The Annotator
Still unidentified as of April 2026. A child of Le Roy Warren Swift (“Papa”) and a daughter of the Winter family (“Mama”). She sat down with 49 family photographs — some dating to the 1840s — and wrote labels in blue ink.
“My father Le Roy W. Swift.”
“My Mother’s mother. Elizabeth Arden.”
“Mama she was so pretty.”
Without her, the Winter-Swift photo collection is a box of anonymous faces. With her ink, it is a family archive spanning 170 years.
She is the founder of this project. We are still searching for her name. If you recognize her handwriting or know the children of Le Roy Warren Swift, please contact us through the form on our About page.
Thankful Jenkins (1776)
Daughter of James Jenkins (1735, DAR Patriot). Married Captain Nathaniel Swift (FamilySearch PID MF8H-YW2). This marriage connected the Jenkins line to the Swift line.
Through her mother’s side, the Jenkins family connects to the Green family (Rebecca Green, 1710) and through them to James Green (1640). Every Cincinnati application currently under research depends on Thankful Jenkins’s marriage.
She is not a hyphen between two men’s names. She is the bridge.
Rebecca Green (1710)
Daughter of Samuel Green, granddaughter of James Green (1640, FamilySearch PID LTVK-5Z4). Married John Jenkins (1709). Connected the Green line to the Jenkins line.
Four vacant Society of the Cincinnati seats exist because of the family she joined to the family she came from.
Mary Coffin Starbuck (1645–1717) — The Great Woman
Tristram Coffin’s granddaughter. Married Nathaniel Starbuck. The most powerful person on Nantucket — called “the Great Woman” by contemporaries.
Her conversion to Quakerism in 1702, after a visit by missionary John Richardson, converted the entire island. Quaker values shaped the whaling culture: equality between the sexes meant women ran businesses while men were at sea. Black sailors found work on whaling ships, some even as captains. The community operated with unusual egalitarianism for the era.
She created the social infrastructure that made the whaling economy possible. See the Nantucket founding page for the full story.
The Whaling Wives
When men left on two-to-four-year voyages, the women became the economy.
Anna Folger — Lucretia Mott’s mother — ran the family mercantile business, trading oils and candles in Boston. Nantucket women managed finances, raised children alone, ran shops, and held civic roles that would have been unthinkable in mainland Puritan communities.
The roofwalks on Nantucket houses — the “widow’s walks” — were where women watched for returning ships. Some watched for years. Some watched forever.
The whaling industry was built by the men who sailed and the women who stayed.
Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793–1880)
Born on Nantucket. Father: Captain Thomas Coffin (our Coffin line). Mother: Anna Folger (our Folger line). Benjamin Franklin’s cousin.
Quaker minister. Abolitionist. Co-organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention (1848). Co-author of the Declaration of Sentiments. President of the American Equal Rights Association. Her home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Co-founded Swarthmore College.
Going on the back of the redesigned $10 bill.
The greatest American woman of the nineteenth century came from our two Nantucket families.
Abiah Folger (1667–1752)
Daughter of Peter Folger of Nantucket. Married Josiah Franklin, a Boston tallow chandler. Raised seventeen children. Her son Benjamin became the most famous American of his century.
We know her name because of her son. We should know her name because she raised him.
Elizabeth Arden (c. 1830s)
Newly discovered in Session 43. Identified through a tape label on an ambrotype case: “My Mother’s mother. Elizabeth Arden.”
Wife of Richmond C. Winter (1839–1912). The photograph shows a young woman in a snood with drop earrings, circa 1850s–1860s. Her maiden name Arden is a new research line. Fall River / New Bedford area. See the Warren & Arden page for current research.
Everything we know about her comes from one photograph and seven words of green ink.
Rachel Warren (c. 1840s)
Papa’s mother. Identified through a portrait label. Oval portrait by photographer Lotte Gützlaff. Leroy E. Swift’s wife — the annotator’s paternal grandmother. Her maiden name became her son’s middle name: Le Roy Warren Swift.
The Warren surname is unexplored. She may connect to the Plymouth County Warrens — Richard Warren, Mayflower passenger — already a documented ancestor through another line. Research in progress. See Warren & Arden.