my illustrious New England ancestry

[spatch]

The surname Noyes comes from the French village Noyers and with it, a noble family who went by the surname De Noyers. The family split apart during the Hundred Years' War. Those family members who sided with the English eventually left France for England, changing their surname to "de Noyes", which eventually became just Noyes.

In 1634, two brothers, Nicholas and James Noyes, of Cholderton, Wiltshire, England, embarked from Southampton on the ship Mary and John bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They landed at Nantasket (present-day Hull, Massachusetts) in May of that year. From there they moved to Ipswich and, in the spring of 1635, travelled a little bit further up the North Shore to help settle the town of Neweberry (now known as Newbury Old Town.) Tradition has it that Nicholas was the first to disembark when they landed on the north shore of the Parker River, near the present-day Route 1A bridge between Rowley and Newbury Old Town. (Apparently there is a marker near there commemorating the landing; some day I shall have to go out and see if I can find it.)

In 1637, Nicholas Noyes walked from Newbury to Cambridge to take the Freeman's Oath, thereby becoming a full citizen of the colony. He then exercised his new rights as a citizen to vote for Governor John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in what was one of Winthrop's many re-elections.

Nicholas' wife, Mary, was brought before the court in 1652 in violation of the Sumptuary Law of 1651, an Elizabethan mandate which restricted the "sumptuousness of dress" -- obstensibly to ensure that private fortunes were not squandered on frivolous goods, but more importantly to reassert and reinforce the class differences that society considered so vitally important in maintaining the status quo. (Translation: If you were poor, you were forbidden to look as if you were rich.) Mary stood accused of wearing a silk hood and scarf, but was acquitted on proof that her husband was worth at least £200.

Nicholas was a hardy and busy fellow: he managed the town of Newbury's move from the banks of the Parker River to a site up north closer to the Merrimac (where it still stands today), he was sworn clerk of the Newbury market, built the first schoolhouse, served as the Commissioner to End Small Causes (basically a local justice) as well as deputy to the General Court. He died at the ripe old age of 86 with a legacy, his son wrote, "...of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren above one hundred."

Of his thirteen named children, nine lived well into their sixties, with three living into their eighties. Only one (or two) died in infancy. The first was named and lived to be almost two; records show an fourteenth unnamed child born in 1667, but with no further mentions. Presumably this child died before it could be baptized -- you'll often find family plots in the older New England cemetaries with small headstones marked simply "SON" or "DAUGHTER".

His most famous child was his son, the Reverend Nicholas Noyes. This Nicholas graduated from Harvard in 1667, became minister of Salem in 1682, and played quite an active role in the prosecution of those accused during the Salem Witchcraft Trials. On July 19, 1692, five women were hanged in Salem; one of them, Sarah Good, not only refused to confess, but also refused to pray for the forgiveness of the accusers. When the Reverend Noyes implored her to confess, saying he knew she was a witch, Sarah replied "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink."

Although Rev. Noyes would later recant, repent and regret his participation in the persecutions, he died in 1717 of a massive hemmorhage -- choking, legend has it, on his own blood.

Comments

[juldea.livejournal.com]

My last name means either "pig keeper" or "one with some characteristics of a pig" in Welsh.

Your ancestry is cooler-sounding. Oink.

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

That is some cool history. I wish I knew that much about my lineage.

[ron_newman]

I'm impressed that someone walked all the way from Newbury to Cambridge just to register to vote.

[spatch]

He was not alone on his trek. Seven other townmembers walked with him, all to take the oath and vote. Even so, Nicholas was a hardy fellow; he managed the town of Newbury's move from the banks of the Parker River to a site up north closer to the Merrimac (where it still stands today), he was sworn clerk of the Newbury market, built the first schoolhouse, served as the Commissioner to End Small Causes (basically a local justice) as well as deputy to the General Court. He died at the ripe old age of 86 with a legacy, his son wrote, "...of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren above one hundred."

Of his thirteen named children, nine lived well into their sixties, with three living into their eighties. Only one (or two) died in infancy. The first was named and lived to be almost two; records show an fourteenth unnamed child born in 1667, but with no further mentions. Presumably this child died before it could be baptized -- you'll often find family plots in the older New England cemetaries with small headstones marked simply "SON" or "DAUGHTER".

