West in New England: August 2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN REVISITED PT3

Notice the entry following Caleb for his brother Abiel.

This is the image from the 1790 Census for Tyngsborough, Ma.There
is only one Caleb Coburn on this Census and the presence of Reuben
Butterfield is significant since Caleb's brother married the daughter of a
Reuben Butterfield..Notice how the town of Dunstable has been changed
to Tyngsborough:

What I hadn't done when I found this document was pay attention to the other
members of the household. There is a male under 16 years old and 3 females
living with Caleb. Caleb's son Moses Coburn was my ancestor and was already
25 years old in 1790. Who was this young boy?

On the 1800 Census there is again only one Caleb Coburn. On the same page
I found an Abiel Coburn. Again, there are additional members of Caleb's household
that I hadn't paid attention to up until now. The boy is gone, either deceased or grown
and out on his own. There are still three females, one between age 10 to 15, one
between 15 and 25, and one over age 45.

By 1810 the household is reduced to Caleb, one female between 16 to 25 years
old and one 45 years or older:

When I found these records on Ancestry,com I was just starting to really dig
into researching my family. I took a two week trial with Ancestry and grabbed
any records I could find as fast as I could before the two weeks were up. While
I spent more time examining the records for the generations a bit closer to me,
I only recently began to analyzing the older ones. Back then, for example,
I assumed that Caleb only had one child, Moses, because I couldn't find a record
of any other. I went back to the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts site to see
if I could find the births or marriages of daughters of Caleb Coburn but was
unsuccessful.

But I did find something I had missed before, the possible date of death for Caleb
and perhaps the answer to the mystery of the boy from the 1790 Federal Census.
From Vol 1, p97 of the Tyngsborough Vital Records I found the following:
Caleb, s. Caleb, Apr. 3, 1798. PR1
Caleb, Dec. 17, 1810, a. 72 y. PR1

(Fellow SL genealogist DeeDee Nelson found the same information
elsewhere while I was writing this post. Thanks DeeDee!)

I know Caleb was born in 1738 so he would have indeed been 72 years
old in 1810, so there's a good chance that 17Dec 1810 is indeed his
death date. The other Caleb might be a younger son, but I need more
to be confident about that. What I need to find now is a will or a deed
that lists members of Caleb's family, or find Caleb's grave and check for
other Coburn's buried nearby. In otherwords, I know I need to look
beyond the Internet. I also need to keep the "genealogy of place" in
mind and look beyond Tyngsborough to the surrounding towns.( including
across the state line to Pelham which once was part of Tyngsborough).

All in all, I found the "t chart" a useful tool to break down what I'd found on
Caleb Colburn and help me analyze it more rather than just gathering it. I plan
to use it on others of my ancestors.

And thanks to Dear Myrt aka Clarisse for conducting the book review session
of Val Greenwood's book over at Second Life!

Sunday, August 30, 2015

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN REVISITED PT2

((Before I do the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for Caleb Coburn, I thought I'd repost
three posts from four years ago I did as part of an exercise we did in the Genealogists
in Second Life group four years ago. Afterward I'll discuss what I've found recently
and revise my Tchart for him. Here's part 2, which tells more about my problems
researching Caleb))

As I said previously, I don't know a heck of a lot about Caleb Coburn. Well,
I do know a bit more than some people know about some of their ancestors.
I found his DOB on the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts website which
contains images from the famous "Tan Books" transcriptions of the town
records. Interestingly, there appears to have been some damage to the
record because the transcription reads "(---)leb" .

There's a gap between that first fact and the second, the birth of Caleb's son
Moses Coburn in Dracut, Ma. in 1765. That's because there's apparently
no record of the name of Caleb's wife. Now I'm well aware that not everything
can be found online and there are a lot of records that can be found only at
town halls and courthouses. But even in the age before computers there were
other researchers who had no luck discovering the identity of Caleb Coburn's
wife and Moses' Coburn's mother. Last year I blogged about how the co-authors
of "Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn" dealt with
it almost a century ago in 1913. They simply wrote:

"Caleb Coburn(Moses 3 Joseph2 Edward1) was born in Dracut December
12, 1738; he married ________ ____________; they dwelt at Tyngsboro."
(p48)

But looking at the T chart I did some figuring. Caleb would have been 26 or 27
years old when Moses was born. I guessed Caleb would have been 16 years old
or older when he married the mystery wife, so that would mean that the marriage
would have taken place sometime between 1755 and 1765.

