Genealogy Research Identifies Easter Traditions from Relatives and Ancestors Worldwide

March 30, 2018, by Helen Holshouser Leave a comment

In my genealogical research, I have learned that my family is a typical American melting pot of ethnic origins! My ancestors hail from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland—at least. As we are preparing for our own Easter celebration, I was wondering how similar or how different some of my ancestor’s traditions might have been.   

Our own traditions include attending church as we were raised Protestant and believe that Easter represents the death and the rising of Jesus Christ, Son of God, to save us all from our sins and to give us eternal life.  It is basically, the basis of our Faith, and, is such an important time in the life of Christians.  We celebrate Easter with a long season of Lent.  However, the highlights of Holy Week include  Maundy Thursday Communion in church on the Thursday before Easter Sunday.  This communion celebrates the Lord’s last supper with his disciples. On Good Friday, we gather at the church to mourn the death of Christ upon the cross. Our own church holds a “Tenebrae service of Shadows”.  One of our daughters will sing special music with the choir, “One Sacrifice”.   The service itself begins with 14 lighted candles in the sanctuary, and as Christ walks his final passion, each candle is extinguished to signify his abandonment.  Easter Sunday, we gather to celebrate the joy of Christ’s resurrection and His salvation for each of us individually throughout the whole world. This is an astounding day for many of us faith wise!  

https://biddefordchurchofchrist.com/2017/01/22/he-is-risen/

Part of the joy of Easter at our house is gathering with family and friends for dinner.  Many in the United States serve ham for this dinner with other spring vegetables especially like asparagus and carrots for the Easter bunny. Surely you see turkey and beef as well. My own sister, however, serves a Crown Roast of Lamb every Easter without fail!  Bunny rabbit salads made of half pears are a treat for our family.  

 Since our family includes young grandchildren, an Easter egg hunt is in order for the day!  Of course, we give the children Easter baskets full of trinkets, chocolate, and other candy.  We hard boil and decorate Easter eggs as well.  In our own family, we often hide the baskets and the children have to follow clues to find them!  

This is one way to hunt eggs! -grandchildren of author, personal library, HY Holshouser. 

Grandchildren visiting the Easter Bunny—from the personal library of this author, H Y Holshouser.

What about our Hogue ancestors from Scotland?  I understand that they especially were sheepherders and that their and most Scottish Easter dinners include roasted lamb!  As with us in America, chocolate is the taste of the day!  Dessert might be chocolate cake and coffee! Chocolate eggs and bunnies are ever present for both! Easter egg hunts, horse displays, and battle reenactments make for fun and festive occasions. Of course, churches throughout Scotland hold special Easter services like ours, to celebrate Christ’s rising from death and giving us the grace of salvation. We had many ministers, mainly Presbyterian, in our Hogue family.  In fact, we are told that our first immigrant from Scotland was a Covenanter.  A covenanter was one of the many Scottish people who fought against the Catholics for the right to have their own personal covenant with God. In fact, his persecution by the Catholics apparently led to his flight to America.  

 Our Kearse family from Ireland and the same ancient family, the Des Cearsais of France, how did they celebrate Easter?  The French word for Easter is Pâques. To say Happy Easter, you can say “Joyeuses Pâques“ or “Bonnes Pâques.”  According to my general research, Easter is an important holiday in France also. It is a religious one, and a lively, fun time with Easter egg hunts to honor the coming of Spring. Like Ireland, roast lamb is the choice for a large family meal. In Ireland, it is also an important religious holiday as well, with many traditions. Confession on Good Friday, silence on the Saturday before Easter lends to a meditative state. Eggs take center stage on Easter as they are given up for the forty days of lent by many.  Chocolate eggs, decorated eggs—all symbolizing Spring, new beginnings, renewal, and joy! 

 What about the Langhornes and others from England? Among many lovely and fun Easter traditions, Easter parades are one of the greatest. Children and adults don new clothes for good luck, and often children make elaborate paper hats to wear as they march in their local town parades!  Fun! Egg rolling, hot cross buns, Simnel cake, Morris dancing, and so much more contradicts the vision of the staid Englishmen and women!  

Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancing Princess Royal

Our marvelous Italian ancestors and relatives add so much spirit to our family. The Bottos, Raffos, Rivaros, Costas, DeSantos,  and more, mostly originate in the coastal area of northwestern Italy, near Genoa. Italy of course, is home to the Vatican, and the place for the pilgrimage of so many Catholics on Easter.  My mother’s Italian ancestors were Catholic as well.  Mass on Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica is followed by the Pope leading a candlelight procession on a walk symbolizing Christ’s walk to the cross.  Our own church reenacts this walk to the cross, and we are Protestants.  

St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, Andreas Tille – Own work, Permission details Quote of http://fam-tille.de/italien/rom/2004_030.html – Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this images under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published

As I understand it from relatives, northern Italian Easter feasts often feature ham, like us!  Interesting. Of course, salami is a big choice as well.  Colomba, a dove-shaped cake, made of almonds, egg whites, and sugar, is probably the most famous cake and available worldwide these days.

Colomba Pasquale, An Italian Sweet bread J.P.Lon~commonswiki

What about our German Jungbluts—Youngbloods? And my husband’s Haulzhausen—Holshouser family?  According to a wonderful article from DW –Deutsche Welle —  http://www.dw.com/en/german-easter-traditions/a-1520904 — the Germans of course, also celebrate a religious holiday like most Christians.  

“Although mainly a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, Easter also marks the beginning of spring. The Germans, of course, have a whole range of customs and traditions to celebrate the change of seasons in proper fashion. 

A time for eggs and bunnies 

Eggs and bunnies are two of the oldest symbols of Easter in Germany and every spring shops boom with eggs and bunnies made of chocolate, cardboard or flowers in different sizes and wrappings. 

The tradition for using eggs and bunnies for Easter originates from pagan worshipping where they were symbols of fertility and new birth and traditionally used for celebrations of the coming of the spring. 

The Germans have a number of egg games which the children play over the holidays. One tradition is to blow eggs and paint them in multiple colours and patterns on Good Friday. The eggs are then put in a basket for the Easter bunny — Osterhase— to hide around the house on the night leading up to Easter Sunday. On the morning of Easter Sunday, the children go hunting for the eggs and often find that the Easter bunny has also left chocolate eggs and Easter presents for them to find. 

It is also a custom that friends exchange the painted eggs as gifts or that young people in love paint eggs for their sweetheart.” Now that is a different tradition, which I find so special and romantic!   

For the Netherlands and our Van Vreeland, Van Swol, Voorhees, and Banta families, what was Easter like for them? According to many articles, they celebrate much the way we do…. or we celebrate much the way they do!  One of our favorite meals is a festive brunch and apparently it is theirs as well:  eggs, cheese, ham, rolls…and did I say eggs?  The Dutch also take great pride in providing the thousands of tulips to decorate St. Peter’s in Rome for the Pope’s Easter service.  Wow!  Back home, they are also known for their beautiful painted eggs.  However, they do not have the Easter bunny, but the “Paashaas“, the Easter hare!   

“Traditional wooden clog with little colored eggs.”

Our ancestors represent many more countries and traditions from around the world, but as you and I can readily see, we are more alike than different.  This Easter, as I pray, and as I play, I will have a keener sense of connectedness due to my genealogical research, and our worldwide collaboration.   

Until we meet again, Helen Youngblood Holshouser 

Genealogical Ties to Two Ampthill Plantations in Colonial America Highlights Intermarriages Among First Families

