(Week 1 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks).
I am in a battle to break a bad bout of writer’s block following the devastating collapse of my ten-year relationship. All of my current projects are locked in an emotional deep freeze. There will be an end to it, but in the meantime, I’ve jumped onto this year-long family history challenge as a gentle way back in. Welcome to my first post of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.
Week 1: Foundation (Macgregory Van Every)
Both my grandmother and my great-aunts used to go on about their (our) New York Dutch ancestry. For years that information was nothing more than noise in the fabric of family lore—curious, but not interesting enough to make the connection with the life and times of the Headless Horseman. No, I am neither related to the Headless Horseman nor his hapless nemesis Ichabod Crane, but they share the same setting as much of my early North American ancestry.
Macgregory Van Every is my subject for the week one theme of “Foundation.” Touted as the founding ancestor of the Ontario branch of the family (I should specify founding European ancestor, as there are many indigenous Van Every cousins in Ontario), he serves as double-duty for this theme as he is also the first ancestor to really pique my family history curiosity—I mean, who were these Dutch people after all?
Macgregory Van Every (I love his name) fled his home in the Hudson Valley at the height of the Revolutionary War, along with his wife Mary Jaycocks. He had spent time in jail for not joining “the cause,” then again for trying to join the opposition—aka the British Army—after which he did join. He became one of the Butler’s Rangers, among whom he counted several adult sons. He would have been in his late 50’s by that time, as he was a ripe old 66 when he cleared his eight acres of farmland as one of Niagara’s nineteen original settler families.
But this is not the most interesting thing about him. Nor is the tragic deaths of his first-born twin boys Patrick and Frank (Francis). Nor that his and his wife’s gravestone is among the oldest in Ontario.
The most interesting fact about Macgregory Van Every is that the published family history recording his parentage has failed recent examination, and current wisdom concludes that Macgregory Van Every was most likely a Colonial love-child.
Monkey See, Monkey Say 