the genealogy book,

, the English and Norman origins of the Hyde family of Montague Township, Ontario and Hartford and Norwich, Connecticut, leaning all the way back (supposedly) to Charlemagne,

Another thread from birth father’s matrilineal lineage moves through the New England ancestry of my sixth great grandfather, Benjamin Barber Sr. (c. 1770-c. 1822). Although he was born in Vermont, Thad W.H. Leavitt’s History of Leeds and Grenville (1879) lists Benjamin Barber as one of the early settlers to Wolford County, by what is now Merrickville, on the Rideau Canal. Wolford, not far from Montague Township, where landed some of the Rose family. Setting aside, for now, Benjamin landing upon Canadian shores, I move to his father, my seventh great grandfather, Ezekiel Barber (1710-1772) to his own father, Moses Barber (1670-1726) and into Moses’ mother, Elizabeth Hide (1627-1687). From Elizabeth, I can move back through to her parents, Gilbert Robert Hyde (1604-1682) and Alice Crompton (1602-1689), and to Gilbert’s parents, William Richard Hyde (1567-1640) and Eleanor Molineaux (1573-1606), which would be my eleventh great grandparents. This is where it begins to get really interesting: William’s father is Sir Robert Hyde of Norbury (1543-1614), son of Sir Robert Hyde of Norbury (1522-1571), himself son of Sir John de Hyde, Baron Hyde of Norbury (1493-1526) and Lady Elizabeth Bothe (1501-1568), who would then be my fourteenth great grandparents. That is quite the list of names, I know.

The speculations of genealogy: I had long wondered that if one has English ancestry of any sort, there’s a “Sir” or a “Lord” in there somewhere, if one goes back far and deep enough. Christine and her Pastons. The “Hyde Genealogy” website, which occasionally adds the caveat of ‘take this with a grain of salt’ for certain threads, does include that “A narrative by Thomas Middleton (published in 1899) describes Hyde Hall, the Hyde family and how the great Earl of Clarendon descends from Matthew de Hyde. The Earl of Clarendon was the father of Ann Hyde, the Queen of King James II of England, and the grandfather of the two succeeding reigning English Queens, Mary and Anne.” A further quotation, taken from Florence Fuller Hyde’s volume The Hyde Family in England and America (1967) writes that:

An early bearer of the name Hyde in England was a Norman Knight who went into England with William the Conqueror in the invasion of 1066; and was granted lands in Cheshire where the town of Hyde is located, about seven miles east of Manchester. He took his name from the estates granted to him. The family was in possession of this manor in the reign of King John, which had descended from father to son since the Norman conquest. Matthew de Hyde, of Hyde, resided there about the end of the twelfth century and was the father of Sir Robert Hyde, who became Lord of this Manor and also the estates of Shalcross and Fernely in Derbyshire and Halgaten and Denton in Lancashire. He married the heiress of Thomas of Norbury and by this marriage the lordship of Norbury in Derbyshire came to the Hydes in the reign of Henry III.

Oh, such potential connections to kings and queens: why does it fascinate me so? In so many respects, I am still but a simple farm boy, attracted to what I know I can never reach. Seeking further clarification on William and Eleanor, I discover the curiously named blog “One Thousand Years – A Record of My Ancestors,” posted April 24, 2015 by “Pastor Ian,” that offers information that veers into an odd kind of abstract:

21. WILLIAM HYDE (ROBERT V., ROBERT, HAMNET, ROBERT, THOMAS, HAMNET, JOHN, ROBERT, ROBERT, JOHN, JOHN, ROBERT, ROBERT, MATTHEW, JOHN, RALPH, JOHN, RALPH/GILBERT, JOHN, JOHN DE LA HYDE) was born Abt. 1569 in Norbury Chester, England, and died 1637 in Norwich, New London, Connecticut. This same WILLIAM was a founder of Hartford, Connecticut. He married (1) ELEANOR MOLINEUX Abt. 1588. He married (2) ELLEN STUBBS 21 Jul 1609 in Prestbury, Cheshire, England, daughter of WILLIAM CALVERLY and ELIZABETH SNEYDE. She was born Abt. 1573 in Norbury Chester, England, and died Unknown.