Ampthill Plantation in Chesterfield County, Virginia --from Wikipedia Commons This is the story of two plantations in Virginia, USA, who were both called Ampthill Plantation at one time.  More so, it is about the discovery of these two homes both still standing in Virginia today, and realizing that the owners and families involved were all wealthy, influential, aristocratic First Families of Virginia and all related at least distantly to this author.  How exciting to.find information like this, facts that breathe life into old homes and broaden our understanding of our ancestors. One of these homes has become a Bed and Breakfast—I can hardly wait to stay in it and experience the very atmosphere of my forbearers!  While working on my family tree on Ancestry, I had come across a picture of the first Ampthill Plantation built about 1730 in Colonial Virginia by our Great Uncle Henry Cary, 1675-1749.  When I posted the picture on my family tree on Ancestry, a knowledgeable woman named Margaret wrote me a kind note letting me know there were two Ampthill Estates! I was very surprised to learn that there was another Ampthill Plantation House in Virginia, and even more so, that it had also been owned by more of our own family's ancestors.    The Cary's Ampthill Plantation was originally located in part of the Henricus Settlement of Colonial Virginia, which became Chesterfield County in 1749. The house was built by Henry Cary Jr. our eighth great uncle, whose father, Henry Cary, Sr. our 8th Great Grandfather, was an architect who designed many famous buildings in Colonial Virginia, including the Capital Building at Colonial Williamsburg.  The Cary Ampthill home was inhabited for many years by Henry Jr.'s son, our first cousin and a Revolutionary War hero, Col. Archibald Cary among others of the well-known Cary family.  Later the house was physically relocated into the city of Richmond, Virginia near Cary Street named for the family. As a child growing up in Richmond, Virginia, my mother worked as a realtor in an office on Cary Street.  We often saw this first Ampthill Estate home on our local travels. Unfortunately, at that time we did not know of our kinships.

This is what Wikipedia says about the Cary Family's Ampthill Plantation:  

"Ampthill Plantation pictured above) was located in the Virginia Colony in Chesterfield County on the south bank   of the James River about four miles south of the head of navigation at modern-day Richmond, Virginia.[1] Built by Henry Cary, Jr. about 1730, it was just upstream of Falling Creek.[2] It was later owned by Colonel Archibald Cary, who maintained a flour mill complex and iron forge at the nearby town of Warwick. Mary Randolph was born there in 1762. 

In 1929, Ampthill House, the manor house of Ampthill Plantation, was dismantled, moved to a site on Cary Street Road in the West End of Richmond, and reassembled where it sits today. Although it is not open to the public, Ampthill House is a noteworthy local landmark, and is marked by a Virginia Historical Marker.[4] 

The former plantation property on the James River near Falling Creek is occupied by the Spruance Plant and related industrial complex of the DuPont Company."---from Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampthill_(Chesterfield_County,_Virginiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampthill_(Chesterfield_County,_Virginia)

Ampthill Estate in Cartersville, Virginia--from Wikimedia Commons The second Ampthill Plantation is located in the town of Cartersville, in Cumberland County, Virginia.  I call it the second Ampthill because it wasn't named Ampthill until the early 1800's, almost 100 years after the Cary's Ampthill Estate. However, the land began to be developed about the same time as the first Ampthill—in the early 1700's.

According to Wikipedia, "Ampthill is a plantation located in Cartersville, Cumberland County, Virginia, United States, roughly 45 minutes west of Richmond, and just over an hour south of Charlottesville. The property is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. 

In 1714 Charles Fleming took on a land patent of 670 acres (2.7 km²) with an intent to cultivate it. The land, however, "lapsed," and was later granted to Thomas Randolph in 1722. This area was later included in a tract made up of 2870 acres (11.6 km²), which later came to be known as "Clifton." But it was this initial purchase of the 670 acres (2.7 km²) that would form "The Fork," known for its position on the James and Willis Rivers. It would later become Ampthill. In 1724, Randolph sold to Robert "King" Carter, then the wealthiest landowner in Virginia. 

In his will dated 22 August 1726, King Carter willed the 2870 acre (11.6 km²) tract to his then unborn grandson, with the stipulation that the child carry the Carter name. Some time later, Anne Carter and Major Benjamin Harrison of Berkley Plantation, christened a son, Carter Henry, who later become the owner of the property known as "Clifton," in Cumberland County, Virginia. 

Carter Henry Harrison moved to Clifton upon graduation from law school. There he raised his family and wrote the Cumberland Resolutions, which were presented to the community from the steps of the Effingham Tavern. These resolutions were later incorporated into the Virginia Resolutions, which were the basis for the Declaration of Independence, written by Harrison's nephew, Thomas Jefferson. 

