In every family, I am guessing there is at least one person who is your family “historian” (the one who keeps the genealogical records and knows whether you are third cousins or first cousins twice removed).  That has never made sense to me, so I choose not to remove anyone and just count backwards by generations.  No…actually, thanks to my Aunt Nancy, I have a chart.

On the Stevens side of our family, Nancy Page (my dad’s sister) is our family genealogist.  We have learned over the years to be careful what we ask her regarding family relationships, because she knows a lot more than we could have imagined when we asked!  Every once in a while, she just amazes me with something I would probably have never known were it not for her investigative work.

Case in point: Recently, she shared the finding of my 10^th great-grandmother, Mercy (Hurd) Brigham Rice Hunt.  Mercy was our first grandmother to arrive in America at the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Puritan Great Migration.  She was a Quaker, born around 1615 in England, who is said to have come with her sister due to religious differences from which they “suffered annoyance and persecution at home.” She emigrated from England to Massachusetts aboard the Susan and Ellen in 1635.

Apparently, Mercy was a strong-willed woman made of sturdy stock.  She and her sister traveled to America without a male relative.  She reportedly ran men off her land when they attempted to repossess pigs that were not fenced in.  She was recorded as owning land in 1680, much earlier than was common for women. After the death of her second husband, she sued one Robert Wilson for debts owed to the estate of her husband. I have to believe that was almost unheard of at the time.

While most women of the time lived to 39-40 years of age, Mercy outlived three husbands and died in 1693 at the ripe old age of 78.  During her third widowhood (which was the last 26 years of her life), she saw two bloody Indian wars.

As we celebrate this Independence Day, it is awe-inspiring to me that my grandmother Mercy had come to America 141 years prior to the beginning of our country!  The things she and our ancestors lived through and endured are more than any of us today could imagine.

Mercy appears to have been quite capable of handling herself.  In fact, in today’s lingo, she might have been called a “Karen.”  Or Sassy.  Apparently it runs in the family.  Who says genetics aren’t amazing?

As the fireworks are lighting up the sky this year, I will be thinking of those who fought for our independence.  And I’ll be thinking of (and thankful for) those who came before, like my grandmother Mercy.

God bless America,