SECOND FAMILY OF MATHEW CHAPEL, Part 3

The second nagging question I have had since discovering that Mary had married a Ransford is whether this is the same family as our Edward Raynsford ancestor who came to Boston before 1630. I can give more information on Edward in a different post if anyone is interested. I have not voiced this question, except in passing to Chip when the discovery was made. It should be noted, or maybe yelled from every mountain top, that cousin Chip Fish and his wife Joan are wonderful researchers, and, I might add, wonderful hosts. We have spent two wonderful weekends exploring places they had already scoped out and trying to prove or disprove theories they had worked out. I just come at the end, take pictures, and get the glory for their work by publishing it. Our Raynsford (as it was spelled then) ancestry is another female one. We actually do have 3 male ancestors in this country before it becomes a totally matrilinear line. I was stumped as to how much effort I should give trying to trace the paternal line to Albert Ransford when he isn't even an ancestor, collateral or otherwise. We would be a cousin of Mary's if it was the same family, so that aspect greatly interests me. It is fun to see the ebb and flo of the fortunes of our ancestors, the marriages made in the various stages, and the proximity of the families of the marrying couples to each other. It is only because of all the intermarriages that we don't have zillions more cousins. I am digressing again. I posed my question to our newfound cousin Julie who promptly replied that yes, she is a descendant of Edward Raynsford. She thinks the name change was as the result of a family feud in the early 1800s. She is descended from Henry, John's brother. John, as you may remember, is Mary's father-in-law. Remember we are discussing Mary Chapel who married a Ransford, not the other Mary whose tombstone I photographed. That Mary remains as of yet unidentified. Julie sent me her line of descent from Edward Raynsford, and I computed that she and I are seventh cousins four times removed. So I have indeed found us a new cousin. Most interesting of all is that Mary Chapel and her husband Albert were fifth cousins twice removed--hardly a prohibited degree of consanguinity. Interesting though that both the Chapels and the Ransfords ended up in Kinderhook, a remote river town of the day. And this Chapter of the Mathew Chapel saga draws to an end.