In Praise of Genealogists: A Story of Early Taunton
by Eric. B Schultz
Can you name all four of your grandparents?
That question will sound like a trick for many readers of this blog. Yet, in 2022, when Ancestry asked more than 2,100 Americans to do just that, 53% could not.[1]
More than half of all Americans cannot name all four of their grandparents.
At the same time, Americans reporting an interest in genealogy have climbed from 29% in 1977 to 66% in the Ancestry survey.[2] Many of the respondents wanted stories about what life was like when their parents, grandparents, and more distant ancestors were young.
Dr. Elizabeth Keating is an anthropology professor. The stock and trade of anthropologists is understanding how kinship influences culture. Yet, she writes, “When my mother died in 2014, I realized how much I didn’t know about her life.” And Keating is not alone. “In my research,” she adds, “I have been astonished to find that so many other people also know little of the lives of their parents and grandparents.”
When “whole ways of living pass away unknown,” Keating concludes, “a kind of genealogical amnesia can eat holes in family histories as permanently as moths eat holes in the sweaters lovingly knitted by our ancestors.”[3]
How quickly do we forget?
In the 1940s, Bob Hope was the most popular comedian in the world. He spent a half-century on NBC. When he died in 2003, the Burbank airport was renamed the Bob Hope Airport.
In 2017, officials changed the name back to Hollywood Burbank Airport. None of the young folks flying into Burbank knew who Bob Hope was.[4]
A little closer to home, sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy tells the recent story of Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer visiting the batting cage at Fenway and joking about the cheap home runs that get hit down by Pesky’s Pole. One of the young Red Sox didn’t know who Johnny Pesky was.
When Palmer explained that Pesky batted in front of the last .400 hitter, the kid said, “You mean David Ortiz.” Ortiz never hit .400.
“Then I told him about Ted Williams,” Palmer said, “and he said he had never heard of Ted Williams.”[5]
If Bob Hope and Ted Williams are already being forgotten, what hope do our grandmothers have?
Fortunately, in nearly every generation, there lurks a genealogist. It’s someone who preserves family stories. They keep track of dates and places. They take pictures. They sit with the oldest folks in the room at Thanksgiving and ask questions. They build family trees and send them to relatives. Sometimes, they write books.
They take the kind of simple interest in their families that Keating values.
This story is about one such Old Colony family historian from many, many years ago. To learn more, we’ll need to start in one of Taunton’s most historic cemeteries.
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Old Colony History Museum members know that the staff conducts tours of Taunton cemeteries during the warm weather months. Those who have visited Taunton’s historic Plain Cemetery with a Museum guide have met Congressman Francis Baylies (1783–1852), Revolutionary War veteran and Congressman David Cobb (1748–1830), and Taunton postmaster and Congressman James Leonard Hodges (1790–1846).
Also lying peacefully in Plain Cemetery is Elizabeth Pole, her stone marking “a great proprietor of the township of Taunton” and “a chief promoter of its settlement.”
One of the more striking, “raised” memorial stones is that of Major Zephaniah Leonard (1704–1766). A walking tour of the Cemetery in 2006 described him as a member of the famed iron-forging Leonard family.[6] He was raised by his grandfather, Capt. James Leonard, who involved Zephaniah in the family business.
Zephaniah founded Hopewell Forge and became a wealthy man. He died on April 23, 1766, the same day as his wife, Hannah (King) Leonard, his wife of 52 years and mother of their 14 children.
But this story isn’t about Zephaniah and Hannah Leonard. It isn’t about the Leonards, Taunton’s iron-making dynasty. It’s not even about iron-making. It’s about the genealogist lurking in the Leonard family.
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In Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America, François Weil notes that Hannah Deane, a Taunton, Massachusetts, woman, dictated an account of the Leonard family to her grandnephew Zephaniah Leonard in the early 1730s. It was a time, Weil notes, that colonial Americans could rarely trace their ancestry beyond their parents’ or (across the Atlantic) their grandparents’ generation.
