Our Fowler research began with the “innocent” question, “Who was the first Fowler of our line in North America?”  We were fortunate to have the bare bones of the Fowler family tree, given to us by granddad O.S. and Uncle Frank Fowler (both shown in the Fowler document linked below). This Fowler family of Gratiot and Isabella Counties in central Michigan had their roots in early colonial America, probably starting in Rhode Island, then moving to Vermont, New York, then to Michigan, a superb example of the history of American pioneers. Other lines started in New England and moved to Ohio or Indiana or both, one into Canada briefly. The search for the Fowler "immigrant ancestor" has taken us from family lore, to Ancestry.com libraries of records, down wrong trails, to dusty history books, to historical societies, to lots of old cemeteries, and to DNA labs. And so far, we have not been able to answer what "should" have been an easy question.

 

Tom's paternal ancestral surnames include Fowler, Harrison, Parrish, Hearn, Brooks, Baughman, Eddy, Bartlett, Rice, and Comer, among many others. Despite all the paternal ancestral lines being documented in our Ancestry.com database, we discovered that our younger family members were not really interested in hearing all the cool stories we had to tell about their ancestors. That was when we realized we would have to write it all out. Since Tom's paternal lineage was our first publication, and it was quite a lot shorter back in its first version, we published it all as one document, with no separate chapters (or separate pdf files) devoted to various lines. Instead it was divided into chapters by generation -- from Tom's 4th great-grandfather Abel Fowler in chapter 1, to grandfather O.S. Fowler in chapter 5, through about 200 years. In each generation's chapter, the Fowler man's wife's family is also examined, taking each branch of her line back as far as possible -- for many, to their arrival in the American colonies.  As we dug deeper, the text got longer and longer..... Who knew back then that saga would grow to be so long, over 200 pages in the last version?  So you will find, below, that we have now divided out some of the longer chapters about the lineages of women who married Fowler men -- in particular, Nellie Pearl Brooks, in a chapter about the Books, Bartletts, Rices, etcetera.

Though we don't have the answer to that first question, we have reached back in time back to name a couple who had been unnamed before we started this research: Tom's 4th great-grandparents Abel Fowler (1781-1862) and Mary Eddy (1789 or '90 - 1827).  Abel was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Using DNA testing, we also located another man, Samuel Fowler (1765-1846), also born in South Kingstown, R.I., whose descendants' Y-DNA matches that of Tom so closely that geneticists tell us they had a common ancestor in the last 200 years. In the text, we discuss early Fowlers in the colonies at some length and make a hypothesis of Abel and Samuel's relationship.

 

Although we cannot say with any certainty who the male ancestors of these two men were and when they might have arrived in the colonies, we DID learn that almost all of the other European immigrant lines that went into "our" Fowler lineage, with a few notable exceptions such as the German Baughmans and Comers/Gaumers, arrived in the American Colonies in the 1600's, probably from England, and included some Mayflower passengers and other famous early colonial leaders.  Initially surprised by how special this sounded to today’s ears, we have come to understand that THESE WERE OUR PEOPLE. They did not marry Italians or Irish or Scots because those groups were not here yet.  They married one another and pretty much, when we investigated the lineages, we found that all the lines stretched back to the “first man to settle in XX town” in what are now New England states. And, ahem, a couple of those earlier settlers claimed royal blood! (You will have to read the story to learn which...)

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We are not completely sure of Mary Eddy's parentage but we know some things about her for certain (as certain as we can be). We also explore her Eddy roots in the Fowler document.

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We have not yet tackled turning Tom's maternal side in prose (yet), but the Harrisons are well represented in our comprehensive Ancestry.com database due largely to deep work done by Tom's Aunt Margie Harrison Bebow.

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The following choices will take you the histories of parts of the Fowler family or to PDF files generated from "Family Tree Maker" software (see FTM REPORTS below).

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Please feel free to right-click and save to your computer for posterity.

It is why we wrote them!!

The "version" will be reflected in the revised-on date at the bottom of each page.

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The Fowlers
The story of "our" Fowler lineage and also of the families into which they married, from Abel Fowler and Mary Eddy, to O.S. Fowler and Dora Alice Parrish, except for the Brooks line. It also includes the results of Y-DNA testing we have done.

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Descendants of Abel Fowler (1781-1864) and his two wives

Descendants of William Eddy (1559-1616) and Mary Fosten
Descendants of Edward Parrish (1605-1679)

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Abel Fowler's Will and codicil

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The Brooks

This document explores the Brooks line which led to Elisha Hall Brooks and his daughter Nellie Pearl Brook, who married Anson James Fowler in 1893 in Mount Pleasant, Isabella County, Michigan. 

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For a PDF copy of Lawrence Sonley's book, offered with permission of the author, "Brooks, Genealogy of a Family of that Name, A Roster of Fifteen Generations", read (click) or download (right click and choose "save link as") the above link

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Descendants of Henry Brooks (1592-1683) and Grace Wheeler

Descendants of Roswell Bartlett (1780-1866) and Olive Rice

Descendants of Edmund Rice (1594-1663)

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FTM report:

15 generations of Ancestors of Thomas Lee Fowler (including his maternal side)

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