52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 8: JOHN STOW OF ROXBURY AND CONCORD, MA.

As I wrote in my previous post, I now turn to the ancestors of my 3x great grandmother Lucy (Stowe) Coburn. Her Stowe family line extends back to John Stow who arrived jn Massachusetts
Bay Colony in 1634 and settled in Roxbury. At that time Roxbury was not part of Boston but a
separate small town, as many of the neighborhoods of modern day Boston once were. John appears
to have been a clerk and was rewarded with a grant of land for his services putting the
laws of the colony into a written record. 

I found this interesting article in Googlebooks, written over a century ago for the publication of
the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society:

"John Stow, according to the Rev. John Elliott's Record of Church Members, arrived in New England the 17th of the 3rd month anno 1634. He brought with him his wife and six children: Thomas, Elizabeth, John, Nathaniel, Samuel and Thankful. Elizabeth Stow, the wife of John Stow, she was a very godly matron, a blessing not only to her family but to all the church & when she had lead a christian conversation a few years among us she dyed & left a good savor behind her.

Through the publication in the New England Register, page 58, January, 1912, we have the records of the Parish of All Saints Church, Biddenden, Co. Kent, between 1558 and 1638, so far as they relate to the family of Bigge and among them is that of the marriage 1608 of John Stowe and Elizabeth Bigge 13 September.

In the ship Elizabeth which sailed 9 April and arrived in New England 17 May, 1634, bringing John Stow and his family, we also find his mother-in-law Rachel Biggs and, despite the fact that Mr. Waters in his Gleanings has given as much relating to the Bigge or Biggs familyf, no light has ever been thrown upon the maiden name of Rachel, so that it was with much satisfaction that, among the Bigge entries of marriages in St. Mildred's Church, Tenterden, Co. Kent, published in the same number of the Register, was found 1583—John Bigge of Cranbrooke and Rachel Martin of Lidde, 14 September. In the McDonoughHackstaff Genealogy it is stated that Rachel Bigg was born in or before 1579 and in view of the date of her marriage, it would appear that it was certainly before but, because of a mistake in the list of passengers on the Elizabeth, we cannot tell her age when she landed. In this list it is given as 6 , which may have been meant for 69 perhaps if she was about 17 when married.

Rachel Bigg made her will 17 November, 1646 and it was attested by Richard Peacocke, one of the witnesses, 30 June, 1647, her "sonne in law" John Stowe being Executor, so that Savage is in error in stating that John died in 1643. It would appear that he sold his land in Roxbury in 1648 and removed to Concord probably late in the year, as he made an Inventory of the estate of John Levins of Roxbury 30 August, 1648. He probably later removed to Middleton, Conn., and died there. His son Thomas went to Middleton in 1659 and Samuel removed there in 1652.
Henry W. Belknap."
Salem, Mass., Feb., 1912."
-p118
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 44,  New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 1913 - New York, New York

I'm descended from John and Rachel Stow's son Nathaniel, who married Martha Metcalf.

MY STOW/STOWE LINE OF DESCENT

I've been posting about the families of the women who married my male Coburn ancestors for awhile now and now turn to the ancestors of 3x great grandmother Lucy Stow/Stowe who married Wesley Coburn on 28 February 1827 at Albany, Oxford, Me.

Lucy's lineage traces back to immigrant ancestor John Stow on her father's side, and there are connections to many prominent early colonial families. Author Richard Henry Dana (Two Years Before The Mast) is a cousin by blood, and Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin) a cousin by marriage. There may also be a connection to the Merriams of dictionary fame. But her mother Anne Mayhew is a brickwall, so I'm hoping to break that down while writing about the family here.

