Lake George was backdrop for movie "Last of the Mohicans"
Researchers will seek paper roots to distant Mead ancestors in colonial America.
When the end of July rolls around, members of the Mead Researchers will be taking over the Town of Glen Falls, N.Y. and the immediate area surrounding scenic Lake George.
A far-flung group of genealogy buffs from cities across the United States, all tracing their family roots to the days of English emigrant William Mead in 1641 Stamford, Conn., will descend upon Glen Falls to compare ancestral and descendancy notes.
Headed by Wanda Mead-Campbell of Binghamton, N.Y., the group was started almost two years ago and has approximately 40 members from as far west as California and Arizona, as far south as North Carolina, Florida and Texas, as far into the upper Midwest as Minnesota and Kansas, and as far east as Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware.
Their combined efforts boast the finest collection of family records ever put together since the first Meads joined the expansion from Europe to the new world early in the 17th century. Now, they will meet for the first time to compare and share their books.
The formal reunion is scheduled Saturday, July 30, and Sunday, July 31, but will be ongoing throughout the final week of July. Details and event times will be printed in the next newsletter, due the week of July 1, 2005.
Although the gathering of the group has been planned by the Mead Research Group, any Mead, Meade, etc. descendant will be welcome. Lance Mead (Lmead52089@aol.com) of Brandon, Vermont, is the group "herdsman" and will be coordinating reservations and activities.
Among the early members who have indicated they will attend are Carolyn Mead-Hildebrand, coordinator of the growing Mead-e DNA project; Mary Lou Veal, who has one of the most extensive Mead-e genealogical collections, and Lee Meade, editor and publisher of the mead-e family tree quarterly newsletter.
While they vacation in New York, most will search for records relating to family ancestors who lived in the area more than 300 years ago. They will open their collections to each other in the continuing genealogical search to shed greater light on the mysteries of the ages.
The names of the communities in the Lake George area tell much of its history. Fort Edward, Fort Anne, Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Fort William-Henry stand as symbols of the military campaigns that have been identified with their rich colonial past
Watching the movie, "Last of the Mohicans," which was filmed at Lake George, presents an excellent view of the life early American settlers endured in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Thaddeus Mead was among the Mead men who came into this region with the Connecticut troops under the command of Col. Phinneas Lyman in 1755. They built the fort that became the town of Fort Edward. It is located at the junction of the Hudson River and the Indian trails leading north to Lake George and Lake Champlain.
War was strange in colonial days. At the end of each year's campaign, the soldiers on both sides walked back to their homes to learn how their families had endured during their absence. The winter months were when many of us can trace the conception of our ancestors. It was an annual ordeal for the five-year duration of the French and Indian War. And, least we forget, in this war, the colonists and British were allies against the Canadian-garrisoned French and their friendly Indian neighbors.
Thaddeus never made the final trip home. He died in 1760 from wounds suffered in the Battle of Montreal. He had by then become a captain and fought in the final battle and capture of the Canadian city.
Many of the Mead men who participated in these battles became familiar with the opportunities of the area. After the hostilities had ceased, between 1770 and 1776, many Mead families joined the emigration from Connecticut to the hill communities of Vermont and the lower Adirondack region of New York state. They were the same families who were caught up in the northern campaigns of the American Revolution.
It began with the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and ended with the battle of Saratoga in 1777. The war continued with major battles in other parts of the country, while smaller skirmishes between the settlers and the British continued in northern New York. The end of the Revolutionary War in 1781 brought a flood of extended Mead families into the area.
Many Mead-place names remain as mute testimony to the fortitude of these people. The headstones in the old cemeteries are left to tell the tale.
The mayor's daughter
By VANCE MEAD
Elizabeth Mede, or Isabel as she is known in the Latin records, was born in 1446-47, according to John Smyth in "Lives of the Berkeleys"; quite possibly she was born a few years earlier, as will be seen below.
She was the daughter of Philip Mede and Elizabeth Sharpe, born in the Redcliffe district of Bristol, in the parish of St. Mary Redcliffe.
