Mary Tuspaquin, Wampanoag - Parentage unknown

I found this, it’s fascinating. She existed, there’s a valid genealogy here, she has been put to the wrong parents.

1. Pierce, Ebenezer Weaver, Mitchell, Zerviah G., Indian History, Biography and Genealogy: Pertaining to the Good Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag Tribe, and His Descendants, David Clapp & Sons; Boston, Mass., USA; 1878, p. 213; GoogleBooks

But she was used in the Bearse fraud. I’ll post more after uploading.

So this profile was debunked by Jacobus.

Mary Sissel

He was scathing.
According to Donald Lines Jacobus:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bearse-22#Disputed_Native_American_Re...

”Finally, we come to the account of Josiah3 Bearse, son of Joseph2 and Martha (Taylor) Bearse.

”The Bearce manuscript states that be married first, Nov. 1716, Zerviah Newcomb, "By Whom he had no Children"; and that he married second, 1718 at Mashpee, Mary Sissell, mother of all his eleven children. She is described as a full blood Indian princess (another princess), daughter of Isaac Sissell, a Momenet Sagamore, by his wife Mary Tuspuquin, daughter of Watuspuquin-Black William, Sachem at Nahant, by his wife Amie, full blood Indian princess, daughter of Massasoit …

”… So! Are we to believe that the legal wife and widow served as co-administrator on Josiah's estate with his eldest son by a concubine? Are we to believe that one of the younger sons by the concubine chose the legal wife for his guardian, calling her "his mother," and that Zerviah and the Court accepted the choice? And are we to believe that distributors, appointed by the Court, distributed Josiah's estate after his lawful widow's death to his illegitimate children? Such preposterous conclusions are forced upon us if we accept the statements made in Mr. Bearse's manuscript, "Who Our Forefathers Really Were."

—-

If we accept Jacobus (and of course we should) then the family of Josiah Bearse & Zerviah Bearse need to be fixed.

That is done.

There’s a record contradiction here:

https://www.nanations.com/massasoit/childrens-children.htm

Mary married Isaac Sissel and had three children, Mary, Mercy and Arabella. The family tradition says that two of them died in infancy; but in 1764, Mary and Mercy were on the reservation.

Got me!

Private User to get back to your “ Mary Tuspaquin” query, according to Peirce -

https://books.google.com/books?id=6c0pAAAAYAAJ&dq=ebenezer%20peirce...

Mary Sissell Was the daughter of Sachem Benjamin l ‘Squinnaway’ Tuspaquin & Weecum Tuspaquin

There were several copies of her on Geni in wrong places, the MP is sourced.

You've definitely run with this, and I really appreciate it!

Can you help me see where you've found a surname, dates, and locations for Amie, daughter of Ousamequin (Massasoit)? I believe you; I just can't find it. The Native Northeast group is fantastic and they don't have anything, which makes me think it doesn't appear in any primary records from the Wampanoag themselves -- but maybe there's something else out there. If we're going to argue beyond the tribal records, I'd just like to state our source specifically.

Amie's profile says she has 5,981 descendants (waaaay too many), but when I click her descendants list, I see 33. I'm assuming you must've already found the problematic lines and cut them, and the site just hasn't caught up?

(The reason "Ousamequin" is a red flag for me in particular is that it was Massasoit's actual given name, meaning "yellow feather." Algonquin patronymics typically don't just repeat the father's name; the most common approach is to shorten the father's name in some fashion. So that's part of why I'm extra curious. Amie Ousa or Amie Mequin would be more plausible...maybe this is why the Native Northeast group just goes with "Amie." :))

It’s very weird because I don’t recall touching Amie at all and I don’t see a merge that dragged in a birth surname. It certainly was not deliberate; there’s no such thing as a surname for native Americans this early. I do see the Ousamequin with my name attached and that’s a Geni lie. :). Take it out and add to AKA, please: I saw you were working on the profile so actively stayed away, to be honest.

I think it was hanging out in unresolved data conflicts and has my name attached I resolved them yesterday, and didn’t see when I double checked, because I saw display name.

Revision histories have been so strange for months! I've re-blanked and locked the data fields other than her name and AKAs. We can keep her "after" death date since it's not wrong; we just don't know anything precise.

Speaking of names, Amie’s mother’s name is unknown, as far as I can tell. Geni had had “Queen Saunka” and the Saunka name is attached at Wikitree as Wamsutta’s mother without citation. I’m quite sure Massasoit had “wives” plural - Edward Winslow noted them - but no names or clarity on who was mother of whom. Am I right?

