52 Ancestors #3: Ebenezer Griswold (29 Jul 1725 – 30 Sep 1810), Tangled Roots?

The prompt for this week was “Longevity.” If I wrote about my longest living relative, I would start to sound like a broken record. My great aunt, Edna Van Horn lived to be 105, but she was the subject of week 1 and mentioned in week 2. My longest living known ancestor was Martha Elizabeth Smith Foster (28 Jul 1837 – 22 Feb 1938). I haven’t done much research on her yet, but from what I see, she was a remarkable woman and I’d like to visit with her in the future when I know more of her story. I didn’t want to do a statistical study. What was I going to write about?

 A couple weeks ago, DearMYRTLE announced a study group for “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways to America” by David Hackett Fischer. It seemed like a good idea to review my own early ancestors and figure out what folkway might apply to them before starting to read for the sessions. When I did so, I came across a name I see frequently in my mother’s DNA matches. Griswold. Ebenezer Griswold, born in 1725, was the son Samuel and Elizabeth Abell. He is known to have been a Revolutionary soldier and reported to have had ten children by his first wife, Hannah Merrill. My GGG grandmother, Lydia Griswold Van Horn is said to be the daughter of his son Joshua and Clarissa Wright and here we have a problem. My great aunt had told me that a distant cousin wanted to join the DAR under Ebenezer, but it would never be possible. I didn’t ask why, but a quick check this week revealed that Lydia does not appear in the birth records of Bennington, Vermont where she was supposedly born. She didn’t appear anywhere else either.

I decided to take a look at my mother’s DNA matches to see if there was a clue to be found there. Taking the Ancestry trees at face value, my mother matches numerous descendants of Lydia and also descendants of five of her supposed siblings. She also matches descendants of three of Lydia’s Griswold aunts and uncles, Samuel, Hannah and Alvin. Without a chromosome browser, it’s impossible to tell if all of the matches are on the same segment or if there are others involved, however, what I find intriguing is that my mother shares a 32 cm match with a descendant of Lydia’s sister Hannah and a descendant of her brother Clark. There is also a 33 cm match with a descendant of Lydia’s uncle Samuel and a 46 cm match over 2 segments with another descendant of uncle Samuel. I’d like to think that all of these matches are on the same segment, but for now it can only be a theory. I think it’s safe to say that Lydia is definitely a descendant of Ebenezer. Anything beyond that will have to wait for more research.

There were other Griswold matches, not descendants of Ebenezer, who traced their lines back to my 10G grandfather George Griswold so at some point, after a lot more research, I may have to revise this. For now though, I’m giving Ebenezer the award for longevity based on his DNA, still going strong after 293 years.