Vinnicum/Morse/Mason/Gardner

[Kat]

I’ve started a new topic so hopefully family searchers will see the links between relatives back to the mid-1700’s. I noticed on Find A Grave a family stalled out (going back) at Henry Gardner, for instance, and this info I can provide now would add another couple of generations to their history.

When I first started this project nearly 20 years ago, I was mentored by Joe Carlson, who was the Director of the Carnegie Library in Ironwood, Michigan. We were collaborating on a Morse tree to find the forebears of John Vinnicum Morse, and by relation, Lizzie and Emma Borden. See The Hatchet issue June/July 2004, Vol.1, Issue 3, for Morse through John Vinnicum Morse’s generation. Joe wanted to add to the generations, but there wasn’t time, as he was the one who decided which issue of our magazine would be his deadline. But we had always intended to go as far as we could, but then his life, and then his death, ended that project- until our member Cagney revitalized my interest with all her Morse related newspaper goodies.(See the “Lizzie Andrew Borden” topic section on this site.)

It’s funny that most folks doing their genealogy back then “stalled out” at the Gardners. I don’t know why this is, but it happened to me, too, until I talked to Len Rebello about it. He was done with Lizzie by then, and if you know Len, you know when he says he’s done with something, he’s done. But without looking into his files, just in his memory, he said look for Masons, find the Masons and the link is there, somewhere. You can see how ambiguous that connection became. I had to find it for myself. No one could tell me. Not even historians in Swansea. Still, on Find A Grave now the folks following the Gardner line have Mabel, who died young, and missed Orrin, Frank and William.

Well, it was an “Eureka!” moment, to find Anne Frances- I was working with a print-out of pages of Mason found in “Representative Men” that I literally had to go to my downtown library reference section to copy, and study. What happened was the way the family was printed on the page: it seemed to stop at the bottom, last line. Then, when I thought oh well, there isn’t any more, I turned the page and there was Caroline and Ann Frances Mason. She was the one I needed to make the connection. She was the Mason who married William Bradford Morse.

For the family searchers, I say keep at it, it is very rewarding, and much easier now to get info you need, as Forum member Cagney has shown me. As I said, I was balking at further research, because it used to be grueling, but so much is online now, you need not leave your couch!

I physically draw trees because that helps me remember them, others prefer the tidiness of the pre-printed templates. So my offerings are humble, but intended to share. So far, these are only two uncles of Lizzie (thank goodness JVM never married!), as some of these are prolific siblings. But I hope to get more done, so watch this space- and I intend to go back over to Find A Grave and contact “Jeffery”, who was responsible for collating so many stones, and get him over here!

This first one is a simple tree to see connections:

[Kat]

More detail

[Kat]

Newest updated thru 2022- through Wm. Bradford Morse’s kids, one at a time.
This is his son John V. Morse connections:
Plz clic on pic

[Kat]

Gardner- you can see I am following the lineage straight down the middle by the arrows pointing down. The sideways openings are siblings.

[Kat]

Gardner news Touisset