Kyle Dane Family History & Genealogy Blog: 2014

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Seeking help and input on Hovey, Dane, Warner families of Ipswich and Quaboag (Brookfield)

So I'm working on one of those New England families upon which the sources disagree or themselves express uncertainty. I am entering my notes and sources on James Hovey's profile for what I've found so far.

The Hovey part of the equation is pretty solid: Daniel the immigrant lived for a time in Ipswich and then moved to the new community of Quaboag (now Brookfield) in 1668. His son Daniel Jr. stayed behind in Ipswich, and son James came to Quaboag, started a family and then was killed by Native Americans in 1675. All the sources agree on these facts. It's also well established that Daniel Jr. married Esther Treadwell in 1666 and had several children. He died in Ipswich in 1695 and his will is in the Hovey Family Book that is referenced.

All the sources I've seen indicate that Daniel Jr. had a first wife named Rebecca who he married in Ipswich and who died giving birth to their first child, a son named Daniel, in 1665. Torrey's New England Marriages prior to 1700 lists this Rebecca as Rebecca Dane, but with a question mark by the name.

The Dane Family records, indicate that Rebecca Dane was John Dane's daughter, but that she married James Hovey, not Daniel. The Hovey book's theory is that, yes, James Hovey's wife was John Dane's daughter, but that her name was Priscilla and she was the mother of James Hovey's three children in Quaboag.

I believe the source of this is that in John Dane's will in 1684, he leaves 30 pounds to his grandson, Daniel Hovey, who had not yet reached adulthood. This could refer to either family in the Hovey Book because both families had a son named Daniel, but it leans much more heavily towards James Hovey's son. If you go to the page for James' son Daniel (page 62), it is noted that he received a sum from John Dane his grandfather and that he became a doctor.

In Daniel Hovey Jr's will from 1695, there is no mention of a son Daniel and there don't appear to be any records of this son after his birth in 1665. You'd have to surmise that he died shortly after his birth, and that thus he is not the grandson John Dane was referring to.

The records of the town of Quaboag seem to tell a different story altogether, however. They have James Hovey married to Priscilla Warner, daughter of John Warner and Priscilla Symonds. They indicate that James' three children are all children of Priscilla Warner and thus would not be related to the Danes.

From my vantage point here at my computer in California, I'm unable to go digging through the actual source material, so I'd love additional input from folks who have access to either the originals, or other secondary sources that might shed light on this confusion.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Global Family Reunion Connection to Immigrant Ancestor John Dane

Are y'all prepared for some serious family-tree related gloating? Well, I hope so because I've found a direct connection between James Spader and the colonial immigrant ancestor/progenitor of the Dane Family in America, John Dane. Turns out that James' Forster/Foster forebears, from his great grandmother Elizabeth Thompson Forster (Bowditch) are descended from Reginald Foster and Elizabeth Dane, John Dane's daughter. I am a direct male line descendant of his son John Jr. In terms of the global family reunion the effect of this is not huge - John Dane was already at 18 steps and he will be at 16 steps after the system updates tonight. My own personal connection will remain the same because my Higginson connection is still closer. But I'm sure you'll understand the significance for me personally of making this connection through my surname. Who knew a few days ago that this is where my research was heading? Of course, giving credit where it's due, I have to mention Frederick Clifton Pierce's book "Foster Genealogy" upon which this line relies. I verified all of his work against whatever sources I could, but there are a couple of points where his work is the only link.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Bergen Family Tree Book

I've been working on a not-yet-comprehensive list of Family-Specific Genealogy books and have made a page for that list here at my blog. As I add new entries, I'm going to post them here and add them to my existing list.