This is the line of descent from John Stow to my grandmother Cora B. Barker:

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTION RELEASES FOR 26 FEBRUARY 2016

 Here's the announcement for the Findmypast Friday records releases for 26 February 2016:


This week we've added over 269,000 new records including:

Britain, Merchant Seamen, 1918-1941
Over 240,000 new records have been added. Discover valuable information about their voyages, ranks, next of kin, physical descriptions and more. In some cases, you may even find photographs. Was your forefather a salty sea dog? »

Ireland, Non-Conformist Births & Baptisms
Explore over 2,000 new records to discover where and when your non-conformist ancestors were born, their religious denomination and the names and address of their parents. Over 200 years of history »

Ireland, Non-Conformist Marriages
Search the latest additions to this collection and find out who your ancestor married, where they married and when. Records will also reveal the couples' occupations, residences and the names of their fathers. Ireland's 'I dos' »

No ancestors from any of the regions covered this week? Try searching for your relatives in our more specialized collections. For instance, you could find textile manufacturers or biscuit bakers from all over the United states and Canada.
Alex
Editor,
The Findmypast team



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.

MORE ABOUT THE MOORES: CONCLUSION

Once I started researching the hint Elizabeth Handler gave me it was like peeling off layers of skin from an onion. I found vital records, town histories, and family genealogies that led back to earlier generations and immigrant ancestors. Best of all were the Middlesex County, Ma. Probate Files on the AmericanAncestors.org website where I found the following: 
   

Moore Family
9x great grandfather John Moore 1672
8x great grandfather John Moore 1702

White Family
9x great grandfatherJohn White 1673
7x great grandfatherJohn White 1725
8x great grandfather Josiah White

Whitcomb Family
7x great grandfather David Whitcomb
9x great grandfather John Whitcomb
8x great grandfather Josiah Whitcomb

Fairbanks Family
8x great grandfather Jonas Fairbanks

Wilder family
8x great grandfather Nathaniel Wilder

Hayward Family
8x great grandfather Joseph Hayward

11 new Probate Files so far! I'm hoping to find more when FamilySearch adds to its Worcester County, Ma. files.

And the discoveries I've made about the Moores and associated families helped me take down a brickwall in the line that is my next subject for the 2016 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series.

That will be discussed in another post.

MORE ABOUT THE MOORES, PT3: THE WHITES

Another new branch on my grandmother Cora B. Barker's turned up quite a surprise.

Here's the relationship chart showing her descent from immigrant ancestor John White:

While preparing this post I referenced several White family genealogies, and was so preoccupied
with my male ancestors I nearly missed an important female relative. One of my 9x great grandfather
John White's children was his daughter Mary White who married Rev. Joseph Rowlandson. On
10Feb 1676 Indians attacked Lancaster, Ma. killing 13 people and taking over 20 others captive
among whom were Mary and three of her children captive for three months. Mary would later
write of her ordeal in  A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. 

I've seen Mary Rowlandson mentioned many times in stories about the conflict between the Puritans
and Native Americans, never dreaming I was related to her!

I'll have one more post in about all this.

To be continued...

MORE ABOUT THE MOORES, PT2: THE WHITCOMBS

Continuing a look at the newly discovered branches on my maternal grandmother's family tree...

Last post I talked about the ancestors Stephen Moore's father Abel Moore. I was also able to trace
the ancestors of his father Betty Whitcomb. Here's a relationship chart from the earliest Whitcomb
immigrant, who died in Lancaster, Ma. on 24Sep 1662:

New families added to my tree include Hayward from Concord, and Waters and White from the
Lancaster/Bolton Ma. area. All of them have connections to the ancestors I already had from
Lancaster on my grandfather's side of the family.

There's some interesting family stories that I'll be talking about in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
blogposts.

To be continued...

MORE ABOUT THE MOORES, PT1.

At the end of January I wrote a blogpost about one of my brickwalls, my Dad's maternal 3x great
grandfather, Stephen Moore. Thanks to a tip from Elizabeth Handler, I was able to break down
that wall, and I've been making more discoveries about the Moores and related families over the past few weeks. Here's a relationship chart tracing the relationship between my maternal grandmother Cora
Berthella Barker and her earliest Moore ancestor so far:

There are three new families added to my family tree on this chart, (Smith, Fairbanks & Whitcomb)
and one family name I knew, Willard, but from Dad's paternal side of his family. I remembered
seeing the Fairbanks name associated with my Willard and Sawyer ancestors on that paternal side as
he early settlers of Lancaster and Harvard, Ma. Now it turns out my grandmother had ancestors among those settlers too.

