The Ellingwoods

Jim Morgan on the left with his sister  Rose, her spouse and children in 1918.

    When we were growing up, our parents offered us advice, much of it unsolicited. An example: Don't tell people your dad works for the Star. They'll just complain about how their paper was thrown in the rose bush.  Another: If they're named Morgan they're not related to you.  I finally realized that was because my dad was an only child and his father's only brother died childless. We never discussed the Ellingwoods, but I don't think I've yet met anyone named Ellingwood.
    
     Starting with Emma Morgan nee Ellingwood, the Ellingwood name has continued through successive generations. Emma named her first son and third child, James Hiram, using the Hiram from her father. But she bestowed Ellingwood on her second son and fourth and last child, Ray Ellingwood. My father carried Ellingwood as his middle name and bestowed the Ellingwood on his second son, who bestowed it on his only son.

      But that doesn't mean the Ellingwoods don't have a long history in the U.S. Our ninth great grandfather, Ralph Elwood, immigrated from London in 1635 as a part of the Great Migration. I learned of this from the Winthrop Society web page.
  

WHEREAS, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company and their elected Governor, John Winthrop, emigrated to New England in 1630 to found a “City on a Hill,” the Winthrop Society: Descendants of the Great Migration is dedicated to honoring and preserving their memory, philosophy and tradition, and transmitting their example of courage, faith, civic duty and integrity."

— excerpt from the Winthrop Society Charter

Their motivation was religious, political, and economic. The British church and government was becoming insufferably hierarchical, tyrannical, and tax-hungry. Common resentment among the English people led soon to the English Revolution beginning in 1642, and eventually to the beheading of King Charles for treason in 1649, after agents intercepted his secret invitations to foreign kings and armies, that they invade England, crush Parliament and the English Constitution, massacre his English opponents, and restore Charles to his pretended Dei gratia royal privileges. Charles Stuart continued incorrigibly to hold his dynastic interest separate and above those of Parliament and the British people, and ultimately Parliament had no alternative but to end his conspiracies with an axe.

Winthrop Society

          As an aside - if you can prove you're related to someone who was part of this migration, you are welcome to become a member of the Winthop Society.  After they approve you for membership, you're eligible to buy a $30 gold certificate proclaiming that fact to all the world. Knowing Ray's joy of certificates it's hard to imagine he would pass this up.

     This is a link to a bit more information about Ralph Ellwood or Ellenwood or Ellingwood. He's buried in the Abbott Street Burial Ground in Beverly, MA.  Ralph the Saxon Ellenwood, I

Left to right: Ray, Emma, Jim, Ethel and Rose in 1918.