Bergen Genealogy Book: The Bergen Family, or, the Descendants of Hans Hansen Bergen; Teunis G Bergen; J Munsell; 1876; The Internet Archive

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Babcock Family Tree Book

Babcock Genealogy Book: Babcock Genealogy; Stephen Babcock; Eaton & Mains, 1903; The Internet Archive

Friday, November 7, 2014

Ingersoll Family Tree Book

Ingersoll Genealogy Book: Richard Ingersoll of Salem and Some of His Descendents; Greely, A. W. (Adolphus Washington), Essex Institute, 1909, The Internet Archive

Monday, November 3, 2014

Harris Family Tree Book

Harris Genealogy Book: The Harris Family: Thomas Harris in Ipswich, Mass, in 1636, and Some of His Descendents, Through Seven Generations, to 1883; William Samuel Harris; 1883; Google Books

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Stone Family Tree Book

Stone Genealogy Book: Genealogy of the Stone Family Originating in Rhode Island; Richard Cecil Stone; 1866; Google Books

Westcott Family Tree Book

Westcott Genealogy Book: History and Genealogy of the Ancestors and Some Descendants of Stukely Westcott; (requires digital library card); Roscoe L. Whitman; 1932; The Internet Archive

Bulkeley Family Tree Book

Bulkeley Genealogy Book The Bulkeley Family; Rev. F. W. Chapman; The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co, 1875; The Internet Archive

Brewster Family Tree Book

Brewster Genealogy Book: The Brewster Genealogy; Emma C. Brewster Jones; Eban Putnam, 1908; Salem, Mass.; The Internet Archive, Google Books

Volume 1

Volume 2

Smith Family Tree Book

Smith Genealogy Book The Smith Family: Being a Popular Account of Most Branches of the Name--however Spelt-- from the Fourteenth Century Downwards, with Numerous Pedigrees; Compton Reade; 1904; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Lord Family Tree Book

Lord Genealogy Book A History of the Descendants of Nathan Lord of Ancient Kittery, Me.; C.C. Lord; 1912; The Internet Archive

White Family Tree Book

White Genealogy Book Memorials of Elder John White; Kellog, Allyn Stanley; Case, Lockwood and Company, 1860; Google Books

Bradley Family Tree Book

Bradley Genealogy Book Bradley of Essex County, early records: from 1643 to 1746; Peters, Eleanor Bradley; The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1915; The Internet Archive

Bass Family Tree Book

Bass Genealogy Book Descendants of Deacon Samuel and Ann Bass; Charissa Taylor Bass, 1940. The Hathi Trust

Wheeler Family Tree Book

Wheeler Genealogy Book Genealogy of Some of the Descendants of Obadiah Wheeler of Concord; Henry M. Wheeler; Google Books

William Family Tree Book

Shaw Genealogy Book Ancestors of Amyntas Shaw and his wife Lucy Tufts Williams; Richard Cecil Stone; 1920; Google Books

Williams Genealogy Book Ancestors of Amyntas Shaw and his wife Lucy Tufts Williams; Richard Cecil Stone; 1920; Google Books

Avery Family Tree Book

Avery Genealogy Book Avery, Fairchild & Park families of Massachusetts Connecticut & Rhode Island; Tuttle Antiquarian Books, Rutland, VT; 1919; The Internet Archive

Avery Genealogy Book The Groton Avery Clan; Elroy McKendree Avery and Catherine Hitchcock (Tilden) Avery; Cleveland; 1912; The Internet Archive

Friday, October 24, 2014

Perry Family Tree Book

Perry Genealogy Book Our Perry Family in Maine, It's Ancestors and Descendants; Rev. Charles Nelson Sinnett; Publication: Lewiston, Maine: The Journal Printshop, 1911; The Internet Archive

Delano Family Tree Book

Delano Genealogy Book The Genealogy, History and Alliances of the American House of Delano; Joel Andrew Delano; 1899; Library of Congress

Bailey Family Tree Book

Bailey Genealogy Book Records of the Bailey Family; Descendants of William Bailey of Newport, R.I.; Hannah C. Bailey Hopkins; 1895; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Smith Genealogy Book

Smith Family Tree Book The Smith Family: Being a Popular Account of Most Branches of the Name--however Spelt-- from the Fourteenth Century Downwards, with Numerous Pedigrees; Compton Reade; 1904; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Thursday, October 23, 2014

French Family Tree Book

French Genealogy Book: Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas French; Howard Barclay French; Privately Printed; 1913; Digital Image, Google Books

