The "Best" Family

In the mid 1990's I remember doing my very first internet search. The internet at that time was not the huge engine of information that it is today. I came across a Civil War roster of names, and decided to try looking there for the last name Best. Much to my surprise hundreds of names came up. Not knowing a first name for an ancestor that might have been in the Civil War left me feeling pretty overwhelmed, but one thing I did come away with was that most of these men were listed as Colored. This then led me to the only conclusion possible, the Best's were slave owners. This was not at all welcome news to my father, who had come to identify so strongly with this Native American in the photograph. Because my father was an ex-hippie, a musician, a surfer, a pacifist, and a nature lover, being a slave owner's great great grandson was not a pleasant idea to wrap his head around.

 
It wasn't until I decided to accept the genealogical torch passed on to me by my late maternal grandmother, that I thought why not start with my dad's family first; the one family with the least amount of information. I gave myself a goal of Father's Day the following year to present to him his family history. So the journey began.

My father's parents divorced in the early 1960's. His father remarried in 1966 then died the following year. He was only 47. My father and his brother do not have great memories of him, and this side of the family had always been a huge mystery to everyone. They knew their grandfather, but that was the extent of the history. There were rumors of Freemasonry in their lineage, but no one was a member in their immediate family. My father had once seen an old sepia photograph of a Native American man that bore an uncanny resemblance to himself, and decided he must have Native American blood. He and his brother had also thought that perhaps the name "Best" had originated in Germany spelled Besste. Pretty random things to have as your starting point for genealogical research.

With the Family Tree Maker on Ancestry.com I was able to begin the process by starting with the first name I knew... myself. I added my father's information, and his father's name, and his grandfather's name. I didn't know any birth dates or death dates at that time. It was during the Free Trial period of Ancestry.com, and when the trial ended I was still able to access other people's family trees for clues (this is now only available with a subscription). Finding "cousins" who had also entered data into the Family Tree Maker was like finding chocolate filled Easter eggs.

The Christmas presents were the little green oak leaf that would pop up indicating new information had been linked to my tree. I made my way back through history quite quickly, because there is a lot of historical documentation of the Best's leading back to the mid 1600's and Tobacco Plantations in Jamestown, Virginia.

First Lighthouse in Virginia

When I had reached the first ancestor to sail over, it turns out it was an Englishman, not a German, and I discovered a long fascinating history in England as well.


A link to the full Best Family narrative:
http://ancestraltides.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_25.html
A link to the Gardner Family narrative:
http://ancestraltides.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_3.html

A link to the Grimmond / Duncan Family narrative:

 http://ancestraltides.blogspot.com/p/the-grimmond-duncan-family-narrative.html

Pugsley Family Tales

Before my maternal Grandmother passed away in 2010 she had been doing some research into her ex-husband's family tree. She had already spent decades of research into her own family, and wanted to do this for my mother and myself.


His name was Tom Pugsley. It seemed that neither he nor his brother, Joe, knew much about their heritage other than what had been passed down word of mouth from their father, Samuel. So my Grandmother interviewed Tom and his brother to try to glean as much information from them as she could, as all three were getting up there in age.

To her first inquiry, Joe responded with:

"My dad was Irish/Welsh Catholic, my mother pure Irish Catholic, Katherine Flynn. Grandfather Pugsley was a good Welshman. I know my dad had relatives (generations back) in Westchester County and a "shirttail" relative who owned a duck farm in Upper New York State. We checked it out on one of our family trips to the east (1939 or 1940) when N.Y. World's Fair was showing. My dad had two sisters that I know of... Aunt Anna Peloso, in the Bronx I think... or maybe it was Aunt Emma?"

Tom responded with:

“My father, Samuel, said his people in Wales were weavers, wool wrights and farmers. Grandfather Pugsley {Samuel’s father} may have made Carriages or Carriage Wheels. The family raised ducks on Long Island - well known for their fine quality of ducks. Grandfather Pugsley was poor, but the "family" owned a lot of land. Grandmother Kate {Katherine Flynn} was quite elderly when we visited her in 1939 or 1940 (World's Fair). She lived in the Bronx at that time, and she was small and determined. She had outlived 2 husbands, maybe 3.”

