Edmund Hobart & Margaret Dewey: Pilgrims and Corn Trespassers

Today we have some ancestors on my paternal grandmothers side. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. That's 12 great's for those who are keeping score, 14 generations total. This visual aid has Edmund down to me and included are the years the males were born. 

Now I can trace the Hobart line further back than Edmund, but there isn't a lot to tell other than birth and death dates. The reason I have substantially more information on Edmund is because he was a puritan pilgrim (a very well documented group) and because Edmund's son Peter was extremely well educated (Cambridge graduate in the 1600s level educated) for the time and he became a reverend and did a whole lot of writing and recording keeping and what not. 

I do know that the Hobart line was pretty wealthy. Depending on what source you look at Edmund is often referred to as Sir Edmund Hobart. Once of the verified documents pertaining to Edmund was the Last Will and Testament of Thomas Hubbarde, Edmund's father. In this document Thomas leaves his lands in Great Snoring to his first son Andrew, and his lands in Hingham to Edmund. So obviously wealthy enough to own land in two places. However, Edmund ended up leaving his land and the majority of his wealth behind for  his religion. And in case you did notice, Edmund was born as Edmund Hubbarde. Hubbarde was changed at some point to Hobart after Edmund migrated to the America's with the pilgrims apparently. 



Edmund Hobart was born on January 1st, 1571 in the parish of Great Snoring in Norfolk, England. Great Snoring is a small little village in East England, pretty close to the sea. In 2001 the population was 168. It used to be much bigger, in 1841 the population was 556. In fact the population only dropped to the 100s when World War One broke out and all the men left to fight, and then never came back (sad face) and the population hasn't gone back up since. It's pretty much the cutest little town I've ever seen. It looks like it came straight out of a BBC Midsommer Murder's set. I totally would live here. Here's a link for a little more information on Great Snoring.

Now there isn't like...any information on Edmund's childhood or early years. And nothing on Margaret other than she was born in 1574 in Norfolk. The only thing noted is in a copyhold claim filed by the Hobart family, Edmund is listed as having "received the family crest on the 19th of May, 1575 in Hingham, Norfolk."

We do know that Edmund married Margaret on the 7th of August, 1600. Together they had at least 8 known children, many stillborn are never recorded: Nazareth (1601-1658), Peter (1604-1678), Thomas (1606-1689, Joshua (1607-1682), Edmund Jr (1609-1686), Anthony (1609-1609, twin of Edmund Jr. Died at birth), Edward (Stillborn), and Rebecca (1611-1679). 

Edmund was a puritan separatist, and we can assume he faced the same persecution that other puritan separatists faced in England during that time. According to his son Peter: Edmund, seeking religious freedom emigrated to Charlestown, Boston with his son Thomas and several others (I'm assuming some of his younger kids). Edmund sailed in 1633 aboard the Elizabeth Bonaventure, the second ship to bear that name. Edmund was admitted to full communion in the "1st Church of Christ" in Boston in either August of 1633 or 1634 (water damage to record). If I lived in Boston I could visit the Massachusetts Historical Society and view the actual church records from 1631-1768 where Edmund's record can be found. Unfortunately, despite an hour long phone call and the nicest man from the society, the digital versions of these records, including paintings and some old sketches, could not be found.

Anyway, moving on. Margaret died just a few weeks after coming to America with her husband, not even long enough to join Edmund's church. Shortly after her death and after being admitted to his church, Edmund moved his family to the Bare Cove Common, north of Plymouth. Two years later, Edmund's son Peter sailed and landed in Hingham where he became the first minister/reverend of the town and it was renamed Hingham, after their hometown in England. But Peter's story is for later. Links: Hingham & Hingham. In 1634 Edmund married Sarah Ann Oakley, they are not known to have any kids together.

At some point between 1634-1636, Edmund was named the Constable of Hingham. He was part of some old committee that decided "only certain desirable persons should be allowed to "sit downe and dwell in the towne." So like...if you wanted to live in Hingham you needed to be approved and deemed desirable.

