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The Political Graveyard: A Database of American History
Birdsey family of Meriden, Connecticut

Note: This is just one of 1,325 family groupings listed on The Political Graveyard web site. These families each have three or more politician members, all linked together by blood, marriage or adoption.

This specific family group is a subset of the much larger Four Thousand Related Politicians group. An individual may be listed with more than one subset.

These groupings — even the names of the groupings, and the areas of main activity — are the result of a computer algorithm working with the data I have, not the choices of any historian or genealogist.

  Gershom Birdsey (1776-1865) — of Meriden, New Haven County, Conn. Born in Middletown, Middlesex County, Conn., December 29, 1776. Member of Connecticut state house of representatives from Meriden, 1827. Died March 13, 1865 (age 88 years, 74 days). Interment at East Cemetery, Meriden, Conn.
  Relatives: Son of Gershom Birdsey (1734-1789) and Hannah (Bartlett) Birdsey; married, August 9, 1798, to Lucy Coe; father of Eli Coe Birdsey (1799-1843); grandfather of Eli Coe Birdsey (1843-1929); third great-grandnephew of Robert Treat; fourth great-grandson of Thomas Welles; second cousin of Benjamin Hard; second cousin twice removed of Arthur Julius Birdseye; third cousin of Victory James Birdseye; third cousin once removed of Jethro Ayers Hatch; third cousin twice removed of Robert Treat Paine and Isaac Washington Birdseye; third cousin thrice removed of Oliver Cromwell Jennings; fourth cousin once removed of Ebenezer Huntington, Charles Robert Sherman, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, William Wolcott Ellsworth and David Lowrey Seymour.
  Political family: Birdsey family of Meriden, Connecticut (subset of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also Find-A-Grave memorial
  Eli Coe Birdsey (1799-1843) — also known as Eli C. Birdsey — of Meriden, New Haven County, Conn. Born December 21, 1799. Member of Connecticut state house of representatives from Meriden, 1834. Died October 9, 1843 (age 43 years, 292 days). Interment at East Cemetery, Meriden, Conn.
  Relatives: Son of Gershom Birdsey and Lucy (Coe) Birdsey; married to Rebecca Cook Wilcox; father of Eli Coe Birdsey (1843-1929); fourth great-grandnephew of Robert Treat; fifth great-grandson of Thomas Welles; second cousin once removed of Benjamin Hard; third cousin once removed of Victory James Birdseye, James Samuel Wadsworth and Arthur Julius Birdseye; third cousin thrice removed of Robert Treat Paine and Bernard Lee Case; fourth cousin of Israel Coe, Charles Frederick Wadsworth, Jethro Ayers Hatch, James Wolcott Wadsworth and George Harrison Hall; fourth cousin once removed of Morris Woodruff, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, William Wolcott Ellsworth, Gideon Hard, Francis William Kellogg, Lyman Wetmore Coe, Robert Cleveland Usher, Isaac Washington Birdseye, Arthur Newton Holden, James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. and Lawson Wooding Hall.
  Political family: Birdsey family of Meriden, Connecticut (subset of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also Find-A-Grave memorial
  Eli Coe Birdsey (1843-1929) — also known as Eli C. Birdsey — of Meriden, New Haven County, Conn. Born in Meriden, New Haven County, Conn., February 25, 1843. Republican. Hardware merchant; member of Connecticut state house of representatives from Meriden, 1919-20. Member, Freemasons; Knights Templar. Died February 5, 1929 (age 85 years, 346 days). Interment at East Cemetery, Meriden, Conn.
  Relatives: Son of Eli Coe Birdsey (1799-1843) and Rebecca Cook (Wilcox) Birdsey; married 1864 to Catherine Butler; grandson of Gershom Birdsey; fifth great-grandnephew of Robert Treat; sixth great-grandson of Thomas Welles; first cousin twice removed of Jeduthun Wilcox; second cousin once removed of Leonard Wilcox; second cousin twice removed of Benjamin Hard; third cousin once removed of Francis William Kellogg; third cousin twice removed of Thomas Chittenden, Victory James Birdseye and James Samuel Wadsworth; fourth cousin of Arthur Julius Birdseye; fourth cousin once removed of Martin Chittenden, Israel Coe, Charles Frederick Wadsworth, Jethro Ayers Hatch, James Wolcott Wadsworth and George Harrison Hall.
  Political family: Birdsey family of Meriden, Connecticut (subset of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also Find-A-Grave memorial

"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872
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