The furthest back I have on my grandmother's Moore line now is John Moore and Anna Smith through their son John Jr. who married Hazadiah Fairbanks. Another son, Jonathan, had married Hannah Sawyer and are my grandfather's ancestors through the Houghton line. Here's that line of descent:

I now know my grandparents were Moore 7th cousins 1x removed.

But there are more new ancestors added to my tree, and next I'll discuss the Whitcombs

To be continued...

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTION RELEASES FOR 19 FEBRUARY 2016

Here's the announcement for the Findmypast Friday records releases for 19 February 2016:


This week we're bringing you over 7 million new records, newspaper articles and periodical updates including:

PERSI Image and Index update
45,663 new images and dozens of new articles from Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Utah and New Zealand have been added to PERiodical Source Index (PERSI). Visit the blog for details »

1939 Register Browse
A handy partner to the name-searchable 1939 Register, Browse offers you the ability to explore England and Wales by county, borough/district, piece number and ED letter code. Find your family on the eve of war »

British Newspapers
Over 6.4 million articles have recently been added to our collection of historic British Newspapers. Discover 26 brand new titles, including 19 from Wales dating back to 1829. Did your Welsh relatives make headlines? »

If your family has Irish roots, look out for 10 million Irish Catholic Parish Registers, coming soon to Findmypast. One of the most important Irish collections ever to be released online, the registers cover over 200 years of history from 1671-1900 and contain records from over 1,000 parishes around Ireland, making them a gold mine for anyone with Irish heritage.

Jen Baldwin,
The Findmypast team


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.

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 7: BENJAMIN SHUTTLEWORTH OF WRENTHAM, MA.

The information so far about my 7x great grandfather Benjamin Shuttleworth is pretty scanty. This is the only mention I've found of him online, from the Early Records of Dedham, Massachusetts, V2:

Benjamin Shuttleworth lived for a time in Stonington, Conn., and the church records of that place show the baptism of two children of Benjamin and Sarah Shuttleworth. He soon, however, returned to this vicinity, and settled in Wrentham, where the records show the births of numerous children, one of whom, Samuel Shuttleworth, was born July 17, 1721, and removed to Dedham, where he was assessed in 1742, and in 1744 married Abigail Whiting, as mentioned above. page ix 

Hill, Don Gleason ed., Early Records of Dedham, Massachusetts, Volume 2, Dedham Transcript, Dedham, Ma. 1888

The only reason I found even that is because the volume is dedicated to one of his descendants.

I need to see if I can find any Land or Probate Records on FamlySearch. The key might be the family of Benjamin's mother, Elizabeth Leonard.

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 6: VINCENT SHUTTLEWORTH OF MEDFIELD, MA.

It's time to turn to the family of my 6x great grandmother Keziah (Shuttleworth) Butterfield, the wife of David Butterfield.

Keziah's is another one of those families where I haven't out much as of yet. I'm not sure who her
immigrant ancestor was. This is something I found about her grandfather, Vincent Shuttleworth:

The first mention of the Shuttleworth family in Dedham is the record of the marriage of Vincent Shuttleworth and Elizabeth Leonard, Feb. 18th, 1677-8. They seem to have settled at once in Medfield. Their oldest child, Benjamin, was born Feb. 19, 1678-9. -page ix

Hill, Don Gleason ed., Early Records of Dedham, Massachusetts, Volume 2, Dedham Transcript, Dedham, Ma. 1888

Vincent has two brief mentions in The History of Medfield, the first being from the years 1677 :

Soldiers went from this town to fight the Indians in the province of Maine. John Mason, the record says, was " killed in the country's service at the eastward." Benjamin Rockwood was brought into Salem, wounded. Vincent Shuttleworth was fined £4 for deserting the service "into which he had been impressed by the town of Medfield. -p 94

And later, from 1686:

Vincent Shuttleworth, the deserter of 1677, was employed  to ring the new bell and sweep the meeting-house.  -p 101

Tilden, William S. editor, Town of Medfield Massachusetts 1650-1886, Geo. H. Ellis, publisher,
Boston, Ma, 1887

The Benjamin Rockwood who was wounded is another of my 9x great grandfathers and he was
wounded at the Battle of Moore's Brook, near Scarborough, Me. I posted about that Battle several
years ago. I learned from several online sources that Vincent Shuttleworth was fined 4 pounds for
his desertion. 