In his book Val Greenwood talks about the importance of knowing the genealogy
of places(p61) because the boundaries of early American towns and counties
shifted so much which would effect where records might be kept at different
times. Tyngsborough is a perfect example of this. It used to be part of the
town of Dunstable but split off as a separate area in 1789 before becoming
an actual town in 1809. Also, in colonial times in Massachusetts it was not
unusual for a person's birth or marriage to be recorded not only in the town
they were born in but also in the town their parents were born, which in this
case would still have been Dracut. I'd already checked the records at Early
Vital Records of Massachusetts for Dracut, Dunstable and Tyngsborough for
any mention of Caleb's marriage. I also checked for the record of Moses
Coburn's birth in hopes it would list the name of his mother but that didn't
pan out either.

I'll talk about what the Censuses of 1790, 1800, and 1810 told me next
in part 3 here

Saturday, August 29, 2015

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN REVISITED PT1

I chose Caleb because I hadn't found a death date for him nor have I ever found
the name of his wife. I printed his name at the top of the page and included all
the various spellings I've encountered for Coburn, and then started listing on the
left side of the page what I already knew : his birth in Dracut, Ma on 12 Dec 1738,
the birth of his son Moses in Tyngsborough, Ma in 1765 and where he was
enumerated on the 1790, 1800, and 1810 Federal Census. There was also a
Caleb Coburn enumerated on the 1820 Fishersfield Nh Federal Census but I
had questions about that one.(which may account for my mangling the name of the
town in my list)

And of course, he died, (Unless Caleb was an immortal vampire or alien) but
I'd found no date or place for that as of yet.

So, what did that all this suggest? As you can see, initially, not a heck of lot. But
we'll get to that next post,

Friday, August 28, 2015

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTIONS RELEASES FOR 28 AUGUST 2015

Here's this week's Findmypast Friday announcement of recently added records:

This week's Findmypast Friday includes a range of fascinating collections from around the world. Spend your weekend discovering details for your family tree in new electoral registers, newspaper articles and much more...

This week, we're bringing you over 476,000 new records and newspaper articles including:

See what you can unearth about your ancestors with these brand new collections.

The Findmypast team

You can see full details of these collections here at Findmypast.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Findmypast Ambassador Program which includes a
complimentary one year world subscription to Findmypast and a Findmypast First membership.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 31: MOSES COBURN 1702-1742 PT2

As I said in my last post, Moses Coburn had died without a will, but there was a Probate File.
I had some questions I hoped the file would answer:

-What had he done for a living? The Coburn Genealogy had given no information.
-How big an estate did he leave?
-How many of his seven children were alive when he died, and how was the estate divided
among the heirs?

I found the images for the Probate File on AmericanAncestors.org. They were out of order
but fourteen images in I found the first page of the inventory of the "real estate of Mr. Moses
Coburn, Late of Dracut in ye county of Middlesex, yeoman, deceasd":

The first item concerns Moses' "Homestead Farme" which turned out to be "about twenty eight acres", bordered on the west by the Merrimack River on on the other sides by neighbors that included Coburn relatives. The farm included a barn, a "dwelling house" and a "Corn House" and was valued at 750 pounds. But what astonished me was that there were four more pages of other plots of land Moses owned in the area. In the end Moses' estate, including the livestock and farming implements, came to over 1383 pounds.

The final settlement of the estate wasn't made until 1758, at which time the eldest son, Moses Jr. received the major part of what was left after the estate debts were settled and a third was given to the widow Deborah. The second son, my ancestor Caleb Coburn, received 19 acres of land in the neighboring town of Dunstable as his share. At the end of the file is a document confirming their inheritances, but also containing the following order, for Moses Jr. and Caleb:

'to pay his Brother Abiel Coburn & to his sisters Phebe, Deborah, & Jerusha (children of the sd intestate)each fourteen pounds four shillings & four pence. one farthing; and to his sister Mary (another daughter of the said intestate) in part of her portion, the sum of thirteen pounds, fifteen shillings, & four pence half penny;

And I order the said assigneee Caleb to pay to said Mary (to complete her share) eight shillings and eleven pence, three farthings.

The following page contains the signatures of all the family members agreeing to the terms of the settlement. By now, they were all grown and in their twenties.

I'm guessing that after Deborah Wright remarried the children were brought up by her and
her husband Deacon Edward Coburn. I 'm not surprised the girls received small amounts of cash as their share, but I wonder why Abiel, the youngest son, didn't receive any land. Could he have been left an inheritance by his stepfather Edward? I'll have to see if I can find out!

Monday, August 24, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 31: MOSES COBURN 1702-1742

Continuing with my Coburn family ancestors, the subject for Week 31 of the 52 Ancestors in
52 Weeks Challenge is my 6x great grandfather Moses Coburn.

