52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2025 Week 1 -- Start at the Beginning

With the new year come another 52 weeks to blog on our genealogy adventures, prompted weekly by Amy Johnson Crow's long-running series, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  The questions in this prompt are:  "Who was the first person you wanted to find when you began your genealogy journey? Was there a family member who sparked your interest, perhaps by giving you a treasure trove of genealogy 'stuff'?"

The family member who sparked this interest . . . h'mmm, let's go ahead and call it what it is: obsession . . . was my late sister-in-law, Kathy [Allred] Packard.  She was of the LDS persuasion, and my brother converted to that faith in their marriage.  She had traced things all the way back to the original immigrant, who came from Suffolk to the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, and who sparked my interest, in Amy Johnson Crow's words, and who was the focus of my budding research.  

My research, however, soon revealed that the derivative sources Kathy had depended on had errors.  I set about to investigate and, I hoped, correct the errors.  So the subsequent 40 years since have been an interesting journey.  I took courses by mail and online from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  They were offering a non-degree course of study through the Faculty for Information Studies, the virtual outlet for course offerings through the University of Toronto.  The completion of this course of study earned the participant a certificate of completion rather than a degree, as the courses were all non-credit courses.  My area of study under this program was in American Records.  The instructors for these courses are either certified genealogists or Ph.D.s in their fields.

I attended what conferences I could, what with work, family responsibilities, and an often-limited budget.  I have been able in recent years to attend webinars and conferences virtually, which is wonderful, as my travel options are limited (I can't fly due to medical issues), and a serious illness of one of our children limits our budget.

One of the exercises for one of the classes from the National Institute was to find relatives you hadn't had previous contact with.  I found out that my father's line, surname Packard, had gone into Canada from Massachusetts.  Richards Packard, my fourth-great-grandfather, fought in a couple of Massachusetts regiments in the American Revolution.  I obtained his Revolutionary War pension file and found out a great mass of information about him, and a good deal less about his wife, Sarah "Sally" Coates/Coats, including where in Canada they settled.  I placed an advertisement in the local newspaper in the area of Canada where Richards Packard had settled.  The ad was answered by a non-relative, a member of the Georgeville, Quebec, Historical Society who put me in touch with my Canadian cousins.  We corresponded for a while, but with all the sturm und drang of getting old, problems and difficulties of one sort and another, we fell out of touch.

But I learned a good deal more about my family history.  The adventure since has turned up a collateral relative from the Revolutionary period who for some reason, turned his coat and became a "rascally Tory."  I found that a family related on my mother's side is also related on my father's side, kinda like what people say here in the south where I grew up: "I'm so southern, I'm related to myself."

I'm looking forward to more discoveries.

A to Z Challenge On the Move: C is for Canada and California

The origin of my Packard line in the United States is Massachusetts, the Plymouth Colony, the town of Hingham.  Samuel Packard brought his wife Elizabeth and their infant daughter Mary there in 1638.  Not long after, they went to Weymouth, and even later to Bridgewater.

The next subsequent two generations pretty well stayed put.  Eleazer, Samuel's great-grandson, went west.  Though Richards Packard, Eleazer's son, grew up there in western Massachusetts, he was born in Bridgewater.  

The American Revolution turned things upside down.  Richards, at 17, enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and ended up serving two enlistments in two different regiments.  After the Revolution, he began a fairly long migration north.  He settled first in Winchester, New Hampshire, where he met and married Sarah "Sally" Coates.  I do not have much information on her as yet.  In Winchester, Richards worked in a foundry.

His feet feeling the need to wander once again, he and Sally took up their anchor and headed north.  They ended up in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where their son John Allen Packard, my 3x-great grandfather, was born.  It wasn't long after when Richards and Sally sold their farm in Vermont and headed north again, this time ending up in Canada.  They settled in Stanstead, in Quebec, in an area known as the English Townships.  This was their final migration.

This was also where John Allen Packard grew up, and married.  He married Miriam Bullock, and together they had a pack of children.  John Allen was a Methodist preacher.  One of their children, Mathew Hale Packard, also grew up in the English Townships, and married Emily Hoyt.

Mathew Hale and about half of his siblings ended up going back into the United States around 1850.  Mathew and his wife, and their son Oscar Merry, born probably in Hamilton, Ontario in 1848, ended up in Chautauqua County, New York, across Lake Erie where they were enumerated in the 1855 New York State Census in Harmony Township.  They also had a daughter, Augusta, born in New York, probably in Harmony Township, Chautauqua County.  Members of Emily Hoyt's family had settled there, and the Packards had followed.

It was from here the Mathew enlisted in a New York regiment of cavalry for the Civil War.  He served in two different regiments.  As with most who fought on either side in that war, Mathew suffered more from ailments than from war wounds.

After the war, Mathew and his family migrated to Bloomington, Illinois, where a number of his siblings had settled.  This is where Mathew, by occupation a carpenter, and Emily, a milliner, lived the rest of their lives.

Their son, Oscar Merry, became a real estate agent.  He married Augusta Hetherington, born in Chicago in 1851.  They had four children:  Herbert Roy Packard, Ruby Packard, Walter Hetherington Packard, and Hale Boring Packard.  Once he became established in real estate, Oscar packed up his family and migrated to the best place for real estate agents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- California.

It was in California that Walter Hetherington Packard grew up, and where he met and married Elizabeth Jane "Bessie" (later "Betty") Reynolds, who was born in Atlantic, Cass County, Iowa.  They, like Walter's parents, had four children:  Walter Reynolds ("Ren"), John Creighton ("Jack"), Arden (no middle name), and Sarah Virginia ("Sally").  

This long enough tale ends here, for the story of Arden and his migrations can be found in my blog entry On the Move: A is for Arden.