Elizabeth's father and her mother's family were merchants, trading as far as Spain and Iceland, importing wine and fish and exporting woolen cloth. On her mother's side, her grandfather, John Sharpe, had been the mayor of Bristol in 1416. Her father was the bailiff of Bristol in 1444, the sheriff in 1454 and the mayor in 1458, 1461 and 1468.
They lived on Redcliffe Street in a typical, high and narrow merchant's house: cellars for storing wine, woad and other merchandise; the shop on the ground floor; the dining room and kitchen above that; a couple of floors of bedrooms for the family; and, on the top floor, garret rooms for the servants.
In around 1460, Elizabeth married a man whose name is unknown. (For this reason, I think she was born before 1448. For decency's sake, let's say 1442.) Elizabeth and her first husband had three children, all of whom died young. She was left a widow.
In 1465, she married Maurice Berkeley. Her husband's family had been the lords of Berkeley for 300 years, so the marriage was a big step up the social ladder for her. As her dowry, she brought to her husband lands in Somerset and in Thornbury, Gloucestershire. Despite her wealth, Maurice's brother, William, the heir to the Berkeley lands and title, objected to this marriage with "so base blood, as he reproached it, making that a motive to his own vast expenses, and of the disinheritence of this lord, his brother," as John Smyth relates in "The Lives of the Berkeleys." He goes on to defend her. "She was a virtuous lady and evermore content with better or harder fortunes."
Elizabeth and Maurice had four children: Maurice, Thomas, James and Anne. There marriage was a happy one. "The longer they lived, the better they loved."
Despite the attitude of Maurice's brother, Elizabeth's family fought beside the Berkeley's during the Wars of the Roses. In part, this was a dynastic war, but the disorder of the times allowed family quarrels to escalate into open warfare. The feud between Thomas Talbot, Lord Lisle and William, Lord Berkeley, began with the death in 1417 of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, the great uncle of William and Maurice Berkeley. A dispute over the inheritance arose between the three daughters of Thomas Berkeley's daughter, Elizabeth, on the one side and his nephew and heir, James, on the other. William and Maurice Berkeley inherited the feud from their father. In the lawless conditions of the 15th century, great families kept their own private armies. The forces of Lord Berkeley and Lord Lisle met in battle on March 20, 1469/70 at Nibley Green in Gloucestershire. Maurice Berkeley's father-in-law, Philip Mede, together with John Shipward, another merchant and former mayor of Bristol, raised an army of 1000 men from Bristol in support of the Berkeley family. The Battle of Nibley Green was the last battle fought with private armies on English soil.
The battle is described by John Smyth: "The lord's (Thomas Talbot, Lord Lisle) party lay close in the outer skirts of Michaelwood chase, out of which this lord Berkeley broke, when he first beheld the lord Lisle with his fellowship descending down that hill from Nibley Church. The lord Berkeley's number was about a thousand, and exceeded the other in greatness. The place of stand was at Fowleshard, whence this lord William sent upon the lord Lisle the first shower of arrows. One Black Will (so called) shot the lord Lisle as his beaver (visor) was up. Thomas Longe, father of the said William, was servant to one of them who llhelped to carry the lord Lisle when he was slain."
William Berkeley died without heirs in 1491, so his brother, Maurice, and Elizabeth, his wife, became Lord and Lady Berkeley, though the family lands had been much depleted by the spendthrift ways of the elder brother. Maurice spent the rest of his life in court cases trying to recover the ancestral property of the Berkeleys.
Elizabeth Mede "dyed at Coventry in the eighth year of Henry the VIII (i.e. 1516/17) then aged 70 years, having outlived her husband about 9 years; and with him lyeth buryed in the Augustine Fryars in London."
