Israel Through Multiple Generations: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Multiple”

 

Fourth Great-Grandfather’s Unusual Name Is a Family Legacy

Israel Hodgdon: 1646-1675 (Maternal Ninth-Great-Grandfather)
Israel Hodgdon: 1671-1739 (Maternal Eighth-Great-Grandfather)
Mary Hodgdon: 1699-1755 (Maternal Seventh-Great-Grandmother)
Miles Randall: 1723-1791 (Maternal Sixth-Great-Grandfather)
Israel Randall: 1743-1829 (Maternal Fifth-Great-Grandfather)
Israel Randall: 1769-1863 (Maternal Fourth-Great-Grandfather)

When I started tracing my Randall family line, I was intrigued by my fourth-great-grandfather’s rather unusual first name: Israel. I quickly discovered that he was named for his father, my fifth-great-grandfather Israel Randall. I wondered whether the name been used earlier than 1743 when that Israel was born. My research took me back another two generations before I found more Israels in my family tree.

I believe that my ninth-great-grandfather, Israel Hodsdon or Hodgdon, is the first of my ancestors to bear the given name “Israel”. So who was Israel Hodsdon? He is described in a family history book about the families of the Allegheny Valley as follows:

“Israel, son of Nicholas Hodsdon was baptized at Hingham, Massachusetts, July 19, 1646. He moved with his father to Boston and later to Kittery, Maine. It would seem as though Israel Hodsdon and his father as well as some of their neighbors favored the Quakers, who were not popular at that time, for on November 12, 1659….Nicholas Hodsdon was ordered to appear at the second session of the general court, to be held at Boston, and answer to the charge of entertaining Quakers. Israel Hodsdon married, about 1670, Ann, daughter of Miles and Ann (Tetherly) Thompson, of Kittery…Children of Mr. and Mrs. Hodsdon: Ann; Israel, mentioned below.”

I question the accuracy of some of that information. The baptism record referred to in the book and cited by trees on Ancestry is actually the baptism record of an Israel Foulsham, who continued to live in the Hingham area.

However, Israel and his father Nicholas definitely existed. Nicholas was made a freeman in Hingham on March 9, 1636-7, and Hingham granted him a house lot and meadowland. There are baptism records for Israel’s numerous siblings in Hingham. Additionally, land records show Nicholas purchased several tracts in the Boston area in 1650.

The Hodsdon family moved to Maine at some point between 1651 and 1655, when Nicholas appears on records in Kittery. Kittery granted him land next to property owned by Miles Thompson. This land, curiously, seems to have actually been located in Berwick, Maine, fifteen miles inland from the town of Kittery. The map below of Berwick, dated 1630-1700, shows the Hodsdon and Thompson properties near the bottom along the Newichawannock River. It appears that all the early 17^th century settlements in that area may have been referred to as Kittery.

Israel married his next-door neighbor Ann Thompson, daughter of Miles Thompson, in Kittery around 1670. Sadly, the marriage was short-lived. The couple had a son, Israel, in 1671, and a daughter Ann around 1674, just before Israel’s death in 1675.

Son Israel, my eighth-great-grandfather, was only four years old at the time of his father’s death. He appears in the Allegheny Valley book as well, described as follows:

“Israel Hodsdon, was born in Kittery, Maine, 1673-74. The supposition is that he resided with an uncle, Jeremiah Hodsdon, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On April 7, 1696, the town of Dover, New Hampshire, gave him a grant of land, and in several deeds he gave he is called a housewright or carpenter. He married Ann Wingate, sister of John Wingate; she was born in Dover, February 18, 1667 and was living in 1740. Children: Israel,…Moses, Shadrach, Abigail, Mary.”

We can deduce a few things from this information. First, Israel and his sister Ann married siblings. Ann Hodsdon married John Wingate in 1690, and he is identified above as Ann Wingate Hodsdon’s brother. Secondly, Israel may have been raised by his uncle Jeremiah due to his own father’s early death. And finally, looking at the names Israel Hodsdon chose for his children, we can deduce he was quite religious and partial to the Old Testament.

We can also see that the given name “Israel” continued for another generation, as Israel’s oldest son was named for his father. Son Moses also named a son Israel.

However, my family line comes down through daughter Mary, born in New Hampshire in 1699. She married Nathaniel Randall around 1721, and they settled in the Oyster River area and had seven children. None of those children were named Israel. The eldest son was named Miles, probably in honor of Miles Thompson who was Mary’s grandfather.

Miles, born in 1723, was my sixth-great-grandfather. He married Abigail Runnells in the 1740s, and they lived in Strafford County, New Hampshire. 

Miles Randall Headstone

They named their first son Israel Randall. He was born in 1743 and was my fifth-great-grandfather. Israel married Sarah Chesley and they lived in New Hampshire and Vermont. His headstone appears below, and is located in the Bennett Cemetery in Danville, Vermont.

