Tracy Families

of Plymouth, Massachusetts and Norwich, Connecticut

1. From Stephen Tracy, who went to Leiden, Holland with the English Calvinists who became known as the “Pilgrims” and sailed to the New World on the “Anne” about May 1623, arriving at Plymouth about 10 July 1623, and

2. From Lieutenant Thomas Tracy, who arrived at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 and settled at Norwich, Connecticut in 1660.

Stephen Tracy and Lt. Thomas Tracy were about 14 years apart in age and they arrived at New England 13 years apart. In his 1939 Waterman genealogy, Donald Line Jacobus speculated that it is “barely possible” they were related, with Lt. Thomas Tracy the nephew of Stephen Tracy through his older brother Thomas Tracy (Jacobus, 1939).

However, it is well established in Ripley’s 1895 genealogy on Lt. Thomas Tracy that he was the son of Sir Paul Tracy, Bart., of Stanway, England (Ripley, 1895), while Stephen Tracy was the son of Stephen and Agnes (Erdley) Tracy of Great Yarmouth (Tracy S. W., 1936), some 222 miles away from Stanway on England’s eastern coast.

Interestingly enough, the two separate Tracy lines from Stephen Tracy of Plymouth and Lt. Thomas Tracy of Norwich converge in my ancestry with the marriage of Amy Partridge, great-great granddaughter of Stephen and Tryphosa (Lee) Tracy to Samuel Tracy, Jr., great-great grandson of Lt. Thomas Tracy and his wife Mary.

A note about Stephen Tracy, Jr. and Amy Partridge

There appears to be some confusion about Amy (Partridge) Tracy’s name and Stephen Tracy, Jr.’s parentage in the establish Tracy genealogies, but this can be cleared up by reviewing the original records. In his 1898 genealogy, Evert Tracy lists Stephen Tracy, husband of Anna/Amee Partridge as the son of Jonathan and Amee (Palmer). In her 1888 compilation of records on the family of Lt. Thomas Tracy, Abbey sheds light on this. On page 53, Tracy records from Preston, Connecticut have been transcribed, including,

Samuel Tracy, Jr., and Anna Partridge, both of Preston, were married May 15, 1755. Their children were: Elijah Tracy, born April 26, 1756; Cyrus Tracy, born Aug. 6, 1757; Eunice Tracy, born Dec. 2, 1758; Bela Tracy, born April 2, 1761; Diana Tracy, born Feb. 15, 1763; Jonathan Tracy, born Nov. 1, 1764; Deborah Tracy, born Sept. 12, 1766; Samuel P. Tracy, born March 21, 1769; Lucy Tracy, born Feb. 6, 1771; Amy Tracy, born Sept. 11, 1774.

If Samuel Tracy was a junior, he most likely was not the son of Jonathan and Amee (Palmer) Tracy.  Examination of the actual record verifies this:

Additional review of Preston records shows that a Samuel Tracy married Esther Richmond and had a son, Samuel, born 12 October 1734. This Samuel, a junior, would have been 20 ½ years old when he married Amy Partridge.

Additionally, there is some confusion over the name of the wife of Samuel Tracy, Jr. She is named Anna Partridge in the transcription of her birth record in the Barbour Collection. However, a review of the original record of her birth with her parent’s marriage record shows what appears to be “Amie” not “Anna”.

Referring back to the marriage record of Samuel Tracy, Jr. and Amy Partridge, her name clearly is spelled “Ame”, as noted in the transcription in the Barbour Collection and Early Connecticut Marriages.

Stephen Tracy was baptized 28 December 1596 in Great Yarmouth, England. He was the son of Stephen and Agnes (Erdley) Tracy. About 1620 or perhaps earlier, Stephen joined the colony of English Calvinists in Leiden, Holland. He was not in the first group of Pilgrims who left Leiden in July 1620 aboard the Mayflower and Speedwell, returning twice because the Speedwell took on water. When the decision was made to leave the Speedwell behind, the Mayflower finally began its voyage to the New World on 6 September 1620 (Tracy S. W., 1936; Wakefield, The Adventurous Tryphosa (Lee) Tracy, 1975).

