Massachusetts made history with the recent victory of state Attorney General Maura Healey as our next governor, becoming both the first elected female governor in the bay state and the first openly lesbian governor in the United States.¹ When Healey became the nominee for her party earlier this year, I started to look at her ancestry, and found many families in common that I had recently researched for who will be her gubernatorial predecessor, Gov. Charlie Baker.

Earlier this year in April, Governor Charlie Baker was our speaker and guest at our Family History Benefit Gala “A Boston Homecoming” where Brenton Simons presented the governor with a handbound genealogy of his family. His mother’s ancestors largely went back to Scotland and Ireland via Ohio and Canada, while his paternal grandfather was born in New York City with a lot of ancestry in Steuben County, New York, and some earlier ancestors in New England. The ancestry that was in the same community for the longest time was the ancestry of his paternal grandmother, Eleanor Johnson (Little) Baker (1886-1983), herself a genealogist and member of NEHGS, whose ancestors largely went back to several families (often many times over) in colonial Newbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts.²

As I researched governor-elect Healey’s ancestry, I immediately noted news stories that her family roots were also in Newburyport. Her father’s parents are both born in Ireland, while her maternal grandfather’s parents were from Newfoundland, Canada. Her maternal grandmother, Dorothy May Porter, was born at Newburyport, 8 August 1917. Dorothy’s mother Katherine Tracy was also born in Ireland while Dorothy’s father Frank Sumner Porter (1887-1978), was born in Newburyport, and much of his ancestry goes back to colonial Newbury and Newburyport, much like the paternal grandmother of Gov. Baker.

So how many times are governors Baker and Healey related? Through their Newbury ancestors alone, I have found at least 75 different connections! I think a table is needed to explain this:

Many of the second and third generation descendants marry into each other’s families, so after that is all considered, there are 75 unique kinships between these 12 families with connections to colonial Newbury. When the “total unique” kinship is less than the expected number, some of those kinships are accounted by kinships ascribed to other families. For example, their closest kinship is eighth cousins once removed (three times over, as well as ninth cousins) through their common ancestors Stephen and Elizabeth (Atkinson) Coffin. Gov. Baker descends from Stephen’s siblings in an additional eight ways. Stephen Coffin was the son of Tristram Coffin, Jr. and his wife Judith Greenleaf, widow of Henry Somerby. Tristram’s sister Elizabeth Coffin married Judith’s brother Stephen Greenleaf, and Gov. Baker descends from Stephen and Elizabeth (Coffin) Greenleaf in four separate ways, making 16 separate descents from both the Coffin and Greenleaf families. Gov. Healey descends from the Coffin family once through Stephen Coffin, and from the Greenleaf family twice, through Stephen Coffin and his half-sister Sarah Somerby, a daughter of Judith Greenleaf by her first husband Henry Somerby. So, while there are 16 separate kinships through the Coffin family and 32 through the Greenleaf family, every Coffin kinship is also a Greenleaf kinship, which results in 32 kinships through those two families. Tristram Coffin, Jr.’s father Tristram Coffin lived in Newbury in the 1640s and 50s, but around 1658 formed a company to purchase the island of Nantucket, and relocated there in 1659. Tristram was appointed chief magistrate of the island in 1671 and again in 1677 for a term of four years, often informally being called “governor” of Nantucket. Now two of his descendants have been elected governor of the state for which Nantucket now belongs.³

I did design a Coffin chart for Governor Baker (with 16 different descents, that was one of the more complicated charts I had to make). For this post, I’ll show Healey and Baker’s kinship through their common ancestors John and Mary (Ward) Cutting of Newbury (and thanks to my colleague Ellen Maxwell, this chart was made in Adobe Illustrator, and not Microsoft Paint!). Healey’s three Cutting descents make her kinship to Baker that of ninth cousins once removed, tenth cousins, and eleventh cousins once removed. The Cuttings are also ancestors of President Gerald Ford (whose ancestry is likewise heavily in Newbury). Mary (Ward) Cutting was baptized 20 November 1594 in Little Wratting, Suffolk, England, daughter of Edward and Judith (Lukyn) Ward(e), and was part of a larger kinship group of immigrants to New England. Mary’s sister Rebecca (Ward) Allen of Newbury is an ancestor of Henry David Thoreau and Queen Camilla, and Mary’s nephew William Markham of Hadley, Massachusetts is an ancestor of President Rutherford B. Hayes. Mary (Ward) Cutting also has a probable royal descent from King John of England.⁴