Nearly 400 years later, the proud hardy Noyes stock lives on; I once walked from Newbury Street to Cambridge, a distance of a few blocks longer than 364 1/4 Smoots (plus one ear.)

[spatch]

I added a bit of this to the original text, cause it's cool.

[ron_newman]

I'd love to know why they didn't ride horses, but I guess we'll never find out.

[spatch]

I've got two theories: The first was that they just didn't have any. Horses really didn't become common in New England until around the 1700s. According to this history, the first horses to arrive in the colonies were some Flemish draft horses around 1625, with English horses beginning to appear from 1629 onwards.

As a commodity, horses were rare and very expensive; importing one from England even moreso. They weren't bred colonially until the mid-1600s, when Rhode Island farms began breeding Narragansett Pacers for export. The Quarter and Morgan horse breeds didn't come along until the 1700s, either.

The second theory is that the land route from Newbury to Cambridge may have ventured through still-uncolonized wilderness; what roads there were at the time were pretty much dirt paths through the woods. Saddle horses such as the Narragansett Pacer would have been the primary mode of transportation along these rough routes, but again, those guys made the trek in 1637, and (going along with theory 1) the still-developing village of Neweberry may not have had eight saddle horses to give up for a long, mass trip -- or not had eight saddle horses at all.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Also, if you're making an overland journey of any distance, and don't want to wear your expensive horse out, you spend at least as much time walking and leading the horse as you do riding - particularly on rough trails. (I'm guessing that New England didn't have too many post-horses in 1637). The horse mostly speeds you up by carrying all your stuff. Even if they did take horses, 'walked' would probably have been a better description than 'rode'.

[ron_newman]

by the way, there's a Jesse Noyes who writes for the Herald. Any known relation to you?

[spatch]

Not directly (I'm the only Noyes of my immediate family's generation) but I am sure if I trace down the family tree far enough, I'll find the branch that leads to his side.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

My Italian family's last name (my grandmother's maiden name) means 'the Syrian', so at some point we had an ancestor from the Middle East.

I don't know if we have anyone really interesting or notorious back there, though.

[campion7.livejournal.com]

Heh! My surname means "keeper of the stables."

Translation: Shit shoveler. :)

Yours definitely sounds a lot cooler. (Note to self: Research the Stabler family line relating to the midwest railroads.)

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

And here I thought Noyes was an English coinage meaning "indecisive."

[spatch]

I have mentioned my nickname at work is "No-Yes", haven't I? It's a necessary evil as we've got several R-names all working in close proximity to each other.

I'm waiting for them to start cutting my paychecks under that moniker.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

It's great that you have so much detail! Any idea why some of you sided with the English?

Someone traced a whole bunch of info on my father's family, even finding a family crest (a bombastic nouveau-riche type thing with bunches of grapes all over it -- apparently we had some vineyards and were quite chuffed about them). The only interesting ancestors (to me anyway) are a pair of sisters -- one was a painter who hung out with Hans Christian Andersen's set for a while, and the other, funnily enough, was quite a successful opera singer and sang a lot of Mozart. :)

[spatch]

An opera singer in your lineage? I never would've guessed. ;)

Not sure what precipitated the split. In fact, I'm not sure which village named Noyers in France is my ancestral village, but I'm reasonably sure it's an ancient town in the Yonne département of Bourgogne, founded just around the time the Romans smacked the Gauls around a bit (Asterix must've been busy elsewhere.) It's now known as Noyers-sur-Serein and features a beautiful medieval castle, apparently.

Had the town been down in the southwestern tip of France, it would've been under English occupation before the Hundred Years' War and would have made explaining the split possibly easier.

Noyer, as a verb, means "to drown." Not very pleasant; however, noyer as a noun means "walnut tree." Sounds like something a village would be named after.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

Yes, a name that basically means "we're the folks from the place with all the walnut trees, come to use for all your brownie-additive needs" makes a lot more sense than "we're the family that drowns -- well, not all of us, obviously, but a significant enough number that we named ourselves after the trait".

My name's been through some language morph from Romance through Germanic, so any sense it might once have had has long been lost as far as I know.