Interestingly, the desertion doesn't seem to have been an obstacle to Vincent's marriage to Elizabeth Leonard, and the Shuttleworth family went on to prominence in Dedham in the years following.

I'm descended from Benjamin Shuttleworth, Vincent's eldest son.

JONAS PRESCOTT & MARY LOKER

((This was first posted on 7Jul 2008. It's a nice story with probably a
little truth to it, but true or not it makes a good Valentine's Day story)).


I mentioned in my previous post about John Prescott that
there is a romantic (and probably romanticized) story about
his son Jonas Prescott's courtship of Mary Loker. I've found it
recounted in several different books on Google Books, and
while I'm not entirely sure it's true, it does make for another
interesting family tale.

The story is that Jonas and Mary fell in love but her parents
John Loker and Mary Draper had other plans for their
daughter. They wanted her to marry a lawyer, a man of
prospects, not the son of a blacksmith who was following his
father in the family trade and they forbade Mary from any
more contact with Jonas. One version told by Caleb Butler in
"The History of the Town of Groton" says the Lokers even
went so far as to install gratings on the windows of her room
and would lock her inside if Jonas was nearby. But even this
drastic measure didn't stand in the way of love:

"He (Jonas) took opportunities when the cold wind blew
and the pelting storm raged when no listener could overhear
the soft whispering of true lovers to place himself beneath
her grated window and there enjoy sweet communion
with his dearly beloved ."

But eventually Mary's parents found out about this trickery.
Perhaps Jonas' idea of a whisper in a storm was a bit too loud?
At any rate, Mary's parents next decided to send her away to
a secluded village so Jonas could not find her while they looked
for a more suitable prospect for Mary's hand in marriage.
They sent her off to the small frontier town of Chockset which
is now Sterling, Massachusetts.


Jonas searched for Mary until one day while traveling near
Chockset he met some men of his own age and asked if they
knew of any pretty girls in the area. They told him there was
a quilting and a dance that night in Chockset and invited him
to come along.

You can see where this is going, I bet!

Jonas found Mary Loker and they continued to meet in secret
for some time until her parents once more found them out.
Mary's stubborn insistence that she would never marry any
man but Jonas Prescott at last forced her parents to give in,
although they did so with the angry condition that they would
provide no dowry for the bride. Legend says that the young
couple set up their household with so few essentials that
Mary used a large hollowed out pumpkin shell!

I'm a bit skeptical about that pumpkin part but I think the
opposition of the Lokers to Jonas Prescott pressing his suit for
their daughter might have some truth to it. After all, although
Jonas' father John was well off, he was not exactly in the good
graces of the Puritan government, and the Lokers might have
had their hearts set on young Mary marrying someone who
could eventually rise to a position of power. Ironically, the
Prescotts eventually became one of Massachusetts' most
distinguished families.

I am descended from Elizabeth Prescott b 23Jan 1676,
d. 18Mar 1744.

She married Eleazer Green about 1694 or 1695. Their daughter
Elizabeth married John Ames(Eames), and their descendant
Arvilla Ames married my ancestor John Cutter West

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTION RELEASES FOR 12 FEBRUARY 2016

Here's the announcement for the Findmypast Friday records releases for 12 February 2016:  
  
This week's Findmypast Friday marks the release of an assortment of valuable new collections from the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Get more intimately acquainted with your British ancestors with new additions to our collection of Merchant Navy Seamen records (including photographs), business indexes and more.

Those with Irish family will have the opportunity to break down some brick walls with the addition of over 13,000 non-conformist births & baptisms, marriages and congregational records.
This week we've added over 269,000 new records including:

    Britain, Merchant Seamen, 1918-1941
Over 240,000 new records have been added. Discover valuable information about their voyages, ranks, next of kin, physical descriptions and more. In some cases, you may even find photographs. 
Was your forefather a salty sea dog? »

     Ireland, Non-Conformist Births & Baptisms
Explore over 2,000 new records to discover where and when your non-conformist ancestors were born, their religious denomination and the names and address of their parents. Over 200 years of history »

     Ireland, Non-Conformist Marriages
Search the latest additions to this collection and find out who your ancestor married, where they married and when. Records will also reveal the couples' occupations, residences and the names of their fathers. Ireland's 'I dos' »

No ancestors from any of the regions covered this week? Try searching for your relatives in our more specialized collections. For instance, you could find textile manufacturers or biscuit bakers from all over the United states and Canada.