Volume 1

Volume 2

Beatty Family Tree Book

Asfordby Genealogy Book Beatty-Asfordby; the Ancestry of John Beatty and Susanna Asfordby, with Some of their Descendants; Turk, Willie Anne Cary; F. Allaben Genealogical Company; 1909; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Beatty Genealogy Book Beatty-Asfordby; the Ancestry of John Beatty and Susanna Asfordby, with Some of their Descendants; Turk, Willie Anne Cary; F. Allaben Genealogical Company; 1909; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Welch Family Tree Book

Welch Genealogy Book Welch Genealogy; No Author Listed; Library of Congress; 1902; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Cole Family Tree Book

Cole Genealogy Book The Early Genealogies of the Cole Families in America; Frank T. Cole; Hann & Adair, 1887; Digital Image, The Internet Archive

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Warren connection to Global Family Reunion Tree

I have Erin Breen-120 to thank for this thread because it got me started:
http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/67945/rebecca-tittle-husband-washington-stephenses-monroe-county

So I took those names I found on that thread and started some hopeful research to see if I could find any interesting connections. Sure enough I found one: Nellie Crowley Kuntz (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Crowley-547). As I dug, I found a book that discussed her father William Crowley's life and his Humphrey background: https://archive.org/stream/humphreysfamilyi02hump#page/960/mode/2up

If this book is accurate, it connects William Crowley with the Humphrey and Munro families of Rhode Island, and one Nathan Munro (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Munro-152). So far, the book's timelines and stories match up nicely with the records I've been able to find, so I have gone ahead and built the profiles to connect William Crowley to Nathan Munro. If you follow the tree back, you'll find that Nathan is a known descendant of Richard Warren and Elizabeth Walker of the Mayflower.

And for me, that means both my wife and I are connected on WikiTree to the Global Family Reunion Tree through this Warren connection. Does that help any of you connect?

Here's my connection: Me > my father Francis S Dane III > his mother Edith Thacher > her father William L Thacher > his father Thomas Thacher > his mother Abigail Swift > her father Silas Swift > his mother Abigail Gibbs > her mother Alice Warren > her father Nathaniel Warren > his father/mother Richard Warren/Elizabeth Walker > his daughter Elizabeth Warren > her son Benjamin Church > his daughter Elizabeth Church > her daughter Hannah Rosbotham > her son Nathan Munro > his daughter Lydia Munro > her son Squire Humphrey > his daughter Sarah Humphrey > her son William Crowley > his daughter, Nellie Crowley Kuntz -> her husband, Edward Kuntz -> his sister, Emma Kuntz Ferrell -> her daughter, Georgia Ferrell Hirsch Takacs -> her husband, Irwin Hirsch -> his mother, Harriet Friedenheit Hirsch -> her sister, Sophie Friedenheit Kingsbacher (AJ's 2nd great grandmother).

Monday, February 24, 2014

Disappointment in Genealogy

Yes, doing serious family tree research can result in some disappointment. I had one of those last night. Readers of this blog may recall my three posts titled “We’re All Cousins” which talked about common ancestors I had found between the family trees of my Father, my Wife and my Mother. I was particularly enthusiastic about finding a connection between my Dad’s and my Mom’s families (http://danegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/10/were-all-cousins-part-3.html) since it had always felt, since I was a kid, that those families were so different from each other and that a crossover between their family lines was unlikely.

Well, at least for now, I have to grudgingly accept that the lines leading to the common ancestor I’d found for my Mom and Dad have turned out to be incorrect. As background, I have recently become a convert to the methods of http://www.WikiTree.com, specifically that every person in my family tree should have one and only one WikiTree profile and that each profile should contain sources for the dates, locations and family relationships they contain. If I find no profile on the WikiTree One World Tree for my ancestor or relative, I add one. If I do find one there, I update it with sources if it isn’t already updated (and many of them need updating). The site is a Wiki, so I can do that and I’ve gotten a LOT better at sourcing and updating in the three months I’ve been on the site.

