Luther Hollis was the son of Royal Hollis and Sarah Summer Hayden. He fought for the North in the Civil War, owned a shoe factory in Brockton, and was part of Hollis Brothers Shoe company. He was one of many shoe workers active in Boston's South Shore region.

Originally this page was anchored on Luther. I have since found too many of Luther's ancestors to reasonably fit.  Thus, this page shows his father Royal's ancestors, with Royal's wife Sarah getting her own page.

There is a broad pattern in this segment of the tree, shared with Sarah Austin's, Sarah Summer Hayden's and James Butler's trees. On the left one sees Brockton and adjacent towns. Towards the middle right of the tree one sees Hingham and other seacoast towns, the first settlements. On the far right one starts to see towns in England, with Hingham England as one of the more common points of immigration.

Much of the settlement of early New England was driven by the English Civil War. When things were going badly for one side or the other -- and things went badly for both sides at various times -- the losers would immigrate to the colonies to avoid assorted troubles. The Cavalier Royalist high church factions tended to immigrate to Virginia and the other southern colonies. The Roundhead Parliamentary Puritan faction tended to come; to New England. Some suggest that the US Civil war was a continuation of the English Civil War, with the democratic industrial faction continuing a struggle against a more rural autocratic faction.

An oddity results. The four South Shore of Massachusetts trees are full of old yankees marrying old yankees. And, yes, they ended up marrying their own relatives. Towards the right hand side of the tree you will see people with a green oval bio flower symbol. These people are all direct ancestors of my grandfather, Harold Butler... by more than one route. Most people so marked will appear at least twice in this tree. The few that don't appear twice would if the tree were extended another generation to the right.

And, of course, if an individual is repeated in more than one place on the chart, all of that person's ancestors, everyone to their right, is also repeated.

For the most part, seven to nine generations will pass before the family line merges again. One notable exception is in the lower right corner of this page.

After the English Civil War ended, so did the immigration from England. In this tree, Sara Austin's and Sarah Summer's, one doesn't see people coming over from England save at the very right hand side of the tree. In part, there was just little immigration between the English Civil War and the US Revolution. If the population was increasing, it was due to large family sizes. After the Revolution, there was emigration enough... but the old Yankee families continued to marry only each other. There are exceptions. For example, see the Marie Bouvier and Anton Fredriksen pages. Still, for the most part the old yankees married other old yankees.

Take a quick look at this block of names...  Abigail Tower, John Tower, John Gardner and Mary Arnold.  Another such block is up higher on this page.  You will see John and Ibrook on another page.  John Gardner and Mary Arnold appear five times total on various pages, each appearance indicating a different way to trace them down to my grandfather Harold Butler and thus to all the Modern Butlers Descended from Harold.

Braintree

Braintree

Warwickshire

Gloucestershire

Puerto Rico???