And can we take out the Wampanoag suffixes and put them in the ethnicity field? I don’t think we need it as part of name unless that’s a historic “display name.”

We should make sure about Zerviah Mitchell

http://nemasket.blogspot.com/2011/01/visit-to-zerviah-gould-mitchel...

Mrs. Mitchell was born July 24, 1807, and her parents were Brister Gould and Phebe Wamsley. Her mother was daughter of Wamsley and Lydia Tuspaquin; Lydia descended from Benjamin Tuspaquin, son of Benjamin Tuspaquin, or otherwise called the Black Sachem and one of King Philips most able generals. He married Amie, whose Indian name is lost to us, youngest daughter of Massasoit, chief of the powerful Wampanoags. Thus Mrs. Mitchell is the great-great-great grand-daughter of Massasoit. She is also descended from John Sassamon, the well known Christian Indian, who became a preacher to the Indians, under John Eliot. Having warned the Puritans of King Philips designs upon them, he was soon after murdered by his countrymen for his treachery to their cause.

Descent looks good.

Amie, daughter of Massasoit is Zerviah (Gould) Mitchell's third great grandmother.

https://www.geni.com/path/Zerviah-Mitchell+is+related+to+Amie-daughter-of-Massasoit?from=6000000036486839854&path_type=blood&to=6000000013762972823

Zerviah (Gould) Mitchell

  →  Phebe (Wamsley) Gould 

her mother → Lydia Tuspaquin
her mother → Benjamin ll ‘Squinnamy Ousquinnamy’ Tuspaquin
her father → Sachem Benjamin l ‘Squinnaway’ Tuspaquin
his father → Amie, daughter of Massaso

You're moving infinitely faster than I am. :) I still haven't had time to wrap up Amie's profile! Give me a day or two...busy weekend. But I do believe you're right, that the mothers of the children aren't known.

"And can we take out the Wampanoag suffixes and put them in the ethnicity field? I don’t think we need it as part of name unless that’s a historic “display name.”"

Do you remember the Great Native American Naming Conventions War of 2011? If you've forcibly blocked out all memory of it, I don't blame you. :) The end conclusion, which the wonderful Marv led us to, was that we should not put tribal names in the suffix or display name and should instead use the "Ethnicity" field as intended. We had seemingly all agreed on that for years, and then within the past few years, suddenly they started appearing again in a few areas of the tree. I am 1000000% in favor of you pulling them out -- you'll note that I pulled it from Amie's name -- so I say go for it. (My thought is always: would we ever use "Thomas Alexander, Scot" or "Bridget Pivirotto, Irish-American/Italian-American" or "Martin Scheinblum, Jew"?)

Also based on those conversations, we'd have gone with something like "Ousamequin, Wampanoag Massasoit," since "Massasoit" was his title within the Wampanoag. Ten years later, I'd refine it to "Ousamequin (Massasoit), sachem of the Pokanoket," since it's a bit clearer and more specific.

But for Native folks without titles, like Amie, I'd just use their name, and maybe append something (like ", son of Uncas" or ", of Nameaug") if it's especially important to know or could help people search.

Oh, this is too funny: Marv actually used Massasoit as an example in the naming conventions!

1. The names in Native American Sources, overrule those in non Native American sources
2. Original Native American Names before 1620 will only be one Name. This name goes in the "First Name " block and the Middle and last Name is left blank.
3. The Suffix may contain a special "thing " about the person, Uka, Chief and Principal Chief is common. Also a village may be indicated as in "Him-he-is, of my village"
4. If known the name should be hyphenated correctly
5. Any variations of the name is to be put in the AKA
6. The Ethnicity block (under the Personal tab) should contain the information in your source. Please do not guess at Tribe or clan/band etc. . If it is not in you source just list what you know. Fully it may look like "Wampanoag, Pokanoket , Paint" This information may be included in the "about" also if you wish.
7. The display name is very important. Many times this is the "common name" or "nickname" of the person. a good example of this is "Massasoit Osamequin" (display name) but the name would be input "Osamequin, Massasoit" with several AKA (nicknames)

(I see we've also not updated the slavery conventions in a long time. We used to say "Ned, slave of Agnes Witt"; now we'd say "Ned, enslaved by Agnes Witt." I tried to get those updated two years ago but hesitated when only two people weighed in...maybe it's time to overhaul that, too.)

Yes, I thought I was still more or less following Marv’s conventions. There have been few managers / updates in this particular area, so it’s a good time to clean up.

This is fun. Massasoit is considered Royalty in genealogy.