Alex
Editor,
The Findmypast team

You can see all this week's records here. 


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.

THERE'S MORE BIG NEWS FROM ROOTSTECH!

It's certainly been interesting opening my email the past few days to find new announcements from the genealogy companies at Rootstech. Today it is a press release from Findmypast about partnering up with a number of genealogy software providers:

FINDMYPAST ANNOUNCES A RAFT OF NEW PARTNERSHIPS
AS PART OF ITS U.S. GROWTH STRATEGY

Salt Lake City: 6 February 2016

Time: 7am MT, 9am EST, 2pm GMT

Leading family history site, Findmypast announced today at RootsTech a range of new global partnerships with leading technology providers. This will further strengthen its reach in the U. S. as well as U.K. markets.

The raft of new partnerships include deals with RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, FamilySearch, Family-Historian, Puzzilla, Billion Graves and RootsCity. Findmypast will make its vast record collection of more than 8 billion records available to customers via these partners. The rollout of these partnerships will begin in 2016, with exact dates to be detailed later.

Customers using these various family history products will benefit from having Findmypast’s record collection embedded within the actual product in ways that each partner determines will benefit their customers most.  Adding to the excitement, Findmypast also announced that in 2016 it will build on its extensive British and Irish data base by adding hundreds of millions of new U.S. records including the most comprehensive collection of US marriage records available anywhere.

I have some thoughts about this:
-It seems like the smaller genealogy companies are banding together to give Ancestry a run for its money.

-Since I'm a RootsMagic user I'll be interesting to see how this will work.

-I'm not attending Rootstech but from afar it seems like RootsMagic and Findmypast have made the biggest splashes this year.  

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 5: RICHARD HILDRETH OF CHELMSFORD, MA. PT2

I didn't have much luck finding a record that would prove Richard Hildreth was the father of my
9x great grandmother Jane (Hildreth) Proctor. She may ave been born in England; I couldn't find her birth record in Cambridge, Ma. where Richard first settled in the colony. There is no mention of her in Richard's will, either.

But then I found some stories about Richard's involvement in church politics. There are several versions of this story which I found in Wilson Waters' History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts:

Says Arthur Hildreth: When Richard Hildreth removed to Chelmsford in 1656 he was received into Mr. Fiske's church. He had a poor opinion of Mr. Fiske as a minister. He was used to better preaching in Cambridge. He expressed his opinion to Deacon Esdras Reade, who accused Hildreth, and the latter was summoned to appear before a committee, which he declined to do. In 1670, Hildreth and John Barrett obtained the signatures of those who desired the dismissal of Mr. Fiske. On a lecture day Hildreth brought the paper to Thomas Henchman, who "did manifest his utter dislike against it." At Town meeting, so the account goes, Hildreth spoke against the minister, and was cited to appear before the County Court at Cambridge on April 4th, to answer "for reproachful speech of the minister of Chelmsford." Thomas Henchman and Abraham Parker were witnesses. Mention was made of the "very large speech" which Hildreth had made, and it appeared that his grievance was that the minister had prosecuted Josiah Fletcher, (or was it Joshua?) for a grave misdemeanor. The case seems to have come to nought. But such affairs must have stirred the community and furnished a subject for conversation, if not of controversy, among those who had not much to busy their minds.-p412

History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Printed for the town by the Courier-Citizen Company, Lowell, Ma. 1917

On a hunch I Google searched for Proctor, Hildreth, Chelmsford, church and found this:   

In 1673 he had a stubborn quarrel with his father-in-law, Richard Hildreth, concerning a boundary line between their meadows. He made some unfounded charges against Hildreth, and Hildreth retaliated by preventing Proctor from receiving the church Sacrament, or as Parson Fiske on the church records couches it: " He, Bro. Hildreth, was instrumental of hindering his son Proctor from ye Sact."