Four months later, 2 January 1621, Stephen Tracy married Tryphosa Lee (Tracy S. W., 1936). Stephen left for New England aboard the “Anne” about May 1623 and arrived at Plymouth about 10 July 1623. Tryphosa did not join Stephen on this voyage, most likely because she had given birth to their daughter, Sara, a few months earlier (about January or February 1623). A year later, Tryphosa did make the voyage with baby Sara. The Records of the Exchequer have the following record for persons granted licenses on 3 May 1624 to pass from England beyond the seas:

1 May 1624 Trifoza Trace, 27 years, wife of Steephen Trace resident in Laiden, to the same, also her daughter Sara Trace, 15 months old. (Wakefield, Further on Tryphosa Tracy, 1975)

Stephen and Tryphosa had four more known children, all but Sara born at Plymouth. It is assumed Tryphosa died before Stephen Tracy returned to England about 1653-4. He became ill there and signed a power of attorney to his close friend, John Winslow. He died in 1645 (Tracy S. W., 1936).

My line of descent from Stephen and Tryphosa (Lee) Tracy down to my maternal grandmother is as follows:

1 Stephen Tracy & Tryphosa Lee

2 Sara Tracy + George Partridge

3 John Partridge + Hannah Seabury

4 Samuel Partridge + Deborah Rose

5 Amy Partridge + Samuel Tracy, Jr.

6 Lucy Tracy + Samuel Geer

7 Lydia Geer + Rowland Burdick

8 Abel Burdick + Susan Phillips

9 Frank Rowland Burdick + Sarah Hannah Clark

10 Bertha Melissa Burdick

(Abbey, 1888; Geer, 1923; Preston Town Clerk, 1672-1848; Tracy S. W., 1936)

Lieutenant Thomas Tracy of Norwich, Connecticut

Lieutenant Thomas Tracy was born at Tewksbury, England in 1610, the son of Sir Paul and Anne (Sharkerley) Tracy of Stanway, England. He arrived at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, settled in Salem, Massachusetts for a few years, after which he left for Wethersfield, Connecticut on 23 February 1637, was in Saybrook, Connecticut by 1649, and finally moved to Norwich, Connecticut in 1660 where he stayed for the remainder of his life.

My line of descent from Lt. Thomas and Mary Tracy down to my maternal grandmother is as follows:

1 Lt. Thomas Tracy + Mary (widow of Edward Mason)

2 Jonathan Tracy + Mary Griswold

3 Samuel Tracy + Esther Richmond

4 Samuel Tracy, Jr. + Amy Partridge

5 Lucy Tracy + Samuel Geer

6 Lydia Geer + Rowland Burdick

7 Abel Burdick + Susan Phillips

8 Frank Rowland Burdick + Sarah Hannah Clark

9 Bertha Melissa Burdick

(Abbey, 1888; Geer, 1923; Preston Town Clerk, 1672-1848; Ripley, 1895; Tracy E. E., 1898)

Works Cited

• Abbey, M. O. (1888). Genealogy of the Family of Lt. Thomas Tracy of Norwich, Connecticut. Milwaukee: D.S. Harkness & Co., Printers.

• Geer, W. (1923). The Geer Genealogy, A Historical Record of George and Thomas Geer and Their Descendants in the United States from 1623 to 1923. New York: The Plimpton Press.

• Jacobus, D. L. (Ed.). (1939). The Waterman Family Volume I, Descendants of Robert Waterman of Marshfield, Massachusetts through seven generations. New Haven, Connecticut: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company.

• Preston Town Clerk. (1672-1848). Births Marriages Deaths, Family History Library Microfilm #1311194. Preston, Connecticut.

• Ripley, C. S. (1895). The Ancestors of Lieutenant Thomas Tracy. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers.

• Tracy, E. E. (1898). Tracy Genealogy: Ancestors and Descendants of Lieutenant Thomas Tracy of Norwich, Connecticut. Albany, New York: Joel Munsell's Sons, Publishers.

• Tracy, S. W. (1936). The Tracy Genealogy, Being Some of the Descendants of Stephen Tracy of Plymouth Colony, 1623. Rutland, Vermont: The Tuttle Publishing Company, Inc.

• Wakefield, R. S. (1975). Further on Tryphosa Tracy. (D. L. Jacobus, Ed.) The American Genealogist, 51, 242.

• Wakefield, R. S. (1975). The Adventurous Tryphosa (Lee) Tracy. (D. L. Jacobus, Ed.) The American Genealogist, 51, 71-73.

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Last updated: Thursday, July 22, 2021 08:18:05 PM