More Notes from Aunt G.: The Lesson
Studying family roots can be more than just an endeavor in detective work. As much as we enjoy learning about the places, dates and names of our ancestors, sometimes we can come across bits of information about our roots that greatly change our thinking about our present situation.
For example, one bit of information I pulled from the box containing my aunt’s research is a document that notes how my immigrant Gloyd ancestor arrived in North America. John Glydd was born in October, 1655 in Hailsham, Sussex, England. He was a younger sibling in the brood of Richard Glyd (AKA John Glidd*) and Mary Evans. The family must have been of some higher social standing because they had a coat-of-arms.
Then we read this:
“This Indenture witnesseth, that John Glydd son of John Glidd of Helson, in the County Sussex, in England husbandman, of his owne free will doth putt his selfe to Fran Littlefejld, Senior, of Wells, in the County of Yorke. In New England husbandman to learn his art & with his executors & assigns after the manner of Apprentize to serve from ye thirteenth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty & three, unto the full end & terme of eight years from thence next following to bee fully Compleat and ended/during which terme the sayd Apprentize his maister…” (taken from York Deeds, part I, Fol. 148).
Note the date John was born. Note the date that John “of his owne free will” signs himself into indentured servitude. He was 7 years old. SEVEN! This child got on a ship and sailed a storm-tossed North Atlantic to the wilderness of Massachusetts. Alone. No doubt his parents never thought to see him again. I suppose from a 17th century perspective this was the best thing a parent could do for his child—to provide him with the opportunity to learn a trade and make a living.
To my 21st century perspective, I am aghast.
However, what strikes me here is that whether it is the 17th century or the 21st, people have been and are still being compelled by circumstances outside of their control to leave the home of their ancestors to make a better way. Some came by slave-ship or prison-ship, some because there was simply no way to survive in their homelands. The next time I see a crowd of day laborers waiting for a job at the local lumber yard or the women cleaning houses of my neighbors, I will remember John Glydd. He was not that much different.
And that is the lesson.
Text and Image: L.Gloyd © 2008
(*The spelling of the last name varies, it seems, at the whim of the writer, as well as, from time to time, the first names)
(This is the Glyd coat-of-arms).
Heather Blakey
Lori
Anita Marie
imogen88
gwenguin1
Chefleur
traveller2006
kvwordsmith
gailkav
cronelogical
shewolfy728
espirit07
dcevaal
amazon3
Raven
thalia
woodnymph
porchsitter
shelbloom
thecricketonthehearth
laralorelei
spacemonkey1996
Jill
Alexis
And what a good lesson it is…Just last night I was having dinner at a family-style Mexican restaurant. A few tables over was Arthur Towata, world-reknown potter. I have 6 of his pots and cherish each one. I know from his web site he was interred in a Japanese - American camp at Manzanar, California, as a child during WWII, but has transformed his tragedy into wonderful art. We don’t know the backgrounds of the people we see when we’re at dinner, or waiting in the check-out lane, or in traffic - they all have stories to tell, identity poems to write someday.
For more info, http://www.towatagallery.com/index.html
It is amazing, isn’t it? I simply can’t imagine sending off one of my children at age seven - not even to a boarding school, much less into an apprenticeship in another country! People did things so differently then. I know that seven was considered the “age of reason”, but my goodness!
A fascinating story, but oh, my goodness, being sent away at age seven, when he was still a child. Surely he was terrified. Or maybe he took it in stride…life wasn’t so good for children then, unless they were born into the aristocracy.
Vi
A fascinating story, proving again the fact that immigrants (over centuries) are braver, stronger and smarter than those who don’t move. Although, I have to wonder, at age 7 what “own free will” he was using. Kids were more expendable in those days. I think of my own parents, who came to America well-educated and with two boys, speaking little English, starting their lives over in middle age. (I came along in that middle age to confuse things further) It is a real act of bravery. What an encouraging story!
What age did he live to, Lori? What I mean is, did he thrive with this change of territory? There seems a lot to think about, about him and what kind of life he would have had. Yet so young, and with a bagfull of experience as he lands in another country! Rings some Huck Finn bells from when I read this in school. I wonder what stories he would have to tell? Thanks for sharing this, it’s interesting.
Oh, indeed he did, Imogen. He re-emerges in the mid 1670’s as a soldier in the English Army in Massachussetts where he is noted as having defended colonists from warring Native Americans. He died in Salem, MA in 1691 where he had lived for a number of years with his wife in the home of John and Elizabeth Proctor, two people who in 1692 were executed for witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials. This would mean that his widow and children were eyewitnesses to this infamous episode.
I have a pretty good feeling that some of my mom’s ancestors were indentured servants, too, and in generally the same time frame. But family records burnt in a fire at some point and I don’t think there’s a way to definitively trace them, so I have no idea who they were or what age they happened to be. But seven is rough!
Stoic ancestors! The genes have clearly been passed on. It is all quite amazing really
And some folks say that history is not interesting. Did our ancestors cross dear Lori? Mine were in New England then. I found your research fascinating–did a thesis on the importance of individual biography as primary sources of history–should have had this bit long ago. Fran