In 1638 Edmund was named Commissioner of Hingham. Which as I understand it is pretty much the same thing as a court judge. He was able to do marriages and whatnot. Also in 1638, like the most horrible thing happened. Edmund was fined 40s (Which I think means shillings) for "leaving a pit open in which a child was drowned." Always nice to know that criminal negligence is only worth 40 bucks.

Now I don't know what sort of horrible pilgrim criminal Edmund was but in 1639 he was sued by Thomas Hamond for "trespassing in his Indian corn since planting time till now to the value of 50s..." Whatever that means. Note that in 1639 Edmund was 67 years old. Who sues an old guy for walking around in some corn!? Also note that this corn was more valuable than that poor kid who drowned.

And on March 8th, 1645 or 46 (more damage to records) Edmund Hobart passed away. His death is noted by a single sentence in his son Peter's journal: "Father Hubbarde dyed."

Tracing the Wilson Line

Since I traced the Haun name last time, I thought I would do the same for the maternal side of my family too: the Wilsons. The issue with this side of the family is that the actual last name "Wilson" is HUGELY popular, and the further you go back, the more jumbled up you get.

So for this one I am relying hugely on records provided and linked to by the LDS church. They have an excellent vetting process and I am more comfortable with the accuracy of their records than those of other.

That being said, the oldest I feel like I can confidently trace our particular Wilson line to is David Willson. He married Rachell Dowar on July 4th 1680 in Midlothian, Scotland. And they had a son named David Wilson, whose christening was on October 7th 1680 also in Midlothian. I have no birth or death dates for the first David or Rachell tho.

I should mention that until like...a year ago there was "controversy" on whether or not James Wilson was the son of David Wilson or this other dude named Edward P. Wilson. But according to the church genealogists James is in fact the son of David.

I included a visual aid so you could see how the line moves from the first David Willson all the way down to me. Note the star by James' birth year. That is because either his or his fathers (probably Davids) birth year is off. That would make his father almost 100 at the time of his birth. More than likely there was a David in between the two and the records just got mixed up since they are all named David. A common issue, but an issue which I have noted and am researching further.

The origins of the actual name Wilson are pretty easy to understand. Wilson: "English, Scottish, and northern Irish: patronymic from the personal name Will, a very common medieval short form of William" Pretty much means way back when they would say David, son of Will/William. (William, btw is a mush up of Will and Helm which mean "Desire" and "Helmet/protection"). But then surnames caught on (most likely in the end of Medieval times) so they would just do David Willson. And when they came over to America, one of the "Ls" got cut out (a side effect of immigration in the late 1700s) so it's just Wilson!

Now, because there is such a huge number of Wilsons, I can't pin down our exact coat of arms. There are over 70 Wilson coat of arms. And a lot of those depict the Norman/English version of the coat of arms bearing a wolf. Now I'm going to mess up the family a little bit, because I'm pretty sure we aren't actually Norman/English Wilsons. Im 95% sure we are Nordic/Scottish Wilsons. Now the Norman/English Wilson name came from a Danish Prince named Wolf, and his sons were the Wolfsons which got corrupted into the Wilfsons, and later the Wilsons. The Nordic name is actually Willson, son of William Gunn who came to Scotland in the 1300s.

While I can't establish a direct line to William Gunn, I am pretty sure we come from him or his line, not the Danish Wilsons. Reasons? Number 1 is the obvious, Danish Wilsons never ever used two "L's" and our ancestor David Willson is on the written record from 1680 as having those two "L's". Reason number 2, David 1, Rachel Dowar, and David 2 are all on record as having at some time lived (and in David 2s case born) in Midlothian Scotland, the area where William Gunn eventually settled.

