Ives family tree highlights

Frank da Cruz
July 2019, June 2020, December 2020
NOTE: I still need to merge this family tree overview with an earlier one HERE, which includes her father's ancestors and also some of her mother's not mentioned here.

Pam Ives was my first love back in 1961. In 2018 we found each other again and continued from where we left off 57 years before. Her mother Ruth Ives is still living at age 98 (as I write this) and Pam and her brother and sister all have children and grandchildren. For all practical purposes Pam and I are now family (despite another separation imposed by the COVID-19 virus), so in 2019 I incorporated her into the family tree. I was able to take her tree back much farther on her mother's side than anyone had done before and we were all surprised to find some Sir Knignts showing up and, continuing back in time, finally also Kings, Queens, Dukes, Counts, Tsars, and even Saints. Among Pam's ancestors we also find Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay colony who were hanged as witches as well as veterans from different wars from the American Revolution and Civil War to World War II (in which Pam's father Charles Ives was a decorated veteran of the Battle of the Bulge) and Korea.

Please use a large computer screen (not a cell phone) to read this page and follow the links. And for best results, maximize your browser (that is, make it fill the whole screen; for example, by double-clicking on the title bar, or clicking the square icon near the right end of the title bar). When you click on a link, you'll see a small part of the tree. On the left is a grey sidebar with information about the selected person. The first time you do this, click on the Biographical tab, so you can see all the information about the person: birth place, death place, profession, and story. For more information about how to find your way around the tree, CLICK HERE.

Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Pam's ancestors on her mother Ruth's side include a large number of nobles spanning the eras of Anglo-Saxon England, medieval France, the Viking conquests of Normandy and Russia, the Norman invasion of England, and Plantagenet and Tudor England, and also Scotland, Holland, Flanders, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Ukraine, and even some Celtic and Pictish kings.

This trove of royals goes back from Ruth to her mother Olive Safford through three more generations of Saffords, to Sylvina Hall who married Elisha Safford; to Jemima Kinne, who married John Hall; to Jemima's mother Keziah Peabody; to Keziah's father Jacob Peabody (by this point we're in colonial Massachusetts), to Jacob's father Francis Peabody, who emigrated from England to the colonies in 1635. Meanwhile Jacob's mother and Francis's wife Mary Foster (1618-1705, Ruth's 7-Great Grandmother) is descended from several genations of nobles who have "of" in their names, like Thomas of Brunton Forster. His grandfather was Sir Thomas IV of Etherstone Forster (1519-1589): our first royal, a Knight.

From that point you can work your way up the tree, and it's just about 100% nobility. When you seem to come to dead end (a person with no parents), click on the person to see if some parents or siblings appear. This can be either fun or frustrating. In case it's frustrating, here are some highlights... These are all people you are directly descended from:

Traversing another Norman branch rooted at Thomas of Brunton Forster's wife, Elizabeth Jane Carr, as we go up we see a lot more Lords and Ladies, Bucktons and Newports, then finally ten generations of de Hattons, who are all Knights and some of them also Lords, and eventually they start to have first names like Wolfric, betraying the Viking origin of the Norman aristocracy. Then starting with Havoise de Normandie (981-1034) we see the Norman families (some pictures included) who were to conquer England: several generations of Dukes and Duchesses, such as Duke Richard I de Normandie and his wife Duchess Gunnor de Crêpon. As you follow this line upwards, the names become more and more Norse: Meanwhile if we go back to Agnes Dutton, born in 1209 and the wife of William de Hatton, and go up from there we see a lot of Norman English royals until we get to Eleanor de Beaumont, born in England in 1100. Her Dad, Sir Robert de Beaumont-le-Roger, was born in France and was one of the Norman invaders who defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Continuing upwards we find Robert's grandfather... All of this is in addition to the highlights I listed HERE several months ago, including Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans including Rebecca Towne and Mary Towne, who were hanged for witchcraft, and some Revolutionary War and Civil War veterans.

Wikipedia pages

Many of the characters mentioned above have their own Wikipedia pages; here are some samples: P.S. There are still quite a few branches I haven't followed yet so there are likely to be more surprises to come!

—Frank, 7 July 2019