Moses is the first in the family to be a bit of a mystery. There's not much about him in the Colburne genealogy, just the vital records for his birth, marriage and death, and the names and dates for his children. What is interesting is he is the first ancestor I had encountered who had married a stepsister.

Here's what I found in Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn by George A. Gordon and Silas R Coburn:

Moses(2) Coburn (Joseph2, Edward1) was born in Dracut on Jan.1, 1702, and died June 5, 1742;
married July 7, 1730, dau.of Joseph and Deborah (Stevens)Wright who was born 1702. The
widow married Deacon Edward Coburn; published Nov.7, 1744
Children:
i. Phebe, b. April 12, 1731
ii. Deborah, b.Dec.7, 1733; d.Oct 13, 1823; m. William Frye of Andover, Nov.17, 1769.
iii. Moses, b.July 13, 1735
iv. Moses, b. June 7, 1732; d. Jan.22. 1733.
v. Jerusha, b.Feb. 27, 1736; m. Abram Tyler.
vi. Caleb, b.12 Dec 1738.
vii.Mary, b.1740.
viii. Abiel, b.Dec. 9, 1742.

pp27-28
Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn privately printed by Walter
Coburn, Lowell, Ma. 1913.

There's no mention of cause of death or place of death. It must have been for Deborah, widowed
after only ten years marriage. with possibly as many as seven young children,the youngest of whom
had been born after Moses' death. To make matters worse, Moses had died intestate.

I'll discuss his probate file in the next post in the series.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTIONS RELEASES FOR 21AUGUST 2015

Oops. I'm a day late because of after-birthday ennui! Here's this week's Findmypast Friday announcement of recently added records:

" We're bringing you a bonanza of British records for Findmypast Friday this week. Our new probate calendars, parish records and newspaper articles will give you plenty to delve into over the weekend...

This week, we're bringing you over 6.3 million new records and newspaper articles including:

Discover more about your ancestors with brand new records every week on Findmypast Friday.

The Findmypast team"

You can see full details of these collections here at Findmypast.

I need to check my database and see which of my English ancestors came from Hertfordshire!

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Findmypast Ambassador Program which includes a
complimentary one year world subscription to Findmypast and a Findmypast First membership.

Monday, August 17, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 30: JOSEPH COBURN PT2

In this modern age road construction is a fairly simple thing. The surveyors lay out the route,
and if it runs across private land the owner is compensated, or the land is taken by eminent
domain. But back in colonial New England it wasn't as simple as that. Back then, if the road
ran through private property, sometimes the property owner might decide to block the road
because he didn't want traffic coming across his land. Such was the case in 1710 in Dracut, Ma.
when a man named Jonathan Howard bought land that included a road that had been in use
for forty years but which he now wanted to close.

The citizens of Dracut appealed to the colonial government in Boston, and my 7x great
grandfather Joseph Colburn and his brother Daniel sent the following petition to the General
Court recorded by Silas Roger Coburn in his History of Dracut. All spellings are as recorded
by the transcriber.

"This appears to have been satisfactory to the families of the Coburns and Varnums for several years, but in 1710 the owner of the land on the south side of the river attempted to close the road. The settlers in Dracut desiring only their rights petitioned the General Court as follows: "To the Honord Court of ye Generil sessions of the peace Holden by her Majestyes Justices in & for ye County of Mddlx June ye 13 1710 at Concord. The petition of severil of the Inhabitants of the Plantations called Draucutt scituat upon the Northerly side of Merrimack river Humbly sheweth. That where as your petitioners as also our predecessors of ye fore cited place have for now fourty yeares peacebly enjoyed the free use of away to travil & go to Chelmsford over merimuck river at ye landing place against ye now dwelling house of Joseph Coleburn the wch way went from sd landing place cross ye farme wch did formerly belong to major Hinchman, the wch way as we apprehend is in the same place where it was layd out by order of the selectmen of Chelmsford and is more convenient upon several accounts then any other place fer landing our boat both from winds and Ice in the season of ye year as also that place is more convenient to defend the Boat from ye Enemies if assaulted there being no other house fortyfied at ye river but sd Colburns there being nine or ten houses near thereto all which desire the way may be there being the principle part of sd plantation. But there is now one Jonathan Howard a cuccussor upon the sd farm of major Hinchman doth stop us in our passing in sd way by fencing us from going there when we did apprehend was our right to go. And therefore we your poor petitioners Humbly beg and desire of this Honored Court to consider our Condition and order something to be done to effect."