This particular entry on the church records, expressly calling Proctor son of Richard Hildreth, proves that Jane Hildreth (Robert Proctor's wife) was a daughter and not a sister of Richard Hildreth. -pp48-9

SECOND PUBLICATION OF THE HILDRETH FAMILY ASSOCIATION GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL DATA RELATING TO RICHARD HILDRETH (1605-1693), FREEMAN, 1643, Cambridge and Chelmsford, Mass...
COLLATED AND EDITED BY JOHN LYMAN PORTER
PUBLISHED BY THE HILDRETH FAMILY ASSOCIATION 1922 

Richard Hildreth had a falling out with his son-in law Robert Proctor ten years before Richard's death. Ironically it is that dispute that provides evidence of Jane (Hildreth) Proctor's relationship to Richard.

STILL MORE BIG NEWS FROM ROOTSTECH!

There are two more announcements from Rootstech today:

First, Findmypast followed up the news of their new U.S. Marriages collection with more that
will interest those if us with Irish ancestry. Here's part of the press release:

Leading family history site, Findmypast, announced today at Rootstech that it will launch 10 million Irish Catholic Parish Registers, one of the most important Irish record collections, in March 2016.
 
Covering over 200 years from 1671-1900 and over 1,000 parishes, Findmypast has worked to transcribe the National Library of Ireland’s online image collection of 3,500 baptism and marriage registers. This is the first time that the collection has been indexed with the images linked online, making the search much easier and the records more accessible. As a result, family historians will now be able to make all important links between generations with the baptism records and between families with the marriage registers.  These essential records cover the entire island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Then about an hour ago I received this email from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage.com:

We're delighted to let you know that we've just released a new version of Family Tree Builder, version 8.0! 

The new version has all of the well-known and loved features of previous versions, including sync, Record Matches, Smart Matching™, charts and more, with a totally rewritten internal infrastructure that adds support for very large family trees (up to 500,000 individuals), and delivers faster performance.

In addition to being much quicker and more responsive, version 8.0 delivers improved data integrity. It's downloadable for free for Windows, with a Mac Extension for Mac users to follow next month.
Our Family Tree Builder team will continue to enhance Family Tree Builder and evolve it in the future, adding new features and making improvements, based on the new infrastructure introduced in version 8.0. We will continue to provide users who like the power and convenience of desktop software with the ideal tool for growing their family tree and advancing their family history research, while the sync allows them to also benefit from having their data online and accessible in a mobile app.

With all these records and product releases. Rootstech feels like Genealogy Christmas!

FINDMYPAST FRIDAY COLLECTION RELEASES FOR 5 FEBRUARY 2016

Findmypast has been very busy this week! (See my next post). Here's the Findmypast Friday
announcement for 5February 2016:   


We are particularly thrilled to announce the release of our brand new United States Marriages, marking the launch of a project to bring you the single largest online collection of US Marriages in history.

Our new collection of Norfolk baptisms, banns, marriages and burials adds yet another county to our already extensive collection of UK Parish records and will allow you to trace your family's British roots all the way back to Tudor England.

This week we've added over 37 million new records including:

United States Marriages
Covering 360 years of marriages from 1650-2010, when complete this landmark collection will contain at least 100 million records and more than 450 million names from 2,800 counties across the United Sates.
Millions of connections are waiting to be made »

Norfolk Baptisms
Explore over 1.8 million baptisms from 546 parishes around Norfolk, England. Uncover your ancestors' birth place, parents' names and baptism dates.
Does your family tree have roots in Norfolk? »

Norfolk Marriages
Over 953,000 marriages dating back to the early 1500s are now available to search. Uncover new branches of your Norfolk family tree and learn the names of parents to jump back through the generations.
Even view your ancestors' signatures! »

Norfolk Burials
Delve through over 1.4 million burial records to find out when your relatives died, the date of their funeral, where they spent their final years and if they died in unusual circumstances.
From cradle to grave »

We hope you enjoy immersing yourself in this week's huge tranche of new records. More than 60 per cent of our new US Marriages have never before been published online, making them an integral part of our growing US collection.

Get in touch here to let us know what you discover

Have a great weekend,
Jen Baldwin


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.

