Suzanne (Preston) Blier

Ancestors

Daughter of William Preston jr. and Janet (Clark) Preston

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Suzanne Blier [send private message]

I am an academic who has spent my career focused on African art and history and their global intersections -with Europe, the Americas, Asia. I have a special passion for the medieval period and connections between Africa, Spain, Portugal, England and France during this period. I am working on several book projects. One is called 1325: How Medieval Africa Made the World Modern; Another is the Streets of Newtowne, an illustrated history of Cambridge, Ma.from the Native Americans, to the present day. I have gained key insights on these issues through my work on Wikitree, and hope to contribute more as well. I am also a local community activist (invested in issues of architectural preservation) in Cambridge, Ma. where I live and work. I teach a course on Harvard Square where I introduce my students to the history of the Native Americans, Pilgrims, Slave Owners, Revolutionary War and other events that happened here, and have found that key insights can be found here on Wikitree. As a strong supporter of the Wikipedia concept it was a delight to discover Wiki-tree. I am particularly interested in adding (facts to biographical details to the lives of women, Africans, Native Americans - and others that history books tend to leave out.

for Africa; https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Africa -https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:African_Ancestry

Descendant of several Magna Carta Surety Barons.

Research notes: for my further study.

Nearly 500 ancestors are listed as arriving with the Puritan Great Migration (to New England) who emigrated from England or Holland between 1630 and 1640 (Mayflower and other vessels): Among the better known are Catherine White Carver (spouse of John Carver), William Brewster (a leader in the separatist movement), Thomas Dudley, the 2nd Ma. Governor, and John Vassall - son of a key investor in the Mass. Bay Company).

SEE this link for a list of known ancestors who arrived with during the 1620-40 Puritan Migration [1]

American Places where most of my early ancestors lived early on include: Massachusetts (Cambridge, Boston, Concord, and Salem); Connecticut (Hartford, New Haven and Windsor); Rhode Island (Providence and Newport).; New Hampshire (Hadley) and Vermont (Castleton, Hinesburgh, Richmond, Huntington, and Burlington).

Circa. 500 relatives were early residents of Cambridge, Ma. (Newtowne - see map at right for their locations) as well as nearby towns. Large numbers fled the strictures of then Puritan Cambridge soon after arriving to found other area towns (most importantly Hartford, but also Watertown, Concord, Salem, Ma., New Haven, Ct. and Providence, R.I.). Among the better known are Thomas Hooker, Peter Bulkeley, Anne Hutchinson, and Roger Williams. Two of my ancestors (Hooker and Bulkeley) were judges at the trial of a third relative (midwife Anne Hutchinson) who was forced out of Cambridge for advocating for religious freedom and tolerance.

SEE this link for a list of early Cambridge Relatives: [2]

Witch trials; A number of relatives were involved in the Salem and Hartford Witch trials - as accusers, judges, individuals found guilty (and executed), individuals found guilty and released, people acquitted, people released, as well as people of influence who either supported and opposed these events. Among the most prominent were the scientist Thomas Brattle (who argued strenuously against this practice) and Rev. Cotton Mather (pastor of the North Church in Boston) who strongly supported this effort including the use of spectral evidence.

SEE this link for the identity of relatives involved in these witch trials: : [3]

Relatives known to have been slave owners in circa 1749 include the following members of the 1st Parish Church in Cambridge: Deacon Samuel Whttemore (shop keeper - Whittemore-313), William Angier (tanner - Angier-96), Lieut. Ebenezer Stedman (inn keeper - Stedman-821), Judge Edmund Trowbridge (Trowbridge-1364). ^[1].

Other Cambridge relatives who fit this identity include Jamaican and Barbados plantation owner John Vassall (Vassall-19) and wealthy Cambridge merchant Henry Vassal - Vassal-33) and Anna King (King-399) spouse of William Vassall (Vassall-6) as well as Gen. Nathan Leavenworth (in Hinesburgh, Vt.)

Revolutionary War: too numerous to count, including John Hicks (Hicks-5726) who was killed in the first day of fighting in the Revolutionary War. Some were tories (Vassal, Brattle -supporting another distant relative - Charles I ) but most were Patriots.

