New England Trees

[Terri]

Saw reference elsewhere to those "huge New England family trees".
What is a New England tree (other than American of course) and why are they so huge?

(Apologies if I'm being thick but I've never heard of this before).

[Olde Crone]

I wonder if they mean the One World Trees? Basically, a family tree with thousands of people on them and not a single piece of evidence, lol. 100 year old mothers and four year old grandfathers.

Or maybe they are talking about pine trees, lol.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

I think they're talking about Americans who trace their descent back to the Pilgrim Fathers, so they have very long trees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England

[Sue from Southend]

I think they're talking about Americans who trace their descent back to the Pilgrim Fathers, so they have very long trees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England


..... and from there they get back to William the Conqueror!

[Terri]

Guessed it was something like that, just didn't realise they had an official "name". Just wish it wasn't New England - seems to imply that we are involved! :d

[Janet]

Sorry, Terri, but you are involved! I'm not the only American who traces a very large proportion of their roots to your part of the world. I can't claim to know what "huge New England family trees" meant in the context where you came across it, but I wouldn't read it as some kind of "official" name. In my experience I think it's a simple description of a glaring reality. Not only Boston Brahmins, but the working class and farming families still on the land in New England can trace their ancestors straight back to the old countries across the pond.

For instance when I started to trace the tree of my grandson born in Vermont I was stunned at the similarity of their BMD recordkeeping to what I am accustomed to finding in England and Scotland. Other states are hit-and-miss. Not so in New England. The families may have tentacles in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island but no matter because they all have the same meticulous records. Everything is documented to the hilt and I sometimes feel a bit as if I'm shooting fish in a barrel. It's not too many generations before I run into the immigrant generation who, like as not, arrived from... your part of the world! And then I'm off and running again in a new set of BMDs.

I think perhaps whoever spoke of "huge New England family trees" was a frustrated researcher tearing their hair to find the slightest elusive reference to their forebears in the Midwest, the South, the shifting ex-slave communities, the great Wild West, the mountains or the desert, where a documented family tree resembles more closely a cotton bush or a stunted sagebrush. I would be far more inclined to interpret the expression "huge New England family trees" as a bitterly envious wail.

[Terri]

lol Brilliant Janet. But don't knock it, I'm sure we in Old England would love a spot of "documented to the hilt". I'd be happy with legible parish records with both parents named on a baptism. That would be good!