MORE BIG NEWS FROM ROOTSTECH!

Another big announcement from Salt Lake City: Findmypast and FamilySearch are teaming
up to put 100 million U.S. marriage records online.

Here's part of the press release from earlier this morning:

FINDMYPAST ANNOUNCES LARGEST ONLINE COLLECTION OF U.S. MARRIAGES FROM 1650-2010
100 MILLION RECORDS, 450 MILLION+ NAMES

Salt Lake City: 4 February 2016
Time: 7am MT, 9am EST, 2pm GM


Leading family history company, Findmypast , announced today at RootsTech that, in partnership with FamilySearch International, it will launch the single largest online collection of U.S. marriages in history.

Covering 360 years of marriages from 1650-2010, when complete this landmark collection will contain at least 100 million records and more than 450 million names from 2,800 counties across America.  More than 60 per cent of these marriage records have never before been published online.  When complete, this collection will only be found in its entirety exclusively on Findmypast.
 
To kick start the collection, Findmypast has launched the first 33 million records of this ambitious project today and is offering them to the public for free from now until 15 February.  The records include marriage date, bride and groom names, birthplace, birth date, age, residence as well as fathers’ and mothers’ names. Customers with family trees on Findmypast will benefit from leads connecting relatives on their trees with the marriage records, thus generating a whole new source of research.

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 5: RICHARD HILDRETH OF CHELMSFORD, MA. PT1

9x great grandfather Robert Proctor married Jane Hildreth, the daughter of  immigrant
Richard Hildreth, or at least that is what the Proctor family genealogies say. But in the
various descriptions I've found online for Richard, there is no mention of a daughter named
Jane. For example, here's William Richard cutter's brief sketch:

 
Richard Hildreth, immigrant ancestor, settled first in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was admitted a freeman May 10, 1643; was town officer 1645. He removed to Woburn and signed the petition dated May 10, 1653, with twenty-eight others, for the town subsequently named Chelmsford. He was before that a petitioner for Woburn and Concord. The Chelmsford town records show that Sergeant Hildreth received, prior to March 3, 1663, from the general court, grants of eight separate lots of land amounting to one hundred and five acres. In 1664 the general court allowed him one hundred and fifty acres additional on account of his having lost his right hand. It is believed that Richard Hildreth and his son James were the ancestors from which all the Hildreths of this country are descended. Richard Hildreth died in 1688, aged eighty-three years. His wife Elizabeth died at Malden, August 3, 1693, aged sixty eight. In his will made February 9, 1686, he mentions wife and children. Children: I. James, born 1631; mentioned below. 2. Elizabeth, born September 21, 1646. 3. Sarah, August 8, 1648. 4. Joseph, born April 16, 1658; married December 12, 1683, Abigail Wilson; died January 28, 1706. 5. Persis, born February 8, 1659-60. 6. Thomas, born February i, 1661-2. 7. Isaac, born July, 1663. 8. Abigail, married Moses Parker, of Chelmsford. 9. (Probably one of the eldest-mentioned as "Natural" in the will), Ephraim, of Stowe, to whom the Chelmsford homestead was bequeathed.-p1874

Historic Homes and Places and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume 4 Lewis historical publishing Company,  NY, NY 1908

And here's an entry for Richard from the Wisconsin Society of Colonial Wars:

RICHARD HILDRETH1 of old Charlestown Village, Cambridge and Chelmsford, Mass. Was of Cambridge, Mass., May 10, 1643. A grantee of Chelmsford in 1653, where he and his descendants lived from 1653, and in which vicinity his lineal descendants still live. Prior to March 3, 1663, was Sergeant in the Military Company at Chelmsford and served until 1664. In 1664 Sergeant Richard Hildreth, "being greatly disadvantaged of the use of his right hand, whereby wholly disabled," received, for the ninth time, an additional grant of land. He was noted in Chelmsford church records about 1670, kept by the Rev. John Fiske, as denying the right of the minister or church committee to compel his attendance at the Meeting House on Sundays and refusing to pay the fines sought to be imposed upon him by the Minister, or Deacon, Esdras Reade, or any other minister or deacon. The record shows that "Sergeant Richard Hildreth used reproachful speech and seditious language concerning the Church." He said that he, and others, had quit England to escape the assumption and interference of the clergy in matters not connected with religion. Their grave-stones are still in the old Chelmsford burying-ground.

