Tombstone Tuesday: William Chesebrough

Photo by Frederick E. Burdick, used with permission

Founder of Stonington, Connecticut:
William Chesebrough

I confess to being descended from all four men who founded Stonington, Connecticut. This photograph from Wequetequock Cemetery (pronounced Wickety-Quock) [1650] was taken by my cousin Fred Burdick in 2004. The cemetery on Find-a-Grave has some excellent photos of this ancient burying place. Fred took us there and we wandered around with him as tour guide. He gave me a CD of his photos and research and I didn't take even one photo. 

The compiled genealogy of William Chesebrough, published in 1903 shows how complex the descendants of this founder can be but I was able, early in my genealogy adventure, to start a path down from this 8th great grandfather to myself. I have read that he came in the company of those in the Winthrop fleet from Boston, Lincolnshire, England. 

One line of mine descended from William Chesebrough works down to my great grandmother, Ada Ann Evans, wife of Charles E. Stewart. But, I was never able to find records that I needed. Ada is a particular favorite ancestor of mine because my middle name is Ada and I have inherited her wedding ring. I gave it to my son-in-law to have the stones reset in my daughter's wedding band to keep the family jewels going....

Ada was a quiet woman who loved to read (as told to me by my grandmother) and judging from the size of her wedding band, quite heavy. She is the only great grandparent that I don't have a photograph of. It makes me even more curious about her family.

Her ancestor path is hard to prove because it involves geography. It wasn't until Wayne Howland took a photo of a gravestone in Hillside Cemetery in North Adams, MA that I began to understand how I was going to have a records nightmare despite the "correctness" of the compiled genealogy. 

Ada's boys are the inspiration for this complex investigation. I suspect that great uncle Dudley looked like his mother.