FUN FACT: There actually is DNA evidence of William Gunn and a modernish direct ancestor (He died in like 1920 but they have his DNA), I plan on submitting a DNA kit of myself to the experts at Ancestry DNA (Once I save up the extra cash). If I do indeed have this particular haplogroup, then we know that I come from Clan Gunn! Exciting!!!

And that is where I shall leave the Wilson history for now. If you want so great reads on Wilson history here a couple links to well vetted sources:

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Johan Jakob Hahn and the Origin of Hahn

As you may have noticed, I am a Haun. So I decided my very first mission on here would be to track my last name as far back as I could. Turns out that was a little harder than I expected. But with the help of both FamilySearch and Ancestry.com and a very helpful phone call to the genealogy center in Salt Lake City, I was able to go back a little further than I had on my own.

I wasn't able to get a whole lot of info but I did get some. The furthest validated record of our name of someone who was actually for sure related to us was with Johan Jakob Hahn in 1758 in Ropperhausen, Hessen-Nassau, Prussia. His name is listed in a microfilm registrar of German Births and Baptisms from 1558-1898. He is listed as having two children, George Hahn and Heinrich Hahn. I made a quick visual aid so you could see the "Line of Haun" all the way down to me with names and the years they were born.

Unfortunately that is pretty much the only source I was able to find on him. His spouse is even listed as unknown. But I didn't want to leave you hanging with a short post, so I decided this would be a great time to just research the origin of the name Hahn.

According to Ancestry.com Haun is: "German: from Middle High German hane ‘rooster’, hence a nickname for a conceited or sexually active man. In some instances it may have been a habitational name from a house bearing the sign of a rooster. One of the many Ashkenazic surnames based on vocabulary words denoting birds or animals."

Don't worry, I googled that crazy word. Turns out "Hahn" is very traditionally German Jewish. Ashkenazic Jewish to be precise. Which is a regional subgroup of Jews in the Germanic regions of Eastern Europe. Hahn is considered an animal Ashkenazic name. If you want an interesting read on Ashkenazic Names I suggest looking here.

The earliest instance of "Hahn" was clear back around 1230 with Eckhard Hahn or "Eggehardus Gallus" as his name was later made more Latin. The Hahns in that time were considered nobility! Eckhard was a councilor and knight to Duke Johann the 1st of Mecklenburg, and it seems as though his line continued to serve the "princes of Mecklenburg" for quite some time. Because he is basically the first Hahn, I hope to be able to establish a link between him and Johan, and take my line back further with more research! Hahn is documented in the "Deutsches Adels-Lexicon. im Vereine mit mehreren Historikern." which you can look at here. It roughly translates to "A Dictionary of German Nobility in Association with Several Historians." References to the Hahn family can be found starting on page 152 and then randomly throughout the rest of the book. You can learn more about Eckhard specifically by checking out here and here. I know they are Wikipedia articles, but they are well sourced. You also might need to translate them from German.

Around Eckhard's time is also when the "Hahn" Coat of Arms started showing up. There are, as with every coat of arms, several renditions. The most common one for the Hauns is the Red Rooster on a Silver Shield. That is the Coat of Arms that ties closest with my particular Haun Heritage. There is also a blue one that is essentially the same, but the shield is not tilted and it has more ties with English Hahns than our German ones.

The Coat has not changed much. It has the Rooster. Or "Shield of the Cock" as the history books like to call it. Two feathers on the rooster are supposed to be black but I couldn't find a picture I liked of those. But they represent the two values of the Hahn name: Vigilance and Militancy. Which I completely enjoyed learning as they are so spot on. The Hahn motto was added sometime later: Primus sum, qui Deum laudat. Which means "I am the first who praises God"

And that is pretty much what I found for the origin of the name. As I said, I hope to establish a direct link to Eckhard if I can with more research, for now I shall have to deal with the large blank space in between 1230 and 1758. I may not ever be exact, but Prussia and later Germany were some of the earliest censused areas so I am hopeful I will at least be able to establish more connections in the coming years.

Thanks for letting me prattle on!