• Americans of Royal Descent. edited by Charles Henry Browning. Pedigree XXlX. GoogleBooks

Yes, the Wampanoag genealogies written by white guys in the late 1800s and early 1900s fixate on the dying out of "the royal line."

There are two Wampanoag groups that say they directly descend from Massasoit; they aren't recognized by other Wampanoags or any government (or each other). One of them appears to be using Franklyn Bearse for their claims.

Other than that, the most recent Massasoit genealogy I personally know of is the Weeks one from 1920. Weeks appears to agree with Peirce that at that time, Massasoit's descendants were down to five:

General Ebenezer W. Peirce in his "Indian History, Biography and Genealogy" traces the descent of these three women from Benjamin Tuspaquin, giving names in each successive generation, and mentioning another sister, Emma J., who married Jacob C. Safford and had two children living at the time of the writing of his book in 1878. I am recently in receipt of a communication from Charlotte L. Mitchell, the Wootonekanuske named in the resolve quoted above, in answer to an inquiry, in which she writes that one of these children, Helen G. Safford is still living, but is confined in a hospital for the insane. She also speaks of her own brother Alonzo as still living, unmarried and in feeble health. Of the three annuitants above named, Zerviah Robinson was born (Mitchell) June 17, 1828, Teeweleema (known as Melinda) April 11, 1836, and Wootonekanuske (known as Charlotte L.), my correspondent, November 2, 1848.

So if these five are all the living descendants of Massasoit, as Peirce asserts, the royal line will become extinct in the next generation.

I've moved "Wampanoag Niantic" (which is really two tribes) to Mary Sissel's ethnicity field for you.

I just entered Zerviah’s children.

More bogosity!

Anne Starkweather (I’m about to disconnect as child of Metacomet "King Philip")

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-384527

Native American Heritage

I have found no proof that Anna was not a Native American. I have found no proof that she was not the daughter of Metacom, aka King Philip. However, I have also found no proof that Anna was a Native American. There is a lot of family tradition and speculation on the internet stating she was the daughter of King Philip, but no quality sources have been found.

Let's look at some of the issues around these claims.

Last name. Various "sources" on the internet list Anna's last name at birth, or current last name, or also known as, as "Philip", or "King", or "Woodbury". No quality sources are included in these statements. The current convention on G2G for Native Americans without a last name at birth is to use the tribe's name as the last name. I'm not sure where the name "Woodbury" came from as no documentation has been found. A couple of trees reference the Woodbury family, descendants of the Pilgrims. This doesn't make sense if the purpose is to show Anna as a Native American. Was she Native American descent, or Pilgrim descent? The use of the names "Philip" or "King" apparently is trying to tie her to Metacom who is also known as Pometacom and King Philip. Metacom and his older brother Wamsutta received their English names about the year 1656. The governor of Plymouth gave the name of Alexander to Wamsutta and Philip to Metacom.[9][Book III, p 3]. It wasn't until later that Philip became known as "King Philip". This misuse of names only confuses the issue of Metacom's last name at birth and the various last names for Anna.
Poor, or no sources, for the claim of Native American Ancestry for Anna. The majority of the claims of Native American ancestry for Anna point to "ancestry trees" or other such sites on the internet. Attempts to locate these sources lead to trees that in turn point to another tree on the internet or the referenced tree is no longer on the internet. One of the most definitive statements on Anna's possible ancestry came from an article King Philip's War (1675-1676 in The Patriot Files. It states, "In Stonington, Connecticut, selectman John Starkweather married his Christianized captive." No sources for this statement are included in the article and attempts to reach the author have not been successful.
Another "source" that several online trees point to is the article Indian Prentices Descended from King Philip by Linus Joseph Dewald Jr. In his article he states the "material was posted by Jana Countryman at Ancestry.com". Attempts to contact Jana Countryman at Ancestry.com and through web searches, and to contact Joseph Dewald Jr., have not been successful. The article states that "Wampanoag Sachem (aka King Philip)" had a daughter "Anne Philip (aka Ann Woodbury Phillips), b. 1655 in or near Pokanoket, Bristol Twp., Bristol Co., RI, and d. bef. 11 Jul 1727 in Preston, New London Co., CT. . . She m. John Starkweather in Preston, New London Co., CT." Again, the only reference is to Ancestry.com where searches for quality sources were fruitless. Haviland-437 14:19, 12 July 2017 (EDT)

