Week 28: Multiple (Sectarianism)

Here I am at week 28, only two weeks behind!  Multiple is challenging my creativity.  No multiple births that I know of, most of the people who married more than once only married twice, hardly remarkable.  But, what I do have is multiple ancestors who moved to a different country or continent because they were being persecuted for their particular variation of Christianity (four distinct sects that I know of).

First here was William Bradford of Mayflower fame, a Puritan.  It's a pretty twisty line back to him through a lot of daughters.  I was quite surprised to find a Mayflower ancestor but there are literally around 37 million descendants currently so perhaps I shouldn't have been.  

Then, I think, Thomas Prewitt, who was a Quaker.  He came to Virginia in 1636 as an indentured servant and eventually married and prospered and left a boatload of descendants who did not adhere to the Quaker faith. 

Neither the Puritans nor the Quakers were popular with the Anglican church of their century so both of these ancestors left England.

I also have Dutch Reform ancestors who came from Holland sometime in the middle of the 17th century, some of them by way of Brazil where they had initially been sent (or perhaps gone voluntarily for economic reasons).  Things seem to have been rather complicated in Recife, Brazil, as there was a significant Jewish population along with the Dutch Reform members and the Dutch army (for a Jewish perspective on this, see https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/recife-brazil).   One of my ancestors, Jurian Haff, was actually a German who joined the Dutch army which is how he ended up there.   He married a Dutch woman, Teuntje Straitsman, who left Brazil and went to New Amsterdam following Jurian's death in 1654, presumably because she would be more welcome there. 

And, finally, the Huguenots, who include the only ancestors I know of who were actually born in Ireland.  At least, this is the only reason I can find for an Alsatian to have been born in Ireland.  Johannes Adamus Ruch was born in Conaught, Ireland in 1685 and died in Langensoultzbach, Bas-Rhin, Alsace in 1759.  His wife, Anna Maria Steimer was also born in Ireland in 1687 and died in Alsace in 1712.  Their daughter, Anna Margaretha Ruch was born in Alsace in, I'm assuming, 1712 (I have Anna Maria's death date in 1713 but that would be a neat trick to give birth a year after dying).  Anna Margaretha was born in Alsace and married Hans Michael Haudensheidt there but their son Jacob was apparently born in 1732 in New Jersey (where the name morphed to Haudensheldt and thence to Howdeshell and many, many other spellings).  It's possible that Jacob was born in Alsace but he seems to have spent most of his life in what became Virginia, and both of his parents died in Shenandoah, Virginia.

One of the great things about doing genealogy has been finding these little corners of history that I would not otherwise have known about.  I will admit that Google has been my friend.  Particularly during the pandemic, with libraries closed, my access to relevant books has been hampered.  I would be using Google a lot anyway to be sure, but I am deeply grateful to all of the people who've made all of this information available online.