Chelmsford Town Records, Book A, p. 22.
Gen. Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New England, Vol. IV, part 2, pp. 100, 1669.
Allen's History of Chelmsford, 1820.
New England Hist, and Gen. Reg.. Vol. XI, 1857, as corrected, 1892, by Capt. Philip Reade, U. S. A.,
pp. 4-5-39-40.
Register Society Colonial Wars, 1896, p. 334.
-p55
Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Wisconsin: list of officers and members, including pedigrees and a record of the services performed by ancestors in the wars of the colonies
Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Wisconsin,  Swain & Tate, Milwaukee, WI, 1906


Notice in the biography from William Richard Cutter, there is a fifteen year gap between the births of
his first two children in the list of children. The reason is that his eldest son James was a child from
his first marriage. But there is no mention of a daughter named Jane. I think I may have the reason for
that, which I'll discuss in my next post.

To be continued.

BIG NEWS FROM ROOTSTECH!

It's RootsTech time again, when the various genealogy software companies and websites surprise
us with big news. Tuesday afternoon Ancestry and RootsMagic had some doozies to announce.

The first involved Ancestry's Family Tree Maker software, which was being "retired" at the end of
2016. Ancestry has sold FTM to Software MacKiev, a software seller and developer. Here's part of the news release on the Ancestry blog: 

Software MacKiev, with whom we have a long-standing relationship, is acquiring the Family Tree Maker software line as publisher for both Mac and Windows versions. Software MacKiev has been the developer of Family Tree Maker for Mac for more than six years and is thrilled at the opportunity to publish future versions of Family Tree Maker for Mac and Windows.

This new agreement means you will receive software updates and new versions from Software MacKiev, and have the ability to purchase new versions of Family Tree Maker from Software MacKiev as they are released.   You will have continued access to Ancestry Hints, Ancestry searches, and be able to save your tree on Ancestry with Family Tree Maker moving forward.

This was good news for the avid FTM users who had been upset by the earlier news of its "retirement".

 The second big announcement concerns a new working relationship between RootsMagic and
Ancestry.com. Here's what that means as described on the RootsMagic Blog:

1  Search – RootsMagic will be the only software besides FTM to search Ancestry’s extensive collections of historical records from around the world and let you download those records into your own file.

2  Sync – RootsMagic will be the only software besides FTM to let you share data between your RootsMagic files on your computer with your personal Ancestry online trees. You’ll also be able to download people, events, and even pictures from Ancestry onto your computer through RootsMagic.
 
3  Import – RootsMagic will be able to directly import your Family Tree Maker files, without having to go through an intermediate GEDCOM file, giving you the cleanest, most complete transfer of your data. RootsMagic will also be able to download your online trees from Ancestry.

All of these RootsMagic-Ancestry connections will be available by the end of 2016. 

This is especially good news for me since I use RootsMagic and I have a public tree on Ancestry.com. Now I just need to learn how to do that "sync" thing!

LOOKING FOR MORE ABOUT MOORE PT3

Here's a quick update on where the Moore research is leading me at the moment:

-As I said in the last post, Abel Moor/Moore's parents were John and Susannah Moore/Moor. I've
since discovered that Susannah's maiden name was Willard, and that she was the daughter of my 8x
great grandfather Henry Willard by his second wife Dorcas (Cutler?). Henry's son Joseph Willard (whose mother was Mary Larkin) is my Dad's paternal ancestor, while Susannah is on the maternal
side.

-Abel Moor/Moore died a month after Stephen's birth.

- Abel's wife Betty Whetcomb/Whitcomb is decended from immigrant ancestor John Whitcomb and is also descended from Peregine White of the Mayflower.

-There's also probably another cousin connection between Dad's parents in the Moore family. On his paternal side he has Meriah (Moore) Houghton who was born in Lancaster to Jonathan Moore
and Hannah Sawyer. I'm trying to determine if she was an aunt or cousin of Abel Moore.

There will be more Moore blogposts to follow as I discover more.

To be continued...