Thomas Try, a servant of the Berkeley family, described the ceremonies that accompanied her funeral. "And so she was conveied to the mother church, the priory, where she rested yn the quyre before the high altar all that nyght, and had there a solem derege, and the Maire and his bredren went to St. Mighell, there as was derege in like manner; and after derege the Maire and his bredren went to St. Mary hall where a drynking was made for them; fyrst cakys, comfetts and ale, the second course marmelet, sonket, redd wyne and claret, and the 3rd course wafers and blanch powder with romney and muskadele; and I thank God, no plate nor spones was lost, yet there was xx desyn spones."
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Vance Mead lives in Helsinki, Finland, from where he searches England for documentary history and tales of the early Mead family.)
Hero at Gettysburg
GEN. GEORGE GORDON MEADE
By LEE MEADE
He was not a descendant of the Massachusetts line of the family. Nor did he come from Connecticut lineage. Neither was he a member of the Virginia branch. In fact, his ancestors were late-comers in colonial times, made their way from Ireland and spelled their surname Meagh when they first arrived in the United States.
But, Gen. George Gordon Meade, who commanded the Union forces in the Battle of Gettysburg and turned the Civil War into defeat for the Confederates, is perhaps the best remembered among the thousands of soldiers who distinguished themselves in the war between the states.
Meade was not even born in the United States. He was a native of Cadiz, Spain, one of 11 children born to Mr. and Mrs. Worsham Meade on Dec. 31, 1815. His father was a wealthy Pennsylvania merchant serving the American government as a military attache. He ran into financial difficulties as a result of the Napoleonic Wars and returned to Philadelphia.
His son entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when he was 16 and graduated 19th in a class of 56 four years later. But, it appeared George Gordon's military career would be short-lived. He resigned from the army in 1836 to persue a career as a civil engineer.
When he was unable to find employment, he returned to duty six years later and worked primarily as an engineer building lighthouses and breakwaters. He also served in the Mexican War between 1846 and 1848.
When the Civil War broke out, he was a brigadier general with a brigade of Pennsylvania troops and later worked on the defense of Washington and fought at Mechanicsville, Gaines Mills and Glendale. He was severely wounded, but came back to command the federal troops at South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
Meade took over the Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863 and was immediately thrown into the Battle of Gettysburg. It was the largest land battle ever fought on U.S. soil and resulted in the deaths of more than 21,000 soldiers.
Meade was severely criticized by President Abraham Lincoln for not following up his victory by pursuing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's retreating forces into Virginia, but, at the end of the war, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant said Meade "was the right man in the right place" and would "defy any man to name a commander who could've done more than Meade did with the same chances."
Although Lincoln gave command of the army to Grant following Gettysburg, Meade remained the titular head of the Army of the Potomac through the end of the war. Grant pursued Lee into Virginia and won his unconditional surrender at Appomattox Court House.
Meade continued to serve in the army until his death on Nov. 6, 1872, at the age of 57, as a result of old war wounds complicated by pneumonia. He was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in a funeral attended by then President Grant and the U.S. cabinet.
This monument of Gen. George Gordon Meade, astride his horse "Old Baldy", stands on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, Penn.
Union cannon at Gettysburg
Between us ...
Lee Meade
I AM ABSOLUTELY overwhelmed by the reader response to the last issue of our newsletter. True, the "hits" have gone up every month since we began publishing the electronic edition on the internet early in 2003. But, they were small increases in number and explainable as news about the availability of the newsletter was passed among you.
Frankly, we didn't know how to get the word out. The only sources to disclose information we had were word-of-mouth and the use of the message boards on www.ancestry.com and www.genealogy.com. Of course, we did double our exposure by putting it on both the Mead and Meade versions.
The total number of "hits" for the period between January and March 2005 was 2,759. By the month, it included 1,154 (a record high for a single month) in January, 780 in February and 825 in March.
You'll have to put up with an old editor gloating for a moment, but more than 12,000 Meads or Meades, Medes, Meaghs and how ever else they spell their surname, have seen fit to bring up the mead-e family tree and peruse its content.
For my part, I didn't know there were that many of us out there ... using computers ... having at least some sort of an interest in genealogy ... and making the effort to learn a bit more about our common heritage. However, it is very gratifying. We can only hope the growth will continue.
