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With a lot of help from my parents,aunts,uncles,and cousins, and quite a bit of patience from my wife, I present to the family my findings on our ancestry. Let me know of errors that you find.
The internet is a marvelous tool for doing genealogical research, and I have spent quite a few hours at the local library going through Census data and old history books. Unfortunately, I have not done a great job of documenting my references, but most of them are indicated in the document. The nature of this research is that it doesn’t seem to end, there is always something else to discover, or a theory that you later discover was not the case. Short of being able to talk to some of our deceased relatives, we will never know everything we would like about their lives. This history is somewhat of a moving target, and my guess is, by next year some of the information will have changed. So for those of you who like nice clean definitive histories, this isn’t it.
Several notes about genealogical information –
In many of the date quotes there will be two years listed, (i.e. February 3, 1678/79) prior to 1751, the new year was recognized on March 25, therefore if someone was born February 3, 1679 by today’s calendar, it would have been the year 1678 by their calendar.
Prior to 1850, the Census of the United States only listed the name of the head of the household, and indicated the gender of each household member and what age range they were in. Thus it is difficult to rely on the Census data prior to 1850. Thereafter the Census listed each member of the household, their gender, their age, their occupation, their state (or country) of birth and the state of birth of their parents. In some years it also lists whether they were literate, and the value of their estate. And as a side note, the 1840 Census is my genealogical nemesis. That is the one year I cannot seem to find anyone I was looking for. The Census for the year 1890 was destroyed in a fire, and therefore is not available to anyone, and I have not gotten my hands on the Census I need for 1900, 1910 or 1920.
I hope you enjoy the History as much as I enjoyed researching it.
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