Naturally, one of my research projects was to reproduce on WikiTree the family lines I had previously found to cross over. I have successfully updated and sourced the connection between my Dad’s tree and my Wife’s tree (http://danegenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/05/were-all-cousins-part-2.html) so that both of our WikiTree family trees trace back to Richard Warren and Elizabeth Walker of the Mayflower. Last night I started down the track of verifying my Mom’s line back to Timothy Wheeler and Rebecca Sayre (I’d already completed the path on my Dad’s side).

I decided to start at Timothy and Rebecca and work down since some of the profiles were already on WikiTree and just needed to be sourced and the relationships linked. It didn’t take long to work down to Joseph Dutton (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dutton-484), his wife Rebecca Merriam (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Merriam-263) and their daughter Rebecca Dutton. My process now is to do my research through my family tree on http://www.Ancestry.com (where I can take advantage of Ancestry’s very useful hints and search functions), and supplement through http://www.Findagrave.com, and http://www.Google.com searches. I was in the middle of putting together the WikiTree profile for Rebecca Dutton when I started noticing some worrying signs. The first and most obvious was that the town marriage record for Joseph Dutton/Rebecca Merriam was dated 1685 while the birth date I had for Rebecca Dutton was in 1679. Next came the finding that the town birth record for Rebecca Dutton born in 1679 showed her father as Thomas Dutton Jr., not Joseph. Okay, so maybe the data I had was wrong and my Rebecca was the one born in 1686. I didn't initially find the town birth record, just a “Millennium File” record, known in WikiTree circles to be unreliable. I was getting very nervous, though and feeling like a lot more research might be necessary to establish the connection. Then I remembered that I had referenced the Findagrave.com record for Joseph Dutton (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=15211190) to confirm his death date. On the Findagrave profile was a biography. I tend not to give a lot of weight to these biographies, because so often they are unsourced, and this one was no exception, at least for the first half. But the second half referred to Joseph Dutton’s will, and within the will, importantly, to his daughter Rebeckah Gates. It also included a link to the Findagrave memorial of Rebeckah (Dutton) Gates 1686-1749. All the pieces fell together, and it wasn’t good news: Rebecca (Dutton) Millard (profile: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dutton-333), born in 1679, my ancestor, belonged on a different family tree line than I had been led to believe. Her parents were Thomas Dutton Jr. and his wife Rebeckah, not Joseph Dutton and Rebecca Merriam. I've included a note on both profiles at WikiTree in the hope that no one else gets tripped up the same way. Rebecca (Dutton) Gates is here: (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dutton-258).

Naturally, I’m disappointed to find that my earlier “research” was wrong. But a little more background that I didn’t tell you was how I had found Rebecca Dutton Millard in the first place. Well, it’s pretty simple, I found her by piggy-backing on the family trees of other researchers that I found at Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com makes it soooooo easy to do this. With the press of just a couple of buttons, you can add the family trees from other researchers right into your own, pulling in names, relationships, dates and locations as you go. Eventually, I realized the error of my ways in taking advantage of this method of expanding my trees, but obviously not soon enough to avoid this kind of mistake. And while I am sad about this “lost” connection, it helps to cement the thoughts and feelings I’ve been having lately (http://danegenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/01/wikitree-and-genealogy-source-rigor.html) that the genealogy methods I’ve committed to on WikiTree are the ones that will help me avoid this kind of error in the future, both for myself and for others who might rely upon my work.

Alas, I’m going to have to re-establish my “We’re All Cousins” link between my Mom’s and my Dad’s family trees along some other family line. Looking on the bright side, though, I did do some digging into the Millards and found that it’s pretty likely my Mom is a cousin to President Millard Fillmore. I’m not going to say for sure, though, until I’ve documented and sourced all the profiles in between, though!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Ancestery

What is "ancestery"? Is it simply the search for your ancestors, your family tree and your family history? Or is it something more? I recently noticed that the search term "ancestery" gets quite a bit of traffic on google. My first guess is that it is simply a misspelling or a typo of the word "ancestry".

It could be. But in my latest family tree history kick, I'm working on becoming a more disciplined and reliable genealogist through my commitment to create source-full profiles of my ancestors at WikiTree.com, so when I think of "ancestery" I also think of the term "mastery". As in, I now strive for "mastery" in my ancestry research. Ancestor mastery = ancestery. Cute, I know, but that's how I roll.