New England Signers of the Declaration of Independence - John and Samuel Adams (MA - through Mildred Preston), John Hancock (MA- through Peter Bulkeley), Robert Paine (MA- through Wright Clark), William Ellery (R.I.-through John Bulkeley Perry). William Whipple (NH - through Mildred White Preston), Roger Sherman (Ct.- through Mildred White Preston), William Williams (Ct.- through Clarissa Sanford Preston), and Abraham Clark (NJ - through Lafayette Preston)

Others in New England - Ralph Waldo Emerson (through Peter Bukleley), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (through Mildred Preston), Ethan Allen and John Dewey (through W.S. Preston), George H. Perkins (through Wright Clark), Charles Elliott (through Betsey Leavenworth).

1971 ancestors (in past 20 generations) as 5* profiles (with over 1,000 views)

Relatives of Assorted Heads of State 1. Baudoin (Belgium) via Catherine Havens Perry 2. Frederick IX (Denmark) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 3. Franz Joseph II (Liechtenstein) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 4. Jean (Luxembourg) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 5. Rainier III (Monaco) via Jerusha Lord Perry 6. Juliana (Netherlands) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 7. Olav V (Norway) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 8. Alfonso XIII (Spain) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 9. Gustaf VI Adolf (Sweden) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston 10. George VI (UK and Commonwealth) via Linnea May (Mace) Preston

U.S. Presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan, G. H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush, Calvin Coolidge, Grover Cleveland, Millard Fillmore, Gerald Ford, James Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren Harding, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, Herbert Hoover, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Richard Nixon, Barach Obama, Franklin Pierce, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft , Woodrow Wilson (through Marjorie Perry Clark, Wright Clark, Mildred Preston, W. S. Preston).

Magna Carta Sureties related through Preston, White, Marjorie Clark, Wright Clark, and Perry (via Grace Chetwood, Peter Bulkeley, Katherine Hutchinson Hamby, Peter Worden: 1. William d'Aubigny 2. Hugh & Roger le Bigod 3. Henry de Bohun 4. Gilbert & Richard de Clare 5. John Fitz Robert 6. Robert FitzWalter 7. William de Huntingfield 8. John de Lacy 9. William de Lanvallei 10. William Malet 11. William de Mowbray 12. Saer de Quincy 13. Robert de Ros 14. Geoffrey de Say 15. Robert de Vere 16. William III Albini

More than 1216 ancestors of Grace Chetwood, Anna Merwin Buckingham and Linnea Mae Mace Preston (among others) are on the European Aristocrats list from 890 CE to 1538: from a diversity of countries - the largest number from France (764) and England (962), but others include Austria, Germany, Holy Roman Empire ( Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Russia (Catherine the Great), and Wales. Nine of this group died in Jerusalem (or on the way there during the Crusades) and one was born there - in Acre (Joan Plantagenet). Princess Di shares ancestors (via William Holden, Clarissa Sanford Preston and W.S.Preston). John Plantagenet (through Mildred White Preston). and others.

SEE this link for more on the this list: [4]

Art History linked relatives include Cosimo I de Medici (Medici - 1) via Linnie May Mace Preston spouse of Frank James Preston - de Medici was a banker and founder of the art dynasty in Florence (Palazzo Medici) - and art patron of Donatello (sculptor of David), Fra Angelico, and Fra Fillipo Lippi and he enabled architect Brunelleschi to finish the Duomo in Florence. This comes via Cosimo's Sforza ancestry. A subject of a famous Uccello fresco, John Hawkwood (Hawkwood-2) was born about 1323 and became Captain of Condottieri. He features in Barbara Tuchman's Distant Mirror pp. 225, 254-8, 322-3 and is honored in Florence with the well known Uccello fresco.

Other William Brewster descendants - John Lithgow, Katherine Hepburn, Richard Gere, Bing Crosby, Peter Seeger, Cokie Roberts, Arthur Oaks Sulzeberger, Julia Child, Nelson Rockefeller, Adlai Stevenson, Henry Wordsworh Longfellow, Sarah Palin

On Lindsay see also Linsley-126 and Joel and Solomon Linsley in Addison Vt history https://vermontgenealogy.com/addison/cornwall_vermont_early_settlement.htm

See also "The history of the Lindley-Lindsley-Linsley families in America, 1639-1930"https://archive.org/stream/historyoflindley01lind/historyoflindley01lind_djvu.txt