Ampthill

Carter Henry Harrison died in 1793. In his will, Carter Henry willed Clifton to his son, Randolph, and The Fork to his son Robert. Robert sold The Fork to Shadrack Vaughan in 1804. Randolph later repurchased the property in 1815. The Fork was a clapboard structure of no more than three bedrooms. In 1815, the decision was made to add an addition to the existing manor. Randolph called upon his cousin, Thomas Jefferson, to design the brick addition that exists today. These plans exist today on file with the University of Virginia. The addition began its first phases of construction in 1835 and was completed in 1837. The two "houses" were separate for a number of years until a one-story passageway was built to connect the two. After the construction of the brick addition was completed the structure was renamed Ampthill.[3] 

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. 

In 1998, the property was purchased by George Costen of Charlottesville. Beginning in 1999 and for a number of years that followed, Ampthill went under a major historic restoration.  

Ampthill became a bed and breakfast and enjoys the prestige of being the only privately owned Jeffersonian property in Virginia. Her windows are the original glass. Ampthill exists today on 60 acres (240,000 m2) of the original 2870 acres (11.6 km²), is the home to 40 head of cattle and includes the manor house, four outbuildings and the barn, which dates to 1920, by far the youngest standing structure on the property."  --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampthill_(Cumberland_County,_Virginia) 

Wow, that is a lot of information, and it looks like the property moved through a lot of different families—however, let's look a bit more closely through the eyes of an ancestor who is learning through genealogy!  Remember also, I have just learned of this estate, although it belonged to my ancestors, I never knew of it until recently. 

Charles Fleming originally owned the land that became the second Ampthill Estate in 1714. The Wikipedia author states that Fleming's grant lapsed and the land was then given to Thomas Randolph in 1722. However, I wonder if he realized  that Thomas Randolph's wife was the daughter of Charles Fleming, Judith Churchill Fleming, 1689-1743!  She could not legally own property in Virginia, so I wonder if Charles Fleming willed it to his son-in-law perhaps. Thomas Randolph, 1683-1729 of Virgina, 2nd owner of the 2nd Ampthill, was my family's ninth cousin.  

--all family trees are the  personal work and property of Helen Y. Holshouser

 In 1726, only four years after receiving the land, Thomas Randolph sold it to the fifth Governor of Virginia, Robert "King" Carter, my family's 9th Great Uncle!  Nothing like keeping it in the family! Thomas Randolph died in 1729, so he may have known he was not able to care for the land.  

