Our Tree of Life - Volume One

Our Tree of Life is about family, our family. We live in an exceedingly short window of the historical timeline. We know our parents as adults, our grandparents as older people, our children, and our grandchildren as young people. If we are fortunate, we may get a glimpse of the beginning of the life of a great-grandchild or the end of the life of a great-grandparent. That is only a handful of the many generations that have come before us and the many yet to come. Our Tree of Life is about extending our knowledge of our family to some of those we never met in person, learning who they were, how they lived, and what it was like to live in their world. In this volume, we focus on our Hathaway paternal and maternal ancestors, starting with Nicolas Hathaway, who immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s through Isaac Hathaway Junior, Nicolas's great, great, great-grandson, who fought with Washington's Army during the Revolutionary War. Along the way, we will meet twenty-eight couples who were our grandparents and explore history as it really happened, up close and personal. In these pages, family and history come together. Learning about our ancestors broadens our thinking and enriches our lives. Someday we too will be someone's ancestors. Please pass it on.