A TWISTED FAMILY TREE

My 3rd great-grandfather, Lewis Thorp was a pioneer. He was born on 19 March 1798, in North Haven, Connecticut. Lewis was just a year old in 1799 when his family left Connecticut and headed into pioneer country in the Western Reserve of Ohio. Later they lived in Buffalo, New York. 

His father died in 1813, massacred by the Indians. Without a father to provide for them, the five youngest children were placed under court appointed guardianship until age 21. All the children stayed up north, either in New York or in Michigan. 


All except Lewis. 

He went to Missouri, which had just become a state. In 1821, Lewis married Ann Preston. Ann was the daughter of Jonathan and Mary Preston from Virginia. They had been in Missouri since 1803. 

Ann Preston had five children with Lewis Thorpe. Then she died. 


Lewis did what any man with young children and no wife would do. He remarried. His second wife, Elvretta Phillips, was the widow of Joseph Sadler. She had two children. 

Lewis and Elvretta had six more children, and the second-eldest was my 2nd gg-grandfather, Joel Calvin Thorp.

Here's the twist: 

Because Ann Preston died, she is not my direct ancestor. 
But her younger sister, Sarah Preston is.

Sarah Preston was married to Joseph Massey. Joseph was from a French Canadian family. They had four children.

Their daughter, Mary Venicia Massey married William Kline, and they had a daughter, Ellen. Ellen married Samuel E. Rankin and eventually had twelve children. Their son, Sanford, was my great-grandfather.

And even though Ann Preston is not my ancestor, her children are my half-cousins. 


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