Eliza Keys's Forebears

If anything, Eliza's (Lizzie's) ancestors are more profound than Chester's in their bedrock-of-America qualities.  Here is the list of surnames of Lizzie's ancestors arriving in New England near or before 1650, nearly half-again as long as Chester's:

Allen, Backus, Bailey, Beebe, Bigelow, Birchard, Bliss, Blower, Borodell, Bracket, Branson, Briggs, Brockway, Brooks (bef 1741), Burt, Butler, Cady, Carter, Chamberlain, Chapin, Charlet, Davis, Day, Deming, Denison, Dickinson, Douglas, Elliot, Ellithorp, Emmons, Farr, Fletcher, Foote, Freeman, French, Fryer, Gardner, Gaylord, Godfrey, Gorham, Guild, Gull, Hale, Hall, Haughton, Howland (on the Mayflower), Hull, Hunt, Hurst, Hutchins, James, Jones, Keeney, Knapp, Ladd, Lawrence (bef. 1693), Leavens, Loomis, Lord, Lutten, McKee (Keys), Miller, Moulson, Nutt, Olmstead, Parkhurst, Peck, Preston, Redland, Rogers, Rowland, Sabin, Sharpe, Smith, Spaulding, Spencer, Stallyon, Stanton, Stebbins, Stevens, Stowers, Strangeman, Tilley (three family members on the Mayflower), Tomson, Wakley (or Wakeley), Waller, Wilcox, Willard, Willey, Wilson, Wright, Wyman, and Yorke.

If anything, limiting ourselves to four families to trace Lizzie's antecedents seems especially foolish.  The names known best to the family, however, are Keys and Beebe, and then Spaulding and Day.  For example, Beebe in particular is a name redounding through Colonial history, with nearly 250 Beebes no more than a few cousinship levels away from our straight-line trace back to Samuel Beebe, our original Beebe immigrant, or his parents, John Beebe, Jr., and Rebecca (Ladd) Beebe, who died at sea during the voyage to America.  Lydia Day, my fourth great grandmother and wife of Asa Beebe, Sr., is our path back the farthest, to Henry I, William the Conqueror and Charlemagne.  And the Day line marries into the Spencers, whose line leads back to one of the most renowned in British heritage, finding a common 14th century ancestor from whom William, Duke of Cambridge, and second in line to the British throne, descends through his mother, Diana, late Princess of Wales.  (William is my 14th cousin, which I doubt gets me a seat in Westminster for the eventual coronation.)

Looking at the Jackson and Keys lists of ancestors and the overwhelming dominance of Anglo-Saxon names there, one is tempted to ask, "Why?"  After spending considerable time tracing these links, I've concluded that those earlier ancestors elected (by circumstances and family pressure) to choose from no group except other descendants of English stock, so the habit of marrying within one's religion and ethnicity became firmly rooted, and bred true until the generation just before mine, and even weddings to persons not of one's own race or sexual orientation had to await more liberal times and the generation after mine. 

In any event, as was the case for Lizzie's husband, Chester Jackson's ancestors, I've compiled a complete list of Lizzie's back to the original immigrants arriving on (mostly) New England shores.  I will not repeat for Lizzie the map of migrations I prepared for Chester's ancestors, mostly because instead of his seven generations, hers would require ten and entries for many more individuals.  The pattern is much the same, however, with each generation moving around within the New England states until Lizzie's parents find themselves in Holley, New York, just west of Rochester, years before the birth of Lizzie's oldest sibling in 1838.  Lizzie was clearly the most adventurous of all her kin, knowing full well at the time of marriage that she would be moving far beyond the comforts of New York home and hearth, to the exotic climes of Antigua in the British West Indies.

We have a few photographs of the generation preceding Lizzie:

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Home Up Chester Eliphalet Jackson CEJ Forebears Eliza Frances Keys EFK Forebears