Robert "King" Carter, 1663-1732, Public Domain Robert "King" Carter's father, John Carter, was our 9th Great Grandfather. Robert "King" Carter willed the land to his grandson Carter Henry Harrison (our 2nd cousin), through Robert's daughter Anne Carter (our 1st cousin) and her husband Benjamin Harrison IV, the grandparents of our 9th President of the US, William Henry Harrison! Carter Henry Harrison willed the land to his sons, Robert and Randolph Harrison.  Randolph Harrison (our 3rd cousin 7 times removed) ended up purchasing all of the property by 1815, where two clapboard houses stood, one  named the Clifton and the other The Fork. But wait-- who was the wife of Carter Henry Harrison and the mother of Randolph Harrison?  None other than one Susannah Randolph, 1738-1779, our 10th cousin! Yes, she is related to us and is the niece of the original Thomas Randolph who owned the property on which the second Ampthill Estate was built!  Amazingly, she married a second time to Thomas Fleming, the grandson of the original owner of the 2nd Ampthill property, Charles Fleming!  Wow! In fact, Susannah Randolph's father is Isham Randolph, who is the brother of Thomas Randolph, 1683-1729, the 2nd owner of the 2nd Ampthill. Isham and Thomas Randolph's  parents were  William Randolph, 1651 of England who immigrated to Virginia, and his wife Mary Royall Isham.   That is not all of the important connections for this amazing family—and we haven't even talked about their many roles in shaping the new country of the United States—but Isham Randolph b. 1685 and his wife Jane L. Rogers had eleven children including Susannah Randolph of course, and they also had her sister Jane Randolph, 1720, who married Peter Jefferson b.1708 and became the parents of our President, Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826.  As you read above in the article from Wikipedia, Thomas Jefferson designed the second Ampthill Estate for his Uncle, Carter Henry Harrison who was also the Uncle of President William Henry Harrison!  Wow, simply amazing! As the article stated, the Ampthill Estate in Cartersville is the only privately-owned Thomas Jefferson designed home in Virginia and it is now a bed and breakfast! I can hardly wait to visit this home and walk and sleep where my ancestors slept and worked 200-300 years ago!   Thomas Jefferson in 1791 at 49 by Charles Willson Peale--Public Domain, Wikipedia  William Henry Harrison, Daguerreotype of an oil painting depicting William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States. Public Domain, Wikipedia  Albert Sands Southworth (American, 1811–1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808–1901). Edited by: Fallschirmjäger -The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession number: 37.14.44. Search for "William Henry Harrison" on the museum's site.  Just to add other amazing discoveries (amazing to me) let's look at the mother of Susannah Randolph b. 1738, for a minute. Married to Isham Randolph, her name was Jane Lilburnie Rogers, 1692-1760, and she was the 2nd great granddaughter of Thomas "The Pilgrim" Rogers, 1586-1621, who came to Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower! Not only is Thomas Rogers my own tenth great grandfather, he is my husband Max Holshouser's eleventh great grandfather!  Yes, it makes us distant cousins!   Other very interesting information about the Randolphs is that my sister Anne is married to Joseph Prince, who is also related to the same Randolph family of Virginia, making them distant cousins like Max and I are. What a small world native Virginians make!   Through my DNA testing on ancestry, I have discovered other cousins also related to the Randolphs, Carters, Carys, Harrisons and Jeffersons.  One of the DNA cousins I met is Pam Maudsley Cooper, a dear cousin whom I have come to admire greatly, and who lives in Queensland, Australia!   I was born in Virginia, but have lived in the State of North Carolina in America since 1980. Thanks to the internet, Pam and I can work together often on the genealogy we both enjoy and enhance our cousinship! Different continents, but we share 13th great grandparents in William Carter, 1475-1521 and his wife Alice Croxton, 1478-1525 of England. Again, I say totally amazing!   Then there is this information tying the families of the two Ampthill Estates together:  the 3rd owner of the 2nd Ampthill in Cartersville, Virginia was Robert King Carter, fifth Gov. Of Virginia and our ninth great Uncle, who received the land in 1726.  He willed the land to his daughter Anne Carter Harrison's son Carter Henry Harrison—although it was not called Ampthill until 1835.  Meanwhile, Henry Cary Jr. built the first Ampthill Plantation in Chesterfield County, Virginia about 1730. Henry Cary Jr.'s sister, Anne Cary, my 7th great grandmother, was married to Maurice Langhorne, whose mother, Anne Cary's mother-in-law, was none other than Rebecca Carter, our eighth great grandmother, and a member of the same Carter family of Colonial Virginia.  Even closer perhaps, Colonel Archibald Cary of Ampthill in Chesterfield County, married Mary Randolph, 1722-1781.  She belongs to this very same famous Randolph family.   If all of these intermarriages make you dizzy, I surely understand. However, as you get to know the individuals and the immense contributions they made to the founding of America, I imagine you will admire them as I do. There is a book written by Robert K. Headley, Jr. titled Married Well and Often, Marriages of the Northern Neck of Virginia, 1649-1800. While it is a book of valuable marriage records, the title always makes me smile especially when I read of the many inter-family marriages that were common in Colonial days of Virginia.   I have previously written of the Carys and the Randolphs in my own personal blog, Heart of a Southern Woman.  I hope to write some sequels to this post detailing just what valuable contributions these family members made during their lives.  Hope you will join me there at Heart of a Southern Woman Until next time, I am wishing you the very best,  Helen Holshouser