Daniell Coburn Joseph Coburn in the name of the rest"

The answer to the petition was favorable as a brief report of the court will show: "July ye 30 1710 The Court Considering the danger of laying sd way any where else Especially in time of War Order that the sd way be Continued and used as it is now Till this Court Shall See Cause to alter the same and sd Dracut men to pay costs."-p241-242

History of Dracut, Massachusetts: Called by the Indians Augumtoocooke and Before Incorporation, the Wildernesse North of the Merrimac. First Permanment Settlement in 1669 and Incorporated as a Town in 1701, Press of the Courier-Citizen Company, 1922 - Dracut (Mass.)

In this case, public safety when the colonists were still at war with the French and Indians trumped
the rights of the property owner.

Moses Coburn will be the subject of the next post in the 52 Ancestors series.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTIONS RELEASES FOR 14AUGUST 2015

Here's this week's Findmypast Friday announcement of recently added records:

"We've added an enthralling range of Findmypast Friday records for you this week. They include British military records, Scottish and Irish collections and unique census records from Australia. Who knows what you'll discover about your family in these latest additions?

This week, we've added over 224,000 new records including:

Grow your family tree further with Findmypast, as we continue to deliver on our promise of thousands of new records each week.

The Findmypast team"

You can see full details of these collections and the New Zealand collection here at Findmypast.

I'm going to check that Scottish Covenanters 1679-1688. I have a few Scottish ancestors who
were sent to Massachusetts as indentured servants who may be in that collection.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Findmypast Ambassador Program which includes a
complimentary one year world subscription to Findmypast and a Findmypast First membership.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 30: JOSEPH COBURN PT1

For Week 30 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks I'm discussing 7x great grandfather Joseph Colburn.
The family name had several variations (Colbourne, Colborn, Colburne, etc) but for most records starting with Joseph, Colburn was the most common spelling. One of Joseph's sons,
Aaron Colburn, moved to Maine which is why there is a biography for Joseph in the book
Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine, Volume 1:

(I) Deacon Joseph, son of Edward Coburn, was born in Ipswich, June 12, 1661, and died at Dracut, November 13, 1733. He removed with his father to the Dracut purchase, and July 8th, after his twenty-first birthday, received from his father the title to oneeighth of the Evered-Webb land. November 7, 1699, his father gave him a deed to the homestead and the garrison house. He filled several public offices, being selectman of Dracut 1712-16, 1721. He married (first) Hannah , who died September 22, 1722; (second) intention recorded December 8, 1722, Deborah Wright, widow of Joseph Wright, daughter of John Stevens, of Chelmsford. Children, all by first wife, born in Dracut: 1. Hannah, September 9, 1684. 2. Mary, October 22, 1688: married, in Concord, May 6, 1714, Ezekiel Richardson, son of Thomas and Hannah (Coburn) Richardson. 3. Sarah, October 18, 1690. 4. Lydia, January 18, 1692. 5. Joseph, born April 4, 1695; married in Concord, January 26, 1709, Hannah Harwood, died September 21, 1758; she died November 14, 1760. 6. Edward, born July 9, 1697. 7. Aaron, May 27, 1700, mentioned below. 8. Moses, January 1, 1703, married, July 7, 1730, Deborah Wright, daughter of Joseph and Deborah (Stevens) Wright, the latter being his stepmother. He died June 5, 1742, and she married second Deacon Edward Coburn. pp156-157

Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine, Volume 1 Henry Sweetser Burrage, Albert Roscoe Stubbs, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1909 - Maine

I'm descended from Joseph's youngest son, Moses.

To be continued

Friday, August 07, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 29: EDWARD COLBOURNE REVISITED PT4

I found Edward Colbourne's entry in the Great Migration book recently on American
Ancestors.org and it was very helpful verifying some of the information I had already
and in some cases, correcting it. As a result of what I read I've changed the name of
Edward's wife in my database from "Hannah Rolfe" to just "Hannah", since it now seems
there was some confusion with his son Thomas's wife "Hannah Rouf".

The exact birth dates of Edward's first six children are unknown, probably because of records
being destroyed in the Indian wars. The information below is from The Great Migration,
pp148-149:

His nine children were:

John (1645?1695)- married Susannah Read in Chelmsford, Ma. in March 1672

Robert (1646?-1701)- married Mary Bishop at Chelmsford around 1670

Thomas (1648?-1728)- married (1) Hannah Rouf 6Aug 1672 (2) Mary Richardson 17Nov 1671.
Both marriages were at Chelmsford.

