Immigrant Ancestors: Thomas Birchard (1595-1657)

My 9th great grandfather, Thomas Birchard, was born in 1595 in Essex, England. Setting sail in September 1635, he arrived at Boston on the Truelove with his wife, Mary Robinson (1597-1655) and six children, including my 8th great grandfather, John Birchard (abt 1628-1702), who was then just seven years old. On the ship manifest, Thomas is described as a labouring man. They came as part of the Great Migration.

Thomas is another of my growing number of ancestors listed in my favourite handy little resource. He was most likely a Puritan.

Thomas and his family spent their first few years in New England in Roxbury, which was annexed to Boston in 1868. It was one of the first few towns of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, settled in 1630.

By 1639, the Birchards were in Hartford, Connecticut. Thomas is recognized as one of that city's founders, having settled there before February 1640.

By 1653, the Birchards were living in Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard, where he became town clerk. In those days, the journey between Hartford and Martha's Vineyard would not have been a straightforward affair. I wonder what prompted Thomas to leave Hartford and to settle on Martha's Vineyard as his family's new home. Was his son, John, already there?

In about 1655, Thomas' wife Mary died. Some sources say this happened in Roxbury, but we know that by 1653, Thomas was on Martha's Vineyard. In any case, Thomas remarried at least once more in Edgartown, and possibly twice.

Now, Martha's Vineyard was the domain of my ancestor Governor Thomas Mayhew, another of my 9th great grandfathers. I wrote about him here. In 1673, a movement began to oust Mayhew, and Thomas was apparently the first to sign a petition to the General Court at Massachusetts Bay. The movement was crushed.

By 1682, Thomas had relocated yet again, to Norwich, Connecticut, where John was then living as one of that town's first proprietors. Thomas died in Norwich

A manuscript published in 1927 claims to have traced the first Birchard all the way back to the Franks in 496. I might take that with a grain of salt.

The never ending story continues....

Our immigrant ancestors -- Governor Thomas Mayhew

A few years ago, a wonderful fellow Mayflower descendant clued me into an incredible little book originally published in 1942 that lists alphabetically, with very brief biographical sketches, the names of 2,500 of the earliest immigrants to America. I periodically go through Immigrant Ancestors: a list of 2500 immigrants to America before 1750 when on one of my all too often research binges, and at last count, I have 26 direct ancestors listed in it.

Yes, these are immigrants to America, but as I've noted, I have many ancestral links to New England, including Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Connecticut and New Hampshire. In fact, at one point very early on, one of my ancestors, Governor Thomas Mayhew (1593-1682), held the land titles to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. He received the original land grants in the 1640s.

Thomas is my 9th great grandfather. He arrived at Plymouth Colony as part of the Great Migration of Puritans in 1631/32 from the Southampton area, where he was a merchant. He was born in Wiltshire. Read what is said about him in Immigrant Ancestors (l). Yes, there's a discrepancy in the dates given in that 1942 publication, but as more and more confirmed, sourced documentation has come to light, this is common.

The never ending story continues....