Neither Tom nor Joe knew their Grandfather Pugsley's first name. They thought maybe Samuel, or George?

Tom had written me a letter in July of 1991, a few months after the birth of my first son. In this letter he wrote:

“Now that you are a mother, perhaps some background from the Pugsley family would be of interest? The first Pugsley in America was an ex-officer in King George’s Army; given land north of New York City by the King about 1765; a country squire. My grandfather was a loner; very athletic; climbed church steeples for exercise, and did daring things. He would get “moody” and sail off on his sail boat for long periods. He was said to have been quite the drinker (wasn’t everyone in those days?). My father was aristocratic, Victorian, of good intelligence, and self-educated. He went from a fisherman (as a boy), to top Salesman with American Stove Co. (Magic Chef). My mother (Margaret Tuohey) was as Irish as Paddy's Pig."

My Grandmother wasn't used to using the internet; she worked the “old school” way with her genealogical investigation: writing letters of request for Census Data, visiting historical societies, ordering historical books, and finding old maps of the areas she was studying.

With these clues from Tom and Joe she was left with combing her way through copies of Census data based on only the proximity to where she thought Grandfather Pugsley may have lived and a combination of possible family names. This was no easy task, and almost impossible to verify without an actual first name or birth date.

In 2012 I decided to pick up where she had left off. I took the information that she had already compiled and started entering all the data into Ancestory.com’s Family Tree maker. This has proven to be an invaluable resource, as today most of these historical books, legal documents, census, wills, and gravestone inscriptions have been digitized. I have been able to cross reference the information she found, and dig deeper than she was able to. Happily I answered many of her questions, filled in the empty pages, and can now say I am 90% satisfied that I’ve unraveled the Pugsley puzzle.

The other 10% is finding the Counties and Parishes of my Irish ancestors. If there is anyone reading this that can assist me with Ireland... please, help!

Of course, I won’t be 100% satisfied, as very important bits of the puzzle are still missing due to: the lack of proper documentation of births, deaths, and marriages during the early settling of America; the city government buildings being burnt down during the civil war; and, the fire of 1921 destroying the 1890 US Federal Census housed in the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C. Historians have been going to great lengths to find other sources of information to fill in these missing pieces of time (City Directories), but sadly, some things are just lost. There will not be an answer to these questions, and that is hard to accept when you get to that dead end.

When I was entering the data into our family tree, I started with Tom, and worked my way back in time from there. At first I didn’t get very far, because that black hole of missing information of the mid-to-late 1800’s put up a road block.

I was able to purchase a couple existing documents (birth and death certificates) from the New York Archives, which helped, but even with that, I eventually was forced to give up. I had to start a new tactic of going back to the beginning of America’s history, with the first Pugsley on historic record (just as Grandma Jean had attempted) and hope that would help. The information I found, however, was a messy bramble of twisted branches.

Each generation of Pugsley men named their children the same, as did their brothers. So that by the third generation it seemed an insurmountable task of deciphering sibling from cousin from brother from father. A lot of the historical accounts have proven to be inaccurate due to this very confusion. The only way I could find to get around this was following the family branch of each wife. Thankfully, during the 1700-1800’s, the Pugsley men married "well" and those affluent families have been better documented than our own.

Before I was able to share with my Grandfather Tom the information I had found, he passed away July of 2013. I was not able to truly untangle his family tree until December of 2015, and that was just the American history.

As far as the “Pugsley Tale” of being Welsh, the Pugsley's have been in America since the mid 1600's, coming over from Devon, England. In Devon their history goes back hundreds of years, with nary a Welshman to be found. So I am completely perplexed as to how that family story even got started.

Click here for full family narrative: http://ancestraltides.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_6.html






Pugsley Farm in Warkleigh, Devon

Origin of the Pugsley surname: It is believed that it is from a now "lost" village or hamlet believed to have been situated in the Barnstaple area. This belief is because of the great quantity of early recordings of the name in local parish registers. There is a Pugsley Farm in Warkleigh, Devon still in use today. John Pugsley was the name of three of the early mayors—namely, in 1355, 1468, and 1474. The name occurs in the annals of the town for the 17th century. Barnstaple is still the home of the name, although some fifteen generations have passed away since the stirring days of Cressy and Poictiers, when John Pugsley was mayor.