ALDEN-L Archives

From: David Sylvester <>
Subject: Can Path Of Our Knowledge Be Traced To Our Ancestors?
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 09:43:17 -0400

Found at
http://www.dnronline.com/skyline_details.php?AID=5176&sub=Rural%20Pen



Ball is the name engraved across the top of a large headstone in a
cemetery I pass by often. It never meant anything to me until last
week.

Now the past haunts me. Not my own life's past, but my antecedents
whose DNA and God-knows-what-else I carry. I have many questions.

Mom always told me, offering no evidence, our antecedents came over
on the Mayflower. As it turns out, that family legend was not far
from the truth. I recently contacted a long-lost first cousin who
investigated our shared genealogy. David was not lost and neither
was I, but we are a scattered family, with little contact beyond
our primary relationships. He seemed glad to hear from me and to
share the family history.

So my many-greats grandfather John Ball did move from Wiltshire,
England, to Watertown, the third large settlement in Massachusetts,
in 1632. His son, John Ball, married an Elizabeth Peirce, who was
deemed to be insane. That explains that.

After the death of Elizabeth, John married another Elizabeth. Both
were killed in Lancaster, Mass., in an Indian raid that was part of
King Phillips War in 1675. I remember learning about that war in
history class.

In the meantime, my many-greats grandfather William Still moved to
Coram, N.Y., and had a family farm there. Both he and another John
Ball (the Stills and Balls would eventually merge) fought in the
Revolutionary War, Still in the Battle of Long Island, and Ball in
Quebec and at Fort Ticonderoga.

David had lots of information on the Still family, which is his
last name and was my mother's maiden name. Her mother, Florence
Still, was a Storms before she married my grandfather. We joke
about that change in name.

In the meantime, my Dutch Storm (the 's' was added later)
ancestors, Dirck and Maria, sailed from Amsterdam in 1662 to New
Amsterdam. A few years later, the English captured New Amsterdam
and changed the name to New York.

David has many stories about Dirck and Maria Storm. Dirck worked as
an innkeeper, the town clerk of Brooklyn and Flatbush, the
secretary of Orange County, N.J., and was precantor at the Brooklyn
and Flatbush Dutch Reformed churches. The couple eventually settled
in Sleepy Hollow, a few miles north of the city.

One thing that's striking in these pages of genealogy is the number
of children these folks had. Dirck and Maria Storm had nine. John
and Lydia Ball had 13. In all those hundreds of years, the couple
with the fewest children had four.

Even though these folks were farmers, clerks and carpenters, with
not a whole bunch of money or means, the primal instinct to
perpetuate the race was strong. That's the opposite of nowadays,
when working couples are (relative to history and the rest of the
world) rich, well able to raise a large family, but prefer to
remain childless or have a child or two.

What happened, Darwin? Your theory has broken down in the
wealthiest, healthiest nation in the earth's history. The fittest
have no interest in survival, just appearances.

My grandmother, Florence Elizabeth Storms, was an only child, born
on March 3, 1897. Her mother, Mary Elizabeth Smith Storms, died
three days later. My grandmother was raised by her aunts, her
mother's sisters. I met some of these women, Aunt Mae and Aunt
Caroline and others, a few times growing up and at my grandmother's
funeral. They all lived upstate, along the Hudson. I have no
contact with any of them.

David has also included lots of information and stories on the
families that married into the Balls. I can see now why he has a
"love/hate" relationship with genealogy, because that raises
questions about all those who married into the Storms and Stills as
well. Curiosity could drive you down every genealogical trail along
the path. It's clear he's spent an awful amount of time at this,
visiting cemeteries, churches, county seats.

So what do I do with all this?

In biology class a few years ago, I learned we all carry our
mother's mitochondria. It is passed down generation after generation.

I wonder, do we inherit other non-physical aspects of our
foremothers and forefathers? What about memory? What about the
things I think and ways I feel that I do not understand? Is who I
am today a result of my own life experiences or is it tied in to my
mother's and grandmother's and great-grandmother's and
great-great-grandmother's experiences, emotions, decisions?

How can I know? Does it matter?

This thread:

• Can Path Of Our Knowledge Be Traced To Our Ancestors? by David Sylvester <>