Jonathan Lyman 1684 - 1753 #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Dear Grandparents,
As we start 2018, I've signed up to participate in Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" prompts. I am hoping my participation will help me tackle writing about one of your lives each week this year. Where to start? Now that is a challenge. I decided to start with the only person in my direct line for whom I can document a January 1st birthday, my 7th great grandfather, Jonathan Lyman.

Born in Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, January 1, 1684 (Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, Ancestry.com, 2011, p 24), he is the son of Richard and Elizabeth (Coles) Lyman. They were married 26 May 1675 in Northampton (Ancestry.com, Massachusetts: Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988).

Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts shown in red on this map from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiNorthampton_Massachusetts

His ancestry was English on both sides. Jonathan's paternal family came to Massachusetts from High Onger, Essex, England in 1631.

St. Mary's Church in High Onger, England was built about 1181. In all probability the Lyman family worshipped here.
Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Onger

His great grandfather Richard Lyman  was the 11th member of the Roxbury, Massachusetts Church and then moved to Hartford, Connecticut in 1636 (Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Online database: American Ancestors.org, New England Historical Genealogical Society, 2010 p 1217).

The English origins of his maternal great grandfather, James Coles, have not been discovered. He immigrated to Massachusetts before 1639 and also lived in Hartford (Rising Genealogy: Descendants of Jonathan Rising of Suffield, Connecticut, Ancestry.com, North American, Family Histories, 1500-2000, database online, Provo, UT, 2016, Appendix D).

When Jonathan was 12, his family joined a number of other families from Northampton who moved to the fairly new community of Lebanon in New London County, Connecticut. He spent most of the rest of his life in Lebanon. He became a farmer and landowner (Coleman Lyman, Ancestors and Descendants of Richard Lyman from High Ongar in England 1631, New York 1878, p 166 www.archive.org).

We do not know the exact date of his marriage to Lydia Loomis. Part of the page is torn from the church records and the date is missing (Ancestry.com, Connecticut, Church Record Abstracts, 1630-1920, Provo, UT 2013, V 4 p 3). We imagine sometime before their first child, Jonathan Lyman, was born September 1708. Lydia is the daughter of Deacon Joseph and Hannah (Marsh) Loomis. Her family came from Essex, England in the 1630s.

Jonathan and Lydia are the parents of eleven children born over 18 years in Lebanon. They are:

• Jonathan b. 19 Sep 1708,  d. 1709.
• Lydia  b. 23 Nov 1709,  m. Thomas Webster,  d. 10 Dec 1790 in Bolton, Tolland, CT.
• Jonathan  b. 23 Apr 1712, m. Bethiah Clark 2 Oct 1735, d. 28 Jul 1792 Lebanon.
• Sarah  b. 24 Jan 1713,  m. William Hunt 19 Dec 1734 Lebanon, d. 7 Feb 1746.
• Hannah  b. 15 Feb 1715, m. Simeon Hunt 29 Jul 1736 Lebanon, d. 2 Jan 1758 Coventry, Tolland, CT.
• Joseph  b. 3 Jul 1718, m. Joanna Loomis 2 Dec 1741 Lebanon, d. 15 May 1751 Coventry, Tolland, CT.
• Jacob  b. 4 May 1721, m. Mehitable Bushnell 26 Jun 1745, d. 15 Jan 1802 Andover, Tolland, CT.
• Rachel  b. 4 May 1721, m. Edmund Grandye 15 May 1745 Lebanon, d. 1815.
• Zeriah  g. 14 Apr 1723, m. Samuel Bushnell 5 Oct 1743 Lebanon, d. Feb 1745 Lebanon.
• Elijah  b. 21 Jul 1727, m. Esther Clarke 14 Dec 1748 Lebanon, d. 5 Apr 1782 Coventry, Tolland, CT.
• Anna b. 28 Jan 1730, m. Isaiah Tiffany 19 May 1748 Lebanon d. 24 Apr 1823 Lebanon.

Jonathan died 11 Aug 1753 and is buried in the Old Cemetery in Lebanon. He wrote his will 25 Dec 1732. The probate file contains 10 pages of inventory items. Among my tasks for the new year is transcribing the 30 pages in his will packet.

Jonathan Lyman's Headstone from www.findagrave.com. Photo by Sara

Our descent from Jonathan and Lydia (Loomis) Lyman follows:

• Their youngest daughter Anna married Isaiah Tiffany 19 May 1748
• Their daughter Anna Lyman Tiffany married James Clarke, Jr. 18 Jan 1781
• Their son James Augustus Clarke's second marriage was to his first wife Anna's sister, Parnel Champion. We are descended from the second marriage.
• Their son John Champion Clarke married Lydia Hornell 2 Oct 1845.
• Their daughter Mary Elizabeth Clarke married Charles Shepard Newton 2 Oct 1865.
• Their daughter Helen Brown Newton married Frederick Naaman Cone 29 May 1889.
• Their son, my grandfather, Charles Newton Cone married Hazel Bynum Allen 4 Sep 1926

Only while writing this descent did I realize that Charles and Mary Elizabeth (Clarke) Newton were married on her parents' 20th wedding anniversary. My husband and I were married on my parents' 22nd anniversary.

Besides chronicling an ancestor's life, "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" is rapidly filling in my 2018 Genealogical To Do List. Johnathan Lyman was a known ancestor for me. He is included in the pedigree chart prepared by my granduncle William L. Cone and passed on to me by my grandfather Charles N. Cone. Most of the facts included in this post are based on research I've done over the last 20 years. Still, I thought a www.google.com search might reveal additional life events.

That simple search found a 1983 Master's Thesis by Robert Charles Anderson entitled "Genealogy and Social History: the Early Settlement of Lebanon, Connecticut, as a case study."(Masters Theses 1911-February 2014, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, #1282, http://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/1282).  Yes, that Robert Charles Anderson, the author of the Great Migration Study. I do not know if he has a personal interest in Lebanon but I certainly do. I found 28 families to whom I have a connection in his paper.

Genealogy is often a linear pursuit, following one or another family by generation up the family tree. In my case, I have been concentrating on the stories of individual ancestors. Now I realize I also need to spend time on cluster research in places like Lebanon. Anderson identified immigrants to Lebanon from Northampton, MA, Norwich, CT, and Hartford, CT. He wondered in his paper if they had intermarried or had stayed within their original groups. It may have taken a couple of generations but my family tree contains intermarriages from all three groups. I will be spending time this year looking for family members in the sources mentioned in Anderson's bibliography.

Happy New Year,

Cecily Cone Kelly