[spatch]

Yes, a name that basically means "we're the folks from the place with all the walnut trees, come to use for all your brownie-additive needs"

I think this needs to be my new family motto. A very rudimentary English to Latin translator is breaking down and crying when I try even "We are the family with the walnut trees" so I guess it'll have to wait. Besides, it would never fit on a crest.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

If you use it, can you do it without the typo? Um, thanks. *blush*

Maybe you just need to include a plate of brownies in one of the quadrants of your new crest?

[spatch]

Best I could get was Nos es prosapia per nux gallica nemus. Peto nos sicco ut vos es crustulum vegrandis laganum. which was roughly "We are the family with the nut trees. Seek us out when you are cooking tiny cakes."

The translator didn't like "brownies", "walnut", "nut" or "chocolate". I found "nux Gallica" at the Wikipedia entry for walnut and pasted it in over "nut" so it's probably in the wrong case. Didn't have enough Latin to figure out the declension on this one.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

I don't have any Latin to speak of, so it looks grand to me!

Do you think the translator would have had better luck with "Nux Gallica! Get yer nux Gallica right here!"

*valiantly resisting "all your nux gallica are belong to us" or variant on "eatin ur nux gallica*

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Which could be translated literally as "nutter", which via Gaiman and Pratchett brings us back to the witch trials.

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool! You're an actual old New England blue blood, like Lovecraft, but without the unfortunate racial views.
You're now one of 2 people I know with dead interesting family histories...

[limax.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks for the look into your heritage.

BTW... my surname means 'Son of John'... how exciting is that?

[ckd]

Bring in de Noyes! Bring in da Funk!

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

Ever since I learned your last name, I never looked at the Noyes stop on the CTA's Purple Line the same way again.

[ron_newman]

and just two stops from Davis!

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Heyspatch, totally off the topic, but you're on the b0st0n community and all, right? Would it be weird if I posted the open flash job thingy on there?

[spatch]

Well, it may help; a lot of people read b0st0n, presumably including Flash gurus seeking a spot of work. I can't guarantee an entirely snark-free thread below the ad, but I would expect interested people to ask about rates and whatnot.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Are you enough of a regular that it would look better coming from you? I don't want to set off spam alarms.

[spatch]

Nah, it wouldn't be seen as spam. There've been job offers posted before. At least you're not trying to sell your Celtics tickets, of all things, at a premium.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Okay, done and done. Thank you, sir.

[spatch]

I've got your six, Maverick!

[allicat42.livejournal.com]

Some 3-4 years ago, I stumbled on the right link - a gencircles.com thing done by a 4th cousin (while randomly inputting names off a family reunion history into Google) and found out I was related to William Brewster of the Mayflower. Which also makes me something like 5th cousin 6 times removed to Zachary Taylor.

Ever since I read this post some few hours ago, I've been searching again. I have a 7th cousin once removed with the same first name with me, but her grandfather's email doesn't work no more. So I'm about to email a different 7th cousin.

[allicat42.livejournal.com]

Strike that - it was someone else's email that didn't work. Off to email that 6th cousin once removed. Or try to anyway.

[spatch]

Talk of all these cousins reminds me of Katamari Damacy.

[ron_newman]

I wonder at what point the pronunciation was shifted from (presumably) N'WAH to NOISE.

[spatch]

Most likely once it was Anglicized. There was also a surname etymology site which told me Noyes could have very well been a corruption of "Noe's", Noe itself being a corruption of Noah. I could see the two pronunciations and spellings getting together and coming up with the noisy homonym.

[allicat42.livejournal.com]

*suddenly has the following stuck in her head:*

Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
Moses he knowses his toeses aren't roses,
As Moses supposes his toeses to be!
Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
A mose is a mose!
A rose is a rose!
A toes is a toes!
Hooptie doodie doodle
Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
For Moses he knowses his toeses arent roses,
As Moses supposes his toeses to be!
Moses
(Moses supposes his toeses are roses)
Moses
(Moses supposes erroneously)
Moses
(Moses supposes his toeses are roses)
As Moses supposes his toeses to be!
A Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is
A rose is what Moses supposes his toes is
Couldn't be a lily or a daphi daphi dilli
It's gotta be a rose cuz it rhymes with mose!
Moses!
Moses!
Moses!
(Dance Sequence)
AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

[redtheblue.livejournal.com]

My last name means "rocky field". I come from a lineage of farmers. We never got to be big farmers, surprisingly.