Closer to home, relatively, the fact of Hartford, Connecticut is a curious one. From both sides of my birth parentage, ties to early Connecticut, from Lt. Samuel Smyth as one of the founders of Wethersfield, and now this connection to Hartford. Can one feel a connection to a state one has never actually set foot in? My birth parents, who would have first encountered each other in or around Smiths Falls, Ontario in the late 1960s, both descending from particular and discontented Connecticut-specific Puritan threads. “Darlene’s Family Genealogy” offers this curious addendum of rather broad strokes: “Many families of the name of Hyde had been settled in different parts of England for five or six hundred years prior to the settlement of New England. One of the names, Sir Nicholas Hyde, was chief justice of the court of King’s Bench in 1626; another, Sir Robert Hyde, was chief justice of the court of common pleas in 1660. And a third, Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards the Earl of Clarendon, was lord chancellor at the restoration, 1660; and was the grandfather of Queen Mary the 2d, and Queen Ann, and of Edward hyde, Lord Cornbury, who was one of the provincial governors of New York.” Circling back to Connecticut, and William Hyde, the “Founders of Hartford” website provides:

The origin of William Hyde, and when he emigrated to the American colonies is unknown, but he was in Hartford as an original proprietor by 1639. In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he owned four parcels: four acres and two roods on which his dwelling house stood with other outhouses, yards, and gardens, located on the south side of the road from George Steele’s to the South Meadow; four acres in the South Meadow; two acres of meadow and swamp on the east side of the Great River; and three acres abutting on the road from George Steele’s to the Great Swamp. He does not appear to have held any public offices in Hartford.

He removed from Hartford to Saybrook fairly early, at least by 1652, when his daughter was married there. Thereafter he removed to Norwich in 1660, where he was among the thirty-five original proprietors of that town with his son Samuel and his son-in-law John Post.

He was a man of considerable importance among the settlers of Norwich, and was frequently elected as one of the selectmen.

Again we come across the repetitions of Hartford, and Norwich. As descendant Cliff McCarthy writes in the post “HYDE, William & wife” at the commonheros3 site: “He probably, however, came over in 1633 on the ship Griffin, with the Rev. Thomas Hooker, the first minister of Hartford, although there is no proof of this. After a brief sojourn at ‘Newtowne’ [now Cambridge] Mass., he removed with Rev. Hooker to Hartford, in 1636.” Newtowne, a town that also saw William Adams of Ipswich. McCarthy continues, a bit further on:

Norwich was settled in 1660. The 35 original proprietors of that town included William Hyde and his son, Samuel Hyde, and his son-in-law, John Post. Most of these original proprietors of Norwich were from Saybrook, and East Saybrook (now Lyme).

William Hyde was a man of considerable importance among the settlers of Norwich and was frequently elected as one of the townsmen. or selectmen. He died at Norwich 6 January 1681. His home lot was devised to his grandson, William Hyde, the second.

Incidentally, it may be worth noting that William Hyde is our common ancestor with two U.S. Presidents — Millard Fillmore was descended from William Hyde through his daughter Hester, and Grover Cleveland was descended from William through his son Samuel.

So much history I’d previously had such scant knowledge of, and now I’m deep in the thick of it: such paper trails as to be able to follow, and having enough experience to know how to properly decipher what might not be as clear. As Pastor Ian opens his lengthy presentation of Hyde research:

There is much debate as to the origin of the HYDE family before SIR JOHN DE LA HYDE (Abt. 1000 – Unknown). WILLIAM HYDE (1597 – 1680/81) and his heirs are said to be descended from the Holy Roman Emperor CHARLEMAGNE (Abt. 742 – 28 Jan 814) through the Barons ROGER BIGOD, HUGH BIGOD, JOHN DE LACIE, ROBERT FITZWALTER, WILLIAM DE MALET, SAIRE DE QUINCY, RICHARD DE CLARE, GILBERT DE CLARE, HENRY DE BOHUN, and ROBERT DE VERE. Since the first few generations in this list include the name RALPH, derived from the Old Norse RAŌULFR, it may be surmised that the original HYDEs were either Norse invaders, or the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of Britain during this time of Norse influence. However, adding to the confusion is the possibility that the first Ralph in the list was in England at the time of the invasion of William the Conqueror and may have held the Norman name GILBERT which was introduced to England at the same time.

Charlemagne. There’s always someone, eventually, who claims to emerge from Charlemagne, King of the Franks, King of the Lombards and Emperor of the Carolingian Empire, otherwise known as the Great White Whale of Genealogical Research. I suppose, why couldn’t I be as well? My immediate first thought is the wish that someone more experienced with the workings of genealogy perhaps look through his research (and mine, also). As well, I doubt that many of those claimants also cite an equal pride of descent from Charlemagne’s father, the awkwardly-named Pepin the Short (c. 714-768)—unless there was a “Pepin the Tall” or “Regular-Sized Pepin,” this seems needlessly dismissive—King of the Franks, and the first of his line to make king. While I’m not sure of his donation of pilfered lands that helped establish the legal basis of the Papal States, or his constant expansion, including attempting to put down the Germanic Tribes, but one can’t always choose family.