I had mentioned our Quaker ancestor Thorn to my aunt and sister last weekend at the get-together in Pittsburgh, and my sister just asked for a follow-up this morning. Basically, they had mentioned genealogy, and I brought up our ancestor "Thorn" who came over to Massachusetts Bay around "1640" who had been kicked out for being a Quaker, and had helped found Flushing. "Thorn"'s many-times-great granddaughter had married the son of a damned Dutch draft-dodger in New Jersey, and they became our great-grandfather and great-grandmother Libb.

This is the Thorn family website from which I had remembered all this, it was in existence a few years back in a less-evolved form.

The ancestor in question was named William Thorne. The website now says that he was an "Anabaptist", which wasn't what I remembered. Apparently Thorne was somewhat important in his day, having signed some early Bill-of-Rights precedent called "the Remonstration of Flushing", and having hidden Ann Hutchinson's son while still in Massachusetts Bay. They're now saying that Thorne came over sometime between 1635 and 1638.

We show up here with our great-grandmother Bertha Thorn Libb and great-grandfather Benjamin Libb. By the time of the 19th Century, the Thorns were definitively Quaker, regardless of the early distinctions.

For some reason, I remembered her name as "Elizabeth". Whoops. But great-grandpa Libb's first name was definitely Benjamin, and it's the right state, the right generation, and the right name, given just how rare a name "Libb" is.