What exactly is this thing?
People I might be related to and why I’m writing up history
For more than 10 years, my dad and I have been doing family research. We approached it casually, dropping names and dates into a family tree. We checked what Ancestry gave us back as possible additional details or connections. We sat on devices, searching Google. We found interesting people, and details, and at some point started to hit brick walls.
After some occasional dives back in and time away, I decided it was time to do some real digging, through books, tax records, ship manifests, and church histories. Nothing is available for free unless you harness the power of libraries, so I’ve been living in local libraries for much of the past year to start piecing together more details.
Tracing back your family tree is like trying to piece together several puzzles at once, with several pieces falling into place in a moment, while another whole section vanishes. As we went down rabbit holes and took wrong turns, we found a slew of people who, incredibly, we know from history, or should know based on their story.
I’m sticking with might here because there were some leaps of faith taken, and question marks next to some people. Despite that, I wanted to move forward and write up what we’re finding. I’m writing this now for a couple of reasons. The first is, as I said above, they are stories we learn in school, often incorrectly, or incompletely, and the second is because of the power of the internet. I know people can help us fill in these holes and remove the question marks, and set the record straight.
Genealogical research writing isn’t my thing though, and while it’s interesting to some of us, it’s also not exactly what I’ll be writing here. I am interested in the people in my family tree, and what was happening where they lived, the broader historical context and politics in which they existed, engaged with society, and sometimes, were a part of setting or altering that society.
My family tree has four main branches, that everything else comes off of. This is who arrived in America:
Branch 1: The first colonizers of British North America
Among the first to arrive in Jamestown and Plymouth, including early Governors of Virginia, when it was operated by the Company, and later as a colony of the Crown.
This branch is where we’ve made the most progress (as in we’ve traced several branches back more than 500 years) but through a lot of leaps of faith and several question marks. These branches include kings and queens, famous writers, colonizers, and reformation influencers.
Branch 2: Russian to Brooklyn
Four brothers came to America one by one over nearly 20 years. We know a lot about most of the family once here, and a little about others who immigrated elsewhere. However, there’s a lot we don’t know, especially before arrival in America, or any family who may have remained in Russia.
Branch 3 & 4: The Chicago Three
Chicago’s history centers on three main immigrant groups in its early years, and my family traces back through all of them: Irish, German, and Polish. They are probably the hardest to trace back even just to their arrival in Chicago, let alone America.
Some of this difficulty is that Chicago was not the first destination. Immigrants arrived on the East Coast, which opens the door to potential stops and temporary homes before settling in the Midwest. Other levels of difficulty include language barriers and church and government records that aren’t as clear or as far back as those in the original colonies and England. Add to that a fire that burned most of the city of Chicago, including any important records and documents, offering partial puzzle pieces that don’t fit nicely. The kind you just shove into place to call the puzzle done.
Census, church, and military records are most of what we have to go with these branches, and they’re spotty. You might think at least the Irish side would be easy to trace back to New York and then back across the Atlantic. It’s not. My 3rd-great-grand parents' names are Hugh and Margaret O’Neill. If you’re familiar with Irish history, welcome to my conundrum. I don’t know if that is his given name or the one he gave on arrival in New York. I know they married in New York City, but I don’t know Margaret’s maiden name. I don’t know when she arrived in America, where she came in through. On census records, both are listed as being born in Ireland. So, I assume she truly was Irish.
If you’re not familiar with Irish history the incredibly brief version is that 300 years before my ancestor was born, Hugh O’Neill was born, became Earl of Tyronne, and spent his life-fighting wars against the English conquest of Ireland, while occasionally siding with English authorities.
When I say we or I:
Researchers: my dad, Steve Arden, and me, Maggie Arden
Editor (until she asks me to stop sending posts to her first): my mom, Janet Arden
Writer: me, Maggie
I am starting with the story of my paternal grandparents, who comprise branches 1 and 4. I’ll do my best to specify where someone is a maybe ancestor - and hopefully, I’ll be able to update those along the way.
Additionally, as the writer, the opinions, influences, interpretations of historians, word choice and phrasing are mine. While I am looking at records that cover hundreds of years, and reading secondary sources that span much of the 20th century, I am applying all of that with my 21st-century view of the world and of history.
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