Samuel Appleton and his wife Judith Everard are Grace Abbot’s 7th-great grandparents, and Joel Abbot’s 4th-great grandparents. Samuel brought his family to America in 1636 and settled in Ipswich, MA where he was granted a large tract of land and started a farm. Remarkably, the farm continues as a working dairy farm to this day. In 1998 the Appleton family put the farm in trust and opened it to the public. It’s now on my list of places to visit.
Since 1950 there has been an ongoing research project called “Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists” which publishes their research from time to time, the most recent of which is Edition 8, published in 2004. A description: Like the previous editions, it embodies the very latest research in the highly specialized field of royal genealogy. Previous discoveries have now been integrated into the text and recently discovered errors have been corrected. In addition to Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, and Robert the Strong, descents in this work are traced from the following ancestral lines: Saxon and English monarchs, Gallic monarchs, early kings of Scotland and Ireland, kings and princes of Wales, Gallo-Romans and Alsatians, Norman and French barons, the Riparian branch of the Merovingian House, Merovingian kings of France, Isabel de Vermandois, and William de Warenne.
Samuel Appleton is one of the colonists whose lineage they have been documenting. I spent a couple days tracing out some of his more interesting lines and have summarized them on the spreadsheet above. Some of the direct ancestors of Samuel Appleton include William the Conqueror and his ancestors, the Vikings Rollo and Ragnvald. Others include the first English King, Egbert, and many ensuing English kings, along with their ancestor Cerdic, King of West Saxons (died 534). Charlemagne and his grandfather Charles Martel are in another line, along with Henry I (King of England 1100-1135), and his son Robert de Caen, Earl of Gloucester.
I’ve read that if you go back far enough, many people with Western European roots will be related to, say, Charlemagne. Still, it’s fun to be able to trace the specific names back. More significantly, in doing so I have chanced upon dozens of interesting stores of conflict, intrigue, bravery, and the roots of civic freedom in the Magna Carta … and it makes one feel a little bit more connected to those people and their stories without whom we wouldn’t be here.
Next time I wander past the Viking Rollo’s statue in Ålesund, Norway or Rouen, France, rather than walk by as I did last time, I might stop and give him a nod and a wink. 😉
Following are brief details of each the individuals in the left-most of the lineages of the chart.
Abbot and Fletcher Family History 