In this post, a sketch of the overall family tree, inspired by the subject of names.
In my mother’s lineage, many of her great grandfathers and grandmothers themselves had great grandfathers and grandmothers who were immigrants to North America. They were Protestants and often more specifically Presbyterian. The first post in this blog features two Peet brothers, and the Peet line can be traced to Connecticut in 1597, thanks to cousin Terry Charles Peet who gathered information from many Peet descendants over many years to publish a genealogical volume in 2013.
Ancestors in this lineage moved westward across the country from New York and Connecticut, landing in Ohio and then Michigan. They were settlers of these lands, farmers and families who cleared the woods, built towns and roads, churches and schools, local governments and social clubs, and held big family reunions. With my grandmother I have visited cemeteries to find evidence of them in Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and I’m proud of my cousin who today is the sexton for a rural cemetery for some ancestors in Michigan.
These relatives fought for the Union in the Civil War, or somehow managed the farms, families and lands during that period. We have some letters between spouses of the era filled with instruction, stress, admonition, piety.
Some of my relatives have names at least as grand as Edward Everett Horton: my maternal grandmother’s father, for example, was named Aladdin Alonzo Russell (b 1876, Gratiot County, MI). His mother was Gertrude Peet (b 1859, Lorain County, OH), and Gertrude’s uncles were the fabulous Peet Brothers of post 1.
My mother joked that we must have Polish blood given our \”Uncle Kosko\” (the nickname my grandmother used for him) but instead I think the lineage honored American heroes, as the Horton’s forebears perhaps honored an early esteemed Edward Everett, and as Resmaa Menakem suggests we do today honoring abolitionists.
Someone double whammied great uncle Kosko with the names of two Revolutionary war heroes: Kosciusko was his first name and Pulaski his middle one.
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| Celebrating Uncle Kosko\’s 50th with a reunion in 1893 |
(As an aside – I\’m listening to What Happened to You, out this spring from Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry, and learned that Oprah grew up in a Mississippi small town named Kosciusko. When you can, please do read/hear this tender-hearted book.)
In my father\’s lineage, the Levy who first came to this country was an immigrant from Alsace Lorraine. My paternal second great grandfather was Felix Ury Levy (born 1836 in Hellimer, Moselle, Lorraine, France), who arrived in Louisiana as a boy with his father. They may have spoken both French and German; they were Jewish immigrants who came to the US in the 1840s; they appear as a family in the 1850 census. Felix became a naturalized US citizen in 1857. He was well regarded in his time, a civic leader, a Civil War hero for his side (the Confederacy).
The record shows that in this country Solomon, father to Felix, enslaved two people.
Felix was likely an outsized figure, as many children of the next generations had names to honor him including my grandfather, who was given the very same three names, Felix Ury Levy (born 1902 in New York City, NY), by his father Leopold (born 1871 in New Orleans, LA), son of the first Felix. The second Felix was born in time to meet his patronymic grandfather, who died when the grandson would have been eight or nine years old.
Ancestors in this lineage tended to be merchants or business men, people who started companies and businesses. At least two sons of the first Felix (my great grandfather Leo and his brother, Sig) attended business school in New Orleans, Soule College.
In later census records family in this lineage are often listed with non family members who are servants.
My paternal grandmother was close with her own grandfather, who immigrated to the US from Germany and also had a wonderful name, Samuel H. Emanuel (born 1840 in Hochberg, Germany); his success in business allowed him to purchase three homes in Nassau County, Long Island, where his daughters could raise their families in community, gifting my grandmother, an only child, with close cousins.
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| Samuel H. Emanuel, his wife Delia Stern, his daughters and son |
For many generations this lineage included families that founded and led Jewish synagogues in the US – a fact that surprised this descendant, daughter of an assimilated father. The newspaper record also shows them deeply engaged with community groups and charity work. While I recall attending more than one family reunion in Michigan with my mother and maternal grandmother, I\’ve learned that there were also family reunions held among my father\’s side of the family, although the tradition may have ended before my arrival.
If you go back far enough 