Israel Randall and Sally Chesley Randall headstone

Their first son, born April 3, 1769, was also named Israel Randall. He married Polly Daniels around 1790. Their eldest daughter, Sally Randall, was my 3^rd Great-grandmother. They also had a son born in 1806 named Israel.

Israel Randall grave in New York.

I was thrilled to learn that the first name “Israel” was passed down over seven generations of the Hodsdon/Hodgdon and Randall families. The name was an amazing legacy shared by multiple men over a span of over 150 years, from 1646 to 1806.

Sources:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hodsdon-25, citing Middlesex County Registry of Deeds Vol 1, p 24 and Kittery Town Records, pg 9, and York County Registry of Deeds.

Map of Berwick. https://www.oldberwick.org/history-articles/historic-publications/the-first-permanent-settlement-in-maine-by-everett-s-stackpole-1926.html

Genealogical and Personal History of the Allegheny Valley Pennsylvania. John W. Jordan, LL.D. Libraries of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Vol. 3, pg. 8-9. Ancestry.com. U.S., Family History Books [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2025.

Will of Israel Hodgdon. 1739. New Hampshire, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1643-1982.

Findagrave website. Source of headstone photos.

My Grandmother’s School Notebook from 1912-1916: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Written”

 
A Glimpse into My Grandmother’s School Years: Nora’s Class Notebook

Nora Elsie Hoffman: 1899-1994 (Maternal Grandmother)

 

One of the items I received from my mom before she died was her mother’s school notebook from 1912-1916. I love this heirloom. It shows my Grandmother Nora’s penmanship and reveals a little about her schooling and the era in which she was raised.

The composition notebook is similar to the hardcover composition notebooks used in schools today, except it is smaller. The common notebook dimensions today are 7 1/2 inches by 10 inches, while my grandmother’s notebook is about 6 ½ x 8 ¼ inches. There is no manufacturing information printed on the notebook, and no obvious price.

The cover features an American flag and the words “Freedom’s Emblem” above a small blue eagle with a shield featuring stars and stripes, and laurel and wheat in its talons. Gold stars appear over the eagle’s head, and his beak holds a gold banner. I am not sure if this patriotic imagery was common in that era or whether Nora had a choice of several possible colors and patterns and preferred this one. Nora’s name is printed in the upper right corner.

The notebook contains a series of what I first assumed were poems. I copied some of the lines from the poems into a search engine, and discovered that most of them came from a book called “Songs of the Child World” written in 1897 by Alice C.D. Riley and Jesse Smith Gaynor. Riley was the lyricist and Gaynor composed the music.

The first page of the notebook shows an example. “The Owl” was a song from the Riley and Gaynor book. Apparently Nora’s teachers—she lists them at the top of the page as “Miss Oconner—1912” and “Miss Sanborn—1914”—had their students copy the lyrics into their notebooks so they could learn the songs. Several were songs about flowers, including “The Tulip” below.

The notebook also included dialogue from several short plays. The page below is the start of a play called “The Sewing Society”, and lists the names of the students who were to play the parts. Nora was to play the part of Mrs. Green. Another cast member was named Sadie—that may have been Nora’s older sister.

The notebook was also used for Nora’s classwork in 1916. She seems to have taken notes for an American History class, as the page below shows. I was interested to see that slavery was listed as the second cause of the Civil War, behind only secession. Now our government seems to be trying to remove this from history books, claiming blaming slavery is revisionist history, but Nora’s notes show that over a century ago, just five decades after the war, history texts recognized that slavery was a principle cause for the war.

I noted that Nora’s penmanship became more distinctive as the years passed. When she began using the notebook, she was thirteen. She had probably just started high school in Mankato, having completed grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse near her home. The final sections of the notebook were written in 1916 when she was seventeen and about to graduate from high school. The history lesson handwriting was more like what I remember of my grandmother’s penmanship.

Nora at about age 15, around 1914. Confirmation photo.

Near the end of the notebook, there is a list of the U.S. Presidents, noting the years they served and their home states. The penmanship for the list is identical to her handwriting as an older adult. I believe this list was written many years later, as it is written in ball-point pen, while the rest of the notebook is written in pencil. In addition, the president list includes Harry Truman, so it was probably compiled after World War II. An even later addition to the list, written in different ink, adds Eisenhower, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, so that part was written in the 1960s.

I love owning this little piece of my grandmother’s life. It is so interesting to see what types of things were included in her high school education—music, plays, and history lessons. I love seeing her careful script—rather narrow and spidery as a freshman, and a bit looser and more confident as a senior. I wish I had asked her about her high school memories when she was still with us.

Sources:

Riley, A. C. D. 1867-1953. (1897-1915). Gaynor, Jesse S. Songs of the Child World. Cincinnati: [publisher not identified]. 1897.