Thursday, August 8, 2013

Searching for Hannah Brown's Parents - Post 3

In Searching for Hannah Brown's Birth Parents - Post 2, I revisited the collected Brown information from the 1990s, listed candidate Hannah Browns from published Massachusetts vital records, and reviewed probate and land records that I had found back in the 1990s.  I focused on Hannah Brown persons born in Massachusetts in the 1720 to 1730 time frame, since she married John Phillips (1722-????) in 1749 in Southborough, Massachusetts.  They had two children in Southborough, and three more in Shrewsbury.  John Phillips married, secondly, Mary Richards in Southborough in 1774, and they probably lived in Lancaster, Mass.


I've made some progress in the past two days searching for and analyzing possible Hannah Brown birth parents, which I've summarized below:

1) I've reviewed the notes I made back in the 1990s, and checked vital record books available on the Internet (mainly on Google Books and AmericanAncestors.org) and want to go through the candidates from the vital records and try to determine what additional records are available for each of them.  I found several more candidates born between 1715 and 1730, considering all of eastern Massachusetts, and have added them to my list.  Rather than provide full source citations, I will add the page number from the vital record books for the information found:

*  Hannah Brown, born 6 December 1716 in Concord, to Thomas and Hannah (Potter) Brown (page 83).  This Hannah Brown (of Concord) married Joseph Davis on 10 January 1743 in Concord (page 160).

*  Hannah Brown, born 3 June 1717 in Reading, to Josiah and Susannah Brown, a twin (page 38). This may be the Hannah Brown (daughter of Josiah and Hannah) who died 23 April 1759 in Billerica (page 346).

*  Hannah Brown, baptized 16 March 1718 in Ipswich, daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Fossee) Brown (page 49).  This Hannah Brown married David Pulsipher on 5 February 1742 in Ipswich (page 60).


*  Hannah Brown, baptized 22 April 1721 in Ipswich, daughter of Samuel Brown (page 45).  This may be the Hannah Brown (daughter of Samuel and Martha) who died 10 June 1736 in Ipswich (page 498).

*  Hannah Brown, born 3 November 1722 in Salisbury, to Abraham and Hannah (Morrill) Brown (page 31).  This Hannah Brown married Dyer Hook on 21 November 1744 in Salisbury (page 287).


*  Hannah Brown, born 5 January 1723/4 in Salem, to Eleazer and Sarah (Putnam) Brown (page 123).  This Hannah Brown (of Salem) married Oliver Putnam on 22 December 1743 in Salem (page 146).

*  Hannah Brown, born 2 August 1723 in Gloucester, to Elisha and Hannah (Gardner) Brown, a twin (page 120).  She married John Thomas on 22 August 1745 in Gloucester (page 105).


*  Hannah Brown, born 14 February 1724/5 in Concord, to Ephraim and Hannah (Wilson) Brown (page 113).  This Hannah Brown (daughter of Ephraim) died in 16 January 1749 in Concord (page171).

*  Hannah Brown, born 7 July 1725 in Salisbury, to George and Elizabeth (Eastman) Brown (page 35).  This Hannah Brown married James Thorn (of Kingston, N.H.) on 13 January 1749 in Salisbury (page 287).

*  Hannah Brown, born 23 December 1725 in Attleborough, to Benjamin and Sarah (Freeman) Brown (page 51).  This Hannah Brown (daughter of Benjamin), married Jonathan Spear on 24 May 1744 in Attleborough (page 348).

*  Hannah Brown, born 25 March 1727 in Concord, to John and Elizabeth (Potter) Brown (page 117).  This Hannah Brown may be the one who married Samuel Brooks on 14 March 1755 in Concord.  However, the Concord record says she is "of Carlisle."  This is a possible candidate for the wife of John Phillips.

*  Hannah Brown, baptized 26 November 1727 in Newbury, to Samuel and Elizabeth (Wheeler) Brown (page 68).  This Hannah Brown married Samuel Farley on 9 October 1744 in Hollis, N.H.


*  Hannah Brown, born 3 July 1728 in Littleton to Jonathan and Sybil (Dudley) Brown (page 36).  I can find no marriage record, or death record for this person.  She is a definite candidate for the wife of John Phillips.

*  Hannah Brown, born 15 May 1729 in Boxford, to Caleb and Elizabeth (Jewett) Brown (page 17).  I can find no marriage or death record for her, so she is a possible candidate to be wife of John Phillips.

2)  There are also Hannah Browns that married men between 1735 and 1750 in eastern Massachusetts.  These may be any one of the Hannah Browns not otherwise identified with a spouse above, a Hannah Brown not recorded in the vital record books, or the widow of a Brown that died:

*  Hannah Brown married Jonathan Gardner on 15 December 1743 in Haverhill (page 45)

*  Hannah Brown (of Rehoboth) and Peter Brown were married on 2 June 1748 in Rehoboth (page 60).  This is probably the Hannah Brown, born about 1722, the daughter of Daniel and Sarah (Mason) Brown.

*  Hannah Brown married John Phillips on 3 May 1749 in Southborough (page 99).  This is my ancestor.

*  Hannah Brown married John Crouch on 20 June 1750 in Harvard (page 143).

*  Hannah Brown married Moses Chase on 15 April 1752 in Sutton (page 217).  This Hannah Brown was born in 1735 in Sutton.

*  Hannah Brown (of Salem) married Gideon Putnam on 18 June 1752 in Danvers (page 39).  This Hannah Brown was born in 1732 in Salem.

3)  While some of these eastern Massachusetts towns are fairly