Serving with Healey as the next lieutenant governor is Kim Driscoll, current mayor of Salem, Massachusetts. One notable ancestor behind Gov. Healey (that is not in the ancestry of Gov. Baker) is Mary (Perkins) Bradbury of Salisbury, Massachusetts, who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem in 1692, but managed to avoid her sentence until the trials were discredited, and died eight years later aged 85. Another Bradbury descendant whose ancestry was also previously prepared for a past annual gala is the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.⁵

And finally, a fun graphic that Ellen designed for the presentation for Governor Baker included a map of Newbury showing the plans of lots laid out to the first English settlers. The original map was from Ould Newbury by John Currier (1896). For the graphic, sixteen of Gov. Baker’s ancestors were highlighted in yellow. Ellen updated the graphic below, with Gov. Healey’s ancestors highlighted in blue, and their common ancestors now highlighted in green!⁶

Notes

1 Jane Swift served as acting governor of Massachusetts from 2001-2003 after Governor Paul Cellucci resigned to become U.S. Ambassador to Canada. Tina Kotek, also openly lesbian, was elected governor of Oregon as well on the last election day. She will assume office on January 9, 2023, while Healey will be inaugurated on January 5, 2023

2 Eleanor Johnson Baker authored A Genealogy of the Descendants of William Johnson of Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1969. William Johnson is also my own ancestor and Eleanor Baker’s work was mentioned here in my previous post.

3 President Rutherford Hayes is also a descent of Tristram Coffin, while President Calvin Coolidge, who had also served as Governor of Massachusetts, is a descendant of Tristram Coffin’s sister (see Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents [AAP], 553).

4 Leslie Mahler, “ The English Origin of Nathaniel¹ Ward of Hartford, Connecticut, Mary¹ (Ward) Cutting of Newbury, Massachusetts, Rebecca¹ (Ward) Allen of Newbury, and their nephew William ¹ Markham of Hadley,” The American Genealogist 83 (2008):13-18; Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants (RD900), 653-656.

5 Christopher Challender Child, Ancestors of Doris Kearns Goodwin (Boston: NEHGS, 2014). Healey’s lineage to Mary (Perkins) Bradbury is as follows: Maura Tracy¹⁴ Healey (Tracy¹³ Burton, Dorothy May¹² Porter,Frank Sumner¹¹ Porter, Henrietta Hobbs¹⁰ Titcomb, Isaac Cummings⁹ Titcomb, Joseph⁸ Titcomb, Elizabeth⁷Pettingill, Mary⁶ Moody,Caleb⁵ Moody, Thomas⁴Moody, Judith³ Bradbury,Mary² Perkins, John¹ Perkins). Through the Perkins family behind Mary (Perkins) Bradbury, Healey (but not Baker) has kinships to presidents Fillmore, Coolidge, F.D. Roosevelt, and Nixon (see AAP, 450-51). Mary’s husband Thomas Bradbury also probably descends from King Edward I of England (see RD900, 579).

6 In 2015, I gave a talk to the Sons and Daughters of the First Settlers of Newbury, Massachusetts, for which both Baker and Healey would qualify for several times over. In preparing my talk, most of my Newbury ancestors became “former ancestors,” with the exception of Anthony Morse, who is also in Gov. Healey’s ancestry.

Additional sources for chart: Christopher Challender Child, Ancestry of Charlie Baker (Boston: NEHGS, 2022); Massachusetts Vital Records to 1620-1850 and 1841-1920 (available on AmericanAncestors.org); obituaries of Dorothy M. Burton and Russell T. Burton.