Monday, January 20, 2014

What you know (and can prove)

Reblogging this post from the New England Historical and Genealogical Sociey's Penny Stratton:

“Write down what you know” is the first step in family history research. For many of us, what we know includes family stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. But sometimes those stories can be misleading – or just plain incorrect. For example, my stepmother had always heard that she was related to Ralph Waldo Emerson and General William Tecumseh Sherman. I have a set of notes written by her aunt, Minerva McGee (1897-1972), which begin like this:

General Sherman — younger brother of Catherine Sherman
Ralph Waldo Emerson — younger brother of John Emerson
John Emerson — Catherine Sherman, My Great Grandparents.
Unfortunately, Aunt Minerva was wrong.

...

As wonderful as these stories have been, their failure to hold up under standard methods of genealogical scrutiny makes me question other family lore I encounter. Yes, it’s wise to start with what you know, but perhaps we should reword that advice: start with what you know and can prove.

http://vita-brevis.org/2014/01/what-you-know/

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

WikiTree and Genealogy Source Rigor

For many, many years (20+) I have been content to build my family trees through methods that I’ve known to be unsourced. I have had several hand-written family trees passed on to me by relatives and I’ve taken advantage of numerous on-line family trees to fill in the blanks and gaps and to extend my family tree back in time beyond the handwritten trees. To be honest, I was more than happy to believe that these materials were accurate and to assimilate them into my own files without questioning their accuracy too much. Oh, I’d go through the whole “preponderance of evidence” process, you know, I’d look at Rootsweb and Ancestry.com to see if there were any differences of opinion, and as I went further back in time I’d tend to exercise more and more doubt about what I was seeing and often I would ignore the extended trees that others have put out there. But often enough, I’d go ahead and add the information to my own tree, even if I couldn’t see or verify what sources were used to make the connection. To be frank, I felt that there was no way I could single-handedly go through the process of verifying that everything I was finding was thoroughly sourced (I have a non-genealogy job, a family, etc.). On that point, I think that I was and still am correct, there is no way for one person to verify their sources for a family tree that has thousands of entries as mine does. I’d prefer to have my family tree be a model of accuracy – one which only verification and documentation can attain, but haven’t felt capable of making it so.

For a shorter number of years, I’ve suspected that a Wiki could solve this problem. Wikipedia is the ultimate example, of course, and I use it almost every day. But I’ve felt for several years that some form of Wiki for Genealogy would be ideal – we all could be researching our own family lines and feed them into one giant tree and over time the entries would be properly sourced and fleshed out, photos and written materials added, etc. and the work of ensuring all this accuracy could be distributed so that, as volunteers, we each could add our little part. I thought that Geni.com would turn out to be this sort of Wiki, but quickly found that the ease of uploading gedcom data to that site made it impossible for the site to function as a Wiki. On the other end of the spectrum is Findagrave.com, which has its place in genealogy research, no doubt, but which suffers from the inability of users to edit the profiles there unless you’re the owner. I’ve noticed that WikiTree.com does suffer from the gedcom problem as well, but much less so than Geni and Wiki seems to have much more of an ethic of collaboration than Geni. In fact, I myself tried to upload my gedcom here and found I was unable to. I’m sure I have someone here to thank for that. Well, thank you to whatever group or individual made that decision. I’m so glad I wasn’t able to upload my gedcom at first. Because it forced me to rethink my entire approach to the site (in a good way!).

That rethink has led to my personal WikiTree pledge: I, Kyle Dane, am not going to add a profile to WikiTree.com without at least one source. That means I am going to have to type all of my profiles onto the site one-by-one, and along the way verify that I have source materials to back up what I enter. I’m also not going to edit a profile without having a source. I have been going through this process for three weeks now and I have been able to go back four generations (from myself) and connected up to at least three branches of existing trees on WikiTree without violating this pledge. I’ve found that the sources I do have access to are better than I had realized, and that I am proud of the resulting profiles. I’ll probably still maintain my unsourced family tree on Ancestry.com as an idealized or hopeful tree, or for ideas on where to focus my research next, but I will consider my WikiTree to be the real deal.