Edward (1651?-1675)- killed by Indians at Brookfield Ma, 2Aug 1675

Daniel (1654?-1712)- married Sarah Blood 18Jun 1683 at Chelmsford

Hannah (1656? )- married (1) Thomas Richardson 28Sep 1682 at Chelmsford (2) John Wright

Ezra (1658-1739)- married Hannah Varnum 22Nov 1681 at Chelmsford

Joseph (1661-1733)- married. Hannah (Last Name Unknown) before 1684 at Chelmsford (2) widow Deborah Wright 1722

Lydia (1666)- married John Walker by 1686

The Great Migration entry made me aware of a connection between another of my ancestors
and Edward's family. August 3rd of this year was the 340th anniversary of my 9x great grandfather's Simon Willard's ride with his troops to help the town of Brookfield Ma. repel an Indian attack.
He arrived too late to save Edward Colbourne Jr. who had been killed the day before. Seven
years later in 1675, Daniel Colbourne married Sarah Blood, one of Simon Willard's granddaughters. Since Simon was in charge of the defense of many of the frontier towns during King Philip's War,
he had contact with the Colbourne family which probably led to the closer ties between the
Willards and Colbournes.

Joseph Colburn will be the subject of the next entry in the 52 Ancestors series.

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTIONS RELEASES FOR 7AUGUST 2015

Here's this week's Findmypast Friday announcement of recently added records:

"Uncover details of your ancestors' key life events with this week's new Findmypast Friday records. Over 1.2 million additions have been made to our popular Staffordshire parish registers. Plus, you could discover your New Zealand family in brand new cemetery records.

This week, we've added over 1.2 million new records including:

The most important milestones in your relatives' lives are at your fingertips, ready to be explored.

The Findmypast team"

You can see full details of these collections and the New Zealand collection here at Findmypast.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Findmypast Ambassador Program which includes a
complimentary one year world subscription to Findmypast and a Findmypast First membership.

Wednesday, August 05, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 29: EDWARD COLBOURNE REVISITED PT3

I mentioned in the previous post that I'd found my ancestor Edward Colbourne's probate file
at American Ancestors .org and that the handwriting on some of the document pages is a little
difficult to read. Here's an example:

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)

On the other hand, I also located the image of the land Edward sold to his son Joseph, also my
ancestor, and that for the most part is very legible. It begins at the bottom of the left hand page:

(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-36173-4062-4?cc=2106411&wc=MC1M-ZN5:361613501,364521301 : accessed 3 August 2015), Middlesex > Deeds 1696-1716 vol 12-13 > image 230 of 832; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

About the only part of the document that is a bit tricky is the bit at the end where the person
recording the land sale gets a bit flamboyant. But in both cases, it's always a thrill to discover
images of documents involving an ancestor!

I'll discuss Edward's children and his wife in the next and final post in this series.

To be continued.

Monday, August 03, 2015

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 29: EDWARD COLBOURNE REVISITED PT2

As I said in the previous post, I found Edward Colbourne's Probate file over at the
AmericanAncestors.org website. While there is an inventory of his estate and a list of debts
yet to be paid, there is no will. That's because Edward and wife Hannah had already divided
their land among there children by selling it to them for amounts of money that could be paid
in installments, as described by Coburn descendant Frederick William Coburn in his History
of Lowell:

"Edward Colburn's wife is known to have been named Hannah. Her maiden name is unknown—perhaps because the Ipswich town records were burned in 1831. His nine children were: Edward (16421675); John (1644-1695); Robert (1646-1701) ; Thomas (1648-1728); Daniel (1654-1712); Hannah (1656 ); Ezra (1658-1739); Joseph (1661-1733) ; Lydia (1666 ). This ample progeny of stalwart sons received allotments of land in the parts of Dracut which the father had acquired, each receiving a lot that bordered on the river. To John in 1671 was deeded one-eighth of the holding bought from John Evered, "right against the new barn bounded by Robert on both sides, the river south and highway north, reserving one-half acre about the new barn with convenient highway to new barn." The son did not receive this property as a gift, for he agreed to pay his father £55 sterling, in annual installments of £5. Deeds of property to other sons are on record, the latest being one of date 1690 to Joseph, who apparently had been selected to care for his parents in their later years. "For divers causes me thereunto moving," wrote Edward Colburn, "especially in consideration of that care to provide for me and for my dear wife so long as it shall please God to continue both or either of us in this life I do convey unto my son Joseph Colburn my old dwelling house in Said Dracut and upon my farm thereon, which was the Garrison House, and which he is actually possessed of. Together with a half part of my lot of land to said house adjoining to the land of my son Ezra Coburn, the said land lying northeast and up the river. It is the half part of that latter field which is commonly called the Barn Field." - pp32-33

History of Lowell and Its People, Volume 1 Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1920 - Lowell Ma

Joseph Coburn, who received the house and land in return for caring for his parents, was my
7x great grandfather.

To be continued.