B1,1444 George K Leet Desc

This tree had been posted:  the descendants of George Keller Leet, #1444 (1873-1950) in the Gov Leet book, which I call B1.  Note that his descendants are not documented in B1; furthermore, the name is George Keeler Leet and his birth date is entered as 21 Dec 1874, which, I believe, is incorrect.  One of his descendants is being given edit access to complete his descendant tree.

I need to make an important point.  There are 2 George Keller Leets.  One is #1444, this one.  The other is the Major/Colonel that served under U. S. Grant, #801.  The extant genealogy work has these confused, with their data commingled.  It took a while to clean up the mess, at least in the official trees.  

New page to the family web site, Alva Leet (1850-1901)

I think you will find this interesting.  Go to this page and open the attachment at the bottom.

From the introduction:

This is a synopsis of the ancestors and descendants of Alva Leet, born in Allegany County, NY in 1850.  His father, Franklin, moved to Van Buren County, MI before the Civil War and then died in that War at Shiloh.  The family's journey through American history is interesting, but the journey to creating that history is interesting as well.  See the attached file "The Family of Abby" for more on the genealogical journey.


What started it all was a chance posting on Facebook of this youtube video:

Confusion on Early Dates: The Double Date Issue

The Family Tree Maker 2012 reminded me that dates change because calendars change.  Here is the help on this issue from FTM:


Beginning in 45 B.C., many parts of the world used the Julian calendar to mark the passage of time. According to the Julian calendar, March 25 was the first day of the year and each year was 365 days and 6 hours long. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII determined that the Julian calendar was incorrect: each day was just a little bit too long. This meant that the human calendar wasn't keeping up with nature's calendar, and the seasons kept arriving slightly earlier in the year. To solve the problem, Pope Gregory XIII created the Gregorian calendar. This is the calendar that we use officially in the United States. This new calendar changed the first day of the year from March 25 to January 1. Pope Gregory also had everyone jump ahead by 10 days to make up for the days that were lost when the world was using the old Julian calendar.
The practice of writing double dates resulted from this switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, and also from the fact that not all countries and people accepted the new calendar at the same time. For example, England and the American colonies didn't officially accept the new calendar until 1752. Before 1752, the English government still observed March 25 as the first of the year, but most of the population observed January 1 as the first of the year. For this reason, many people wrote dates falling between January 1 and March 25 with both years, as in the following examples.

Julian or Old Style	Gregorian or New Style	Double Date
December 25, 1718	December 25, 1718	December 25, 1718
January 1, 1718	January 1, 1719	January 1, 1718/19
February 2, 1718	February 2, 1719	February 2, 1718/19
March 25, 1719	March 25, 1719	March 25, 1719

By the time England and the colonies adopted the new Gregorian calendar, the discrepancy between the two calendars was eleven days, instead of ten. To resolve the discrepancy, the government ordered that September 2, 1752 be followed by September 14, 1752. Some people also added 11 days to their birth dates (a fact which is not noted on their birth certificates).

So, for someone like the two Williams born in 1612 or 13, FTM 2012 likes to see the year of birth ans 1612/1613.  What I have to annotate is that Gov William was born 6 mo before the other William.  So I put Gov William as 1612.

The two Williams

In a couple of on-line trees the crossover to England is with William Leete b. 1613, Dodington, Huntingdonshire, England, d. 1683-04-16 Hartford, Connecticut, USA and I cannot make a connection to the England Leetes.

My answer was: 

I'll put another tree up as soon as I can on William Leete (Gov). I just changed his record to point to the other tree, though it hasn't been uploaded. 

There are two William Leetes, cousins. One was born in the summer of 1613; the other was "6 mo and more" when the 1613 visitation occurred. So... most trees make the obvious mistake of combining the two.  

The "Leete-Leet NA Ancestors in England" tree is not "done." Several key questions remain. There are redundancies to remove, and, above all, there are church records as well as mistakes on places born I have to address. But it is better than what is out there.

An Interesting Collision in History (1675)

Most of the recent blogs concern Isaac Leet and descendants.  Isaac immigrated to New Jersey in abt. 1685. Searching for his ancestors, I found that our English genealogist, Michael Leete, shows, in a note on rootsweb, that Isaac's father was Gregory.  Isaac's brother was Samuel (c1633-1679, though I think 1682 is probably a better date).  To make a long story short, Samuel appears to have immigrated in 1675 to help govern the recently acquired (from the Dutch) municipality of New York City.  He was Clerk to the Mayor and then Alderman.  At the same time, the Gov of New York and New York City was Edmund Andros.  Sound familiar?  According to The Family Face:  "Had it not been for the political skill and determination of William Leete, particularly during June and July, 1675, when the Gov of New York attempted to annex the land as far east as the Connecticut River, the state State of Connecticut might have ceased to exist."  Hmmm.  Did William Leete know Samuel Leet?  Were they adversaries?