Update on the Indian Prentices Descended from King Philip source: Received an email dated 10 Aug 2017 as follows. Haviland-437 16:39, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
"I apologize for the delay in responding to your email.
I've added a "Note" at the bottom of the article indicating there is no sourcing available for the information in the article. And I'm afraid that I do not have any additional information about the marriage of John Starkweather and Anna.
Best wishes,
Joe Dewald
Editor, Prentice Newsletter"
So was Anna a Native American? No quality sources have been found. Is the information on the web (e.g., PrenticeNet and Patriot Files) speculation and fictional accounts to "make" Anna the daughter of King Philip? Difficult to say without access to the sources used in the articles. How could John Starkweather have met a daughter of King Philip if they lived a hundred miles apart? Well, John must have met/captured(?) her during a military campaign in the area. Why was Anna disciplined by the church? It must be because she was a Native American and not use to the "civilized" ways of the English. It's hard to disprove these statements, but that doesn't make them true.

Dr. Carlton Lee Starkweather in his Starkweather genealogy states concerning John Starkweather's wife Ann, "Ann . . . who is said by a most improbable tradition to be a descendant of the old Narragansett, King Philip."[5][p 17]

Genealogy without sources is mythology.

Without speculation we know nothing of Anna's parentage and early childhood.
What do we know about Metacom (King Philip) and his family?

METACOM,2 alias Pometacom, who accepted from the English the name of Philip, but now better known in history as KING PHILIP. . . . He m. Wootonekanuske, a sister of Weetamoo. . . . He had a son whose name at this time cannot be certainly ascertained. This son, while yet a child, was captured by the English and sold into slavery.[10][p 210]
He had a wife and nine year old son who were captured by the English and sold into slavery. August 1, 1676, Wootonekanuse, the wife of King Philip, and their son about nine years of age, together with divers other Indian women and children, were taken prisoners by the English.[10][p 151][9][p 40]

Go good grief there’s an entire fake Philip / Pokanoket family.

Wootonckuaske

I’ll try to undo merge.

Are you okay with me changing any locked fields, by the way? I'm finally able to sit down and do actual work, so I'd like to update Massasoit's fields to match Native Northeast, but I don't want to mess anything up.

Of course update.

Thanks! Working on that...and in the meantime, we should cut and isolate Massasoit's parents, who only seem to exist in on-line trees. Only reason I'm not doing it myself is that you have the father MPed.

(My favorite finding so far is that each tree showing them traces back to one tree that uses PDFs of e-mail forwards for its sources.)

(or I guess maybe just change them to "unknown")

I have plenty isolated MPs, don’t ever let that stop a genealogy fix. Please go forward.

This is King Philip’s disconnected family, if they ring any bells for anyone. He is thought to have had one son, sold as a child into slavery, and we know no more.

Pokanoket Philip

Careful with disconnects - Quadiquina “is” a brother of Ousamequin (Massasoit), sachem of the Pokanoket according to Mort’s Relation:

https://blogs.uoregon.edu/honoringtriballegacies/primary-sources/mo...

Plymouth Colony authorities, William Bradford and Edward Winslow, describe the first interaction with the Massasoit and Quadequina (brothers and members of the Wampanoag Nation). This is an excerpt from part I of Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims as Plymouth, published in London in 1622. Parenthetical explanations by Stephanie Wood. A “relation” in this case means a “journal” or a narrative account. It comes from the verb, to “relate” something, as in to tell something.

“Thursday, the 22nd of March [1621], was a very fair warm day. About noon we met again about our public business, but we had scarce been an hour together, but Samoset came again, and Tisquantum, the only native of Patuxet, where we now inhabit, who was one of the twenty captives that by [Thomas] Hunt were carried away [i.e. taken captive, enslaved], with three others, and they brought with them some few skins to truck [i.e. trade], and some red herrings newly taken and dried, but not salted, and signified unto us, that their great sagamore Massasoit was hard by [i.e. nearby], with Quadequina his brother, and all their men. …

http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/mourt1.html

Yep, that's why I caught myself and suggested changing to "unknown" instead.

One of Massasoit's sons/King Philip's brothers went to Harvard. Pretty cool.

(To this day, I do not understand why we have so many things in my county named after King Philip and Metacomet. They weren't from here! Never even visited!)

Hah! Good thing I checked for more recent scholarship: Sunconewhew is *not* a son of Massasoit. He was a "brother of Phillip the Councillor," not King Philip. So now we have to find that guy...

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=bmas -- p. 17 of the PDF

What's odd here is that even the Yale project gets it wrong. In their defense, they compiled their records prior to this article's publication, so they probably just haven't caught up yet.