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A Thousand Year Adventure in Time Travel



I am the family historian and following in the foot steps of similar seekers. My first guide was Aunt Alicia Zierden Dryman, she was 74 years old, it was 1948 and I was 2 years old. My second guide was my grandparents from age 5 to present from their wonderful saved letters and written stories.  A little fact about genealogist, it occurs every 80 years in a family. I am 75 years old now.

The Spofford family was a mystery and would require detective work and interviews with the family. According to the daughter of Aunt Alicia, Katherine Dryman Pettit, she answered my request. This is 1966. Aunt Alicia “prized book” given to her by her mother Rebecca Spofford Zeirden. This was Katherine’s source of a long detailed letter about the information in the book. Genealogy research was labor intensive with rigid forms that didn’t allow for story expansion in the 1960’s and 1970’s. As a Graphic Designer I redesigned my own group sheets adding information from the letters, births, deaths and telegrams. All the photos are scanned and installed on the hard drive.

I let too much time pass and Katherine died. The book she had received from her mother became lost to time. It took me years to find which Spofford family book. We recently found the 1888 book, which solved the gap between America and England. The greatest find was a newspaper articles about Rebecca Spofford Zierden, she was 7th generation Spofford and from the House of Stewart in England. The Spofford's were in the Doomsday Book. I became curious I approached another  researcher about this and he said your family is royalty.” What do you mean?” Well only the royalty had property and paid taxes.

The Spofford family had blooming personality all over the place, lots of tenacity and curiosity, the need to learn and share goals. This may explain the ownership of vast lands in Yorkshire, England. They were Saxons and when the Norman’s invaded, they lost some of their lands and became Vicars and Bishops with families. Their adventurous spirit, propelled them to sail across the Atlantic ocean a 3,000 miles journey to new lands. This made history come alive and you can join me to look into how this took place.

Rebecca’s father, Earl Spofford had an interesting description about him, “he had a strong characteristic and great physical vigor and never needed glasses and died at 91 years”. I was right about this family tenacity. Rebecca’s story in the old newspaper article, celebrating her 87th birthday gave wonderful information about her relatives in England and the American valiant “Green Mountain Boys” of the Revolutionary fame. However about the family not wanting to fight the king and fled to Canada doesn’t work. The American Revolution War 1763 -1783, Earl was born in 1793 in New Hampshire, ten years after the war. This is one, of many, in my research that shows the dates don’t match the stories.  

Education in this family has been very important for over 1000 years. The coming of K-12 education for free was in its infancy in the colonies. In the early 1800’s governess or tutors were hired especially for women. My great great grandmothers Mary Rupp and Rebecca Spofford were taught by private tutors. In 1906 my grandparents went to college. This tradition was pass down to the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“What never goes away is the ingenuity and brilliance and perseverance of humans”.
  I really liked this statement, it came from my grandma’s tin box, full of clippings.

Acknowledgments


A lovely thank you to my husband and editor, Don Wissusik. He is my special teacher and guide. My grandparents encouraged life long learning. My mother taught me to learn from my mistakes it was a good learning tool. My cousin Brenda always understood this search. Ditto for Rex, we learned how our family operated. A special thank you to my studio assistant Shelby Mello, her special skills on the computer are invaluable, without her this web page could not have been completed. Thank you to Pam Vesper for her professional help with the genealogy, she found amazing records back east and in German, I would never had found them without her help.

 

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Virginia and Don Wissusik with dottie

References

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  1. Genealogical record descendants of John Spofford and Elizabeth Scott by Dr. Jeremiah Spofford, Groveland, MA. - memorial editor by the daughter Aphia T. Spofford, Publisher Alfred Mudge & Son, Boston, MA. 1888, note: American Lineage  Page. 37 #1, #2,  Page. 39, #2, #22, Page 41 & 42, #22, #51, Page 50, #51, #160, Page 70, #160, #504, Page 133 & 134, #504, #1433.

  2.  Spofforth or Spofford Family by Ashworth P. Burke, Publisher Harrison & Son’s, London,  England 1897, note: England Lineage. In the Appendix Page 19, Page 322 in the Doomsday Book.

  3.  Rebecca Spofford Zierden 1835-1931, Oral stories, “Prized Book” 1888, articles in the newspapers.

  4.  Alicia M. Zierden Dryman 1874 - 1960, Genealogist, “Prized Book” 1888, letters.

  5.  Amy Schrecongost Patchell 1887 - 1974, Archivist, letters, notes, photos.

  6.  Virginia Amy Adams Wissusik 1946 - present. Web Page Designer, research, archivist and author.


 

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