The Ford Family

This site is dedicated to finding and documenting the ancestry of our family. It all started with the famous Ford Family reunions, which began in 1993. These reunions were the rekindling of a tradition of shared summer vacations by three brothers from many years before. (If you want to see the story of how they actually got started again, click here.)

We now begin the story of the Fabulous Ford Family, whose origins can be found in Rockford, Illinois many years ago. (The origins actually go back much farther than that, to the Walters, who were early immigrants to the Colonies.) But for those of us who are part of the family now, and knew Grandpa Ford when he was alive ... well, we think it all started in the city of Rockford, where his children were born.

Therefore the founder of our Ford Family, as far as we are concerned, was the very first Grandpa Ford, shown here. He was much beloved by all who knew him. There are many other Grandpa Fords now, of course, and even a Great-Grandpa Ford. And more are sure to come. But here is where we start.

Read now the tale of two men whose first name was "Walter", men who eventually gave birth to the Ford family, a family whose spirit of adventure, independence, and courage was inherited from the Pioneers and Patriots of its founding fathers!

Once upon a time, there were two Walters living in the early 17th century, near London. Walter Palmer, the older, was born in Somerset (southwest of London) to a privileged family. Only 27 years later, Walter Woodworth was born in Kent (southeast of London) near the Ocean. Given their family status, location, and age difference, they likely did not know one another; but both men would eventually come to the new world where their descendants, many years later, would marry and then start the Ford Family.

Walter Palmer arrived in the Plymouth Colony by 1633. He began to buy land and then moves to Scituate, having had many children and acquired thousands of acre of land. He passed these lands and fortunes to his many children and on to his descendants.

Walter Woodworth arrived in Charleston and is more of an adventurer. He goes into the wilderness with family and friends, and becomes the founder of a new town called Stonington.

Fast forward a century or so, to a decade before the Revolutionary war and you will find the Palmers are still in Stonington, CT many generations after Walter arrived. His great, great, great grandson Gilbert Palmer has joined the cause, and is fighting in the CT Militia for freedom from Britain. And in a different CT regiment, the 16 year-old Ezra Woodworth somehow enlists in July of 1780. Luckily, they both survive, to marry and start families of their own.

It began to get crowded in New England, and the government was encouraging people to move west, even giving veterans free land to compensate them for their patriotic duties. All they needed to do was get some horses and travel through the heavy forests to the wild Ohio country and build houses out there. No roads, no plumbing of course, no stores, but you can have all the land you want.

So both Gilbert and Ezra make their ways out here. Ezra is first, appearing in the 1810 census, and Gilbert arrives by 1820. Gilbert's son Varnum and Ezra's son Albigence are the first family children who are born in Williamsfield, Ohio. Before Gilbert's death in 1828, his granddaughter Emeline is born. She will go on to have a daughter named Ellen, who marries Newell Woodworth, son of Al, the grandson to Ezra Woodworth.

These two kids have several children, one of whom is a beautiful girl named Edith Emeline Woodworth. She will marry a charming British immigrant and builder named Thomas A. Ford. We still don't know how they met, but I believe that Thomas traveled to Williamsfield to see some distant relatives, since there are MANY Ford graves and records in Williamsfield! Thomas and Edith have a son born in July of 1900 in Williamsfield, Ohio. They name him William Kenneth Ford -- and that's how it all happened!