Hannah (Leonard) Deane (1660–1749) was different. On February 2, 1732/3, she was able to tell Zephaniah the name of her great-grandfather, her grandfather, her grandmother’s and mother’s maiden names, her father’s five brothers and three sisters (including their husbands), and how and where most of them died, and other detailed information about various branches of the Leonard family tree. It was an awesome display of memory and, for colonial genealogy, a tour de force.
“It would have saved the modern genealogist much time,” an appreciative Leonard family historian wrote, “had more of the great-grandchildren of our emigrant ancestors questioned their aged relatives on the subject of their ancestry, and left on record the results of the investigations.”[7]
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When we think history, we often think of “big history.” But at Old Colony, we also focus on local, “small history.” Nothing is more local than family history. After all, it’s enriching to know the story of World War II, but preserving your grandfather’s wristwatch or your grandmother’s engagement ring and retelling their stories is an act of reverence.
“We have to value what our forebears — and not just the 18th century, but our own parents and grandparents — did for us,” historian David McCullough wrote, “or we’re not going to take it very seriously, and it can slip away.”[8]
Knowing the names of all four grandparents is a solid start.
There has never been a better time to plant your family tree. If you have a single root in the Old Colony, there is no better place to begin your research than at the Old Colony Museum’s library. Start by visiting our website and checking our online resources. https://www.oldcolonyhistorymuseum.org/research/ Then, visit the William T. and Mary L. Hurley Library in person or take advantage of our research services.
If you happen to be a Leonard descendant, the library has several good resources, including Brad Leonard’s two-volume genealogy, James Leonard, Ironworker of Taunton, Massachusetts.) Taunton’s branch begins with James Leonard — called by one historian the “sire of a mighty clan” — who (with Mary Jane Martin) had 68 grandchildren, 45 of whom were alive in 1690 to celebrate a Thanksgiving family gathering.[9] And as you browse this work, remember to thank Hannah (Leonard) Deane, the genealogist lurking in the family’s earliest colonial generations.
For more on Plain Cemetery, see https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/91464/plain-cemetery and this excellent overview by Kristina Fontes in the Taunton Daily Gazette (https://www.tauntongazette.com/story/news/history/2022/10/26/taunton-plain-cemetery-historical-elizabeth-pole-david-cobb-broadway/10564914002/).
“We all carry, inside us,” novelist Liam Callanan wrote, “people who came before us.”[10]
Genealogy is about keeping those people close and ensuring their stories are not forgotten. It’s also about valuing small history to honor the past, make sense of the present, and inform the future.
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[1] “New Survey from Ancestry Shows More than Half of Americans Can’t Name All Four Grandparents,” Ancestry Corporate, March 30, 2022, Web January 14, 2024, https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/newsroom/press-releases/new-survey-ancestry-shows-more-half-americans-cant-name-all-four.
[2] For “29% in 1977,” see Adam Hjorthén, “Reframing the History of American Genealogy: On the Paradigm of Democratization and the Capitalization of Longing,” Genealogy 2022, 6, 21.
[3] Elizabeth Keating, “The Questions We Don’t Ask Our Families but Should,” The Atlantic, November 15, 2022.
[4] Ted Gioia, “How Long Does Pop Culture Stardom Last,” The Honest Broker, February 23, 2023, Web February 13, 2024, https://www.honest-broker.com/p/how-long-does-pop-culture-stardom#:~:text=I've%20long%20believed%20that,pop%20culture%20fame%20for%20superstars..
[5] Dan Shaughnessy, “Guessing Was Pointless, and Other Thoughts,” The Boston Globe, September 30, 2022.
[6] “Plain Cemetery, Walking Tour, October 15, 2016, pamphlet booklet, VP691C, Old Colony Historical Society.
[7] “Memoirs of Princes’ Subscribers,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1847, vol. 7, 72.
[8] David McCullough, “Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are,” Imprimis, Volume 34, Issue 4, April 2005.
[9] E.N. Hartley, Ironworks on the Saugus (University of Oklahoma Press, 1957), rpt: Eastern National, 2015, 273. Also, Charles Bradford Leonard, Jr., James Leonard, Ironworker of Taunton, Massachusetts, Volume I, The First Six Generations of his Descendants (Lulu Enterprises, 2011), 52.
[10] “Ancestor Quotes,” Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/ancestors.
