Tracing the Finch line from England to A

William McBride

GEG US/CAN

Paper 10/12/2005



Family History Assignment: Tracing the Finch Line from England to America

Authors’ note: Being an avid history lover at heart, doing projects such as these have always been a matter of enjoyment for me. Looking back through time in order to see where we (my family) came from and what we were is something of a family hobby. My grandfather, Charles Finch, is quite the genealogy enthusiast, a trait he adopted from his father, and has written extensively on our family history, tracing it all the way back into Medieval England. It is a history heavily laden with interesting anecdotes, some of which are mentioned in this project. Although I have cited both my grandfather and great-grandfather for this paper, to give them each their proper due credit, I would like to mention that I could not have done this project without them. I would also like to mention, for matters of clarity, that although it is usually customary to follow paternal patterns when charting genealogy, I have opted to follow my maternal ancestry with the Finch line, simply as a matter of convenience.

In the year 1630 CE, Abraham Finch, previously of Yorkshire, England, and family set sail aboard the famous Winthrop Fleet for the New World. They landed at Salem, Massachusetts in mid-June, and promptly settled themselves in the Watertown region (The Winthrop Fleet of 1630. http://members.aol.com/dcurtin1/gene/winthrop.htm, Finch family genealogy). They had left England in order “to better themselves”(Charles Finch), although, on an interesting note, Finch family folklore has it that one of Abrahams’ sons, most likely John, the eldest, ran away with the daughter of an Earl and settled in America to escape his wrath. While there is no means of verification for this story, the Finch family did settle in the region, simply because it was “where the fleet landed” (Charles Finch.). My ancestors remained in the Massachusetts colony until the English acquired the New York region from the Dutch in 1664. An exact date is unknown, but my great-great-great grandfather’s brother, Solomon Finch, built the original family homestead on Seneca Lake, New York, east of the Himrods, Some branches of the family remained in Massachusetts, but most went to upstate New York, following similar immigration patterns for those of English descent. As Solomon had no children, the family line shifts focus to Azariah Finch, his younger brother. Azariah married Polly Lewis MacAlpine, of Scottish descent, and it from there that I directly trace my maternal lineage. The MacAlpine history is somewhat more vague. They came from Scotland sometime before the eighteenth century, although when and where they first settled is unknown, as are the reasons as to why they left Scotland. By the time of the Revolutionary War they had made their way into upstate New York. Another interesting family story worthy of note is that there were three MacAlpine brothers who first settled in the New York region. Their names are not mentioned in my family tree, and the fate of one is unknown. However, my great-grandfather gave mention to the other two in his account of our family history. During the Revolution, one brother was a “Tory”, and the other on the side of the colonists. The Tory was captured, and it was only through the intervention and good word of his Patriot brother that he was allowed to go free “with the warning that if he was captured again he might expect serious consequences” (Ray M. Finch, A Short History of the Finch Family). The only other information regarding the MacAlpine line worthy of note is that the entire family, with exception of the descendants of Azariah Finch and Polly Lewis MacAlpine, eventually fell victim to tuberculosis, and cannot be traced past 1812.
Most of the Finch family remained in upstate New York, although some branches moved on West (settling in Wisconsin) and South (unknown destination), where they fade from mention in my family history. As for those who remained in New York, many still do to this day. My mother was born in Norwich, the youngest of five children, and moved into Pennsylvania in 1986, three years after my birth. By this time only my grandparents and one aunt remained in New York State (of my direct relatives), as for the other three children, two also moved into Pennsylvania and one to Maine. By the early 1990's, my grandparents followed suite and left Norwich for Pennsylvania, and in 1995 my aunt Holly, who resided in Binghamton, moved to Virginia Beach.
English migration, in general, has been quite broad and expansive. The British founded a vast colonial empire, with holdings in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, and many other regions of the world. Immigrants to the New World (prior to the American Revolution) settled in primarily the New England region, my own family being of no exception. Reasons for this include foreign presence in other regions (French and Dutch further North, French, Spanish and Portugese further South), and the desire to set up strong, self-sufficient mercantalist economies with accessible sea routes and defensive basing. As mentioned earlier, the Finch family came to America during the “Great Migration”, a period of time where political and religious tensions and the promise of new found prosperity convinced many of English, Irish and Scot descent to leave their old homes and ways of life in the hope for something new and better. The history of the great migration (The Winthrop fleet of 1630) deals with the Separatists of England, also known as “Brownists” or “Independents”, who sought to escape religious and political pressures brought on by a schism from the Established Anglican Church, as well as to move beyond the confines of a strict yeoman socioeconomic status amidst the caste rankings of the English Manorial System. By 1629, there were only a few small, scattered settlements in New England. The original Puritan group at Plymouth, as well as the remnants of the colony at Salem and others were still intact, however, none of these settlements were thriving, and faced decay. It was during this time, back in England, that John Winthrop and others of the Massachusetts Bay Company were contemplating a new Puritan settlement. The Massachusetts Bay Company had, in 1628 under the name of the New England Company, obtained a charter to settle and govern the area from three miles south of the Charles River to three miles north of the Merrimack. In March of 1629, a week before King Charles dissolved his last Parliament, the New England Company obtained their royal charter confirming the grant, at which point they changed names to the Massachusetts Bay Company.
The Massachusetts Bay Company was largely successful, where so many others were not, because of the abilities of men like John Winthrop. Winthrop managed to find and take advantage of a small loophole in their charter dealing with powers of ownership and government over a specified area. Other chartered corporations had set in their charters meeting places for the government of their charters in English towns such as London or Plymouth. Intentionally or not, this charter had no mention of any specification of meeting place, a fact that Winthrop promptly took advantage of. This allowed for basically unfettered expansion, as well as near independent rule, and freedom in law making and religious practices. Winthrop was chosen Governor of the new colony, and headed the planning and arrangements for the entire expedition. On April 8, 1630, the flagship Arbella left England, and the fleet of eleven ships, the largest ever to transport Englishmen overseas to new frontiers, carrying approximately one thousand passengers, as well goods, livestock, seed, and other necessary supplies and provisions. The fleet arrived at their destination, Plum Cove (Salem, Mass.) on June 12, 1630. Out of an original compliment of approximately one thousand, two hundred died during the first winter spent in the new colony, and more later returned home to England. However, over the course of the following decade the colony grew and flourished, and thousands of new immigrants, inspired by the success of the colony, embarked from England, bringing with them desperately needed supplies, as well as providing a market for the crops that the earlier settlers had raised. The majority of the English settlers remained in the region (New England: the area that is present day southern New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania and regions south, as well as Virginia, parts of Canada and holdings in the East Indies), and many, like my ancestors, spread into what is now New York State after the Dutch yielded the region in 1664. The population of the New York region was a mixture of Dutch, French, English and German immigrants (Regional Geography of the United States and Canada, New York State Guide, Migration and Origins of the English Atlantic World). After the American Revolution, many of English descent loyal to the Crown, called “Tories”, such as mentioned earlier in the case of the MacAlpine Brothers, left the area for Canada, as did the French. The Dutch, who were seemingly happier under English style rule and law (Colonial History: New York, http://www.usahistory.info/colonies/New-York.html), remained, as did the majority of those with British heritage loyal to the newly found United States. My family followed these general patterns of migration throughout their history, up until they no longer considered themselves English, but American.