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THE OTHER good news is we are solvent! With just a bit more than $500 in the bank, we are ready to begin spending somebody-else's-money. Up until now, the total cost of producing the newsletter has been mine. If you were a contributor, be assured all of the dollars we have collected over the past couple of years will be spent upon future production costs.
The No. 1 expense of putting out the newsletter is paying for the software program, registering our domain name and maintaining archives of past issues. That will cost us about $170 for the coming year, but it will leave us with money in the bank and assure continuation of the newsletter well into 2006.
I might add that none of our writers, photographers or editors have received any payment for their efforts to entertain each of you by digging deeper into the past of the Mead-e family.
Having said that, it is our hope that contributions will continue. If you would like to make a donation to the newsletter, send a check to: mead-e family tree, c/o Lee L. Meade Sr., 8505 Flying Cloud Drive, Apt. 221, Eden Prairie, MN 55344. Obviously, more money in our coffers will enable us to add new features to the newsletter.
And, the newsletter will continue to be available free to anyone who has an internet connection.
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THE STORY of Gen. George Gordon Meade has always been one of my personal favorites. When I was a sophomore in high school, my social studies' teacher asked me a question I had not been anticipating. We were studying the Civil War at the time."
"Who were the two generals for the South and the North in the Battle of Gettysburg?" she asked.
I didn't miss a beat as I replied, 'Lee and Meade.'
"I have been waiting all year to ask you that particular question," she said.
It didn't seem to be that big a deal at the time, but our class got a good laugh out of it.
-- Lee L. Meade Sr., Editor and Publisher
A bit of this, a bit of that ...
THE READER'S WRITE ...
If you have questions about your family tree or information that might enable us to climb up higher on our own, we'd like to hear from you. Write to: Lee Meade, 8505 Flying Cloud Drive, Apt. 221, Eden Prairie, MN 55344. Or, just send us an e-mail, to: leemeaderoots@aol.com.
Also, if you have a story idea, let us hear from you. Better yet, it you would like to write it yourself, send it along.
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MEAD-E DNA PROJECT CONTINUES
Efforts to build the foundation of historical information on the database of recent ethnic origins of the Mead-e family are continuing.
About 30 individuals have submitted testing information to Family Tree DNA to determine their placement among Mead descendants.
Anyone seeking information about the cost and procedure should contact Carolyn Mead-Hildebrand by e-mail at: noelcaro@aol.com.
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DEVELOPMENT OF SURNAMES
For a long time, people were just known by their first name. The monthly DNA Newsletter reports surnames were adopted in different countries at different times. As society became more complex, a system was needed to distinguish one person reliably and unambiguously from the next.
A surname is defined as a hereditary name borne by members of a single family and handed down from father to son. Thus, surnames contrast with given names, which identify individuals within the same family. It is characteristic of surnames that all members of a particular family normally havfe the same surname.
In 1200 A.D., the world population is estimated to have been between 360 million and 450 million persons, depending upon the estimate used. This estimate is close to the time frame when surnames began to be adopted.
Occasionally, events impacted surnames. For example, in 1465, legislation was passed in Dublin, Ireland, providing: "that every Irishman, dwelling betwixt or amongst Englishmen, in this county, as well as those of Meath, Uriell and Kildare, shall go like to one Englishman in apparel and in shaving of his beard above the mouth and shall within one year sworn the liege man of the King and shall take to him an English surname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trim, Scrine, Cork, Kinsale; or color, as white, black, brown; or art or science, as smith or carpenter; or office, as cook, butler, etc. and that he and his issue shall use this name under pain of forfeiting his goods yearly."
The process of adopting a surname was spread over time and continued to evolve until the 1900s when spelling was standardized. There was no guide to the spellings of names. Those who recorded census events attempted to reproduce phonetically the sounds they heard. But, the great majority of the population was illiterate and had no notion that any one spelling of their name was more 'correct' than any other.
