moved to Piscataway, New Jersey, in 1669 with other colonists from Cape Cod. They found the religious laws in Plymouth too restrictive for them. Edward died before 1685. Elizabeth married Captain John Pike (1613 - 1688) on June 30, 1685, in Woodbridge, New Jersey. She lived to be 93 and was buried next to her first husband in Saint James Episcopal Church Cemetery in Woodbridge. During the Revolutionary War, British troops used this cemetery as a barracks and hospital. Grave markers were removed, so the exact location of their graves is unknown.
1 Comment
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Bonnie EastonHi! I am a Jones cousin, daughter of Evelyn Jones Easton. Since retiring as a reference librarian after 20 years, I have become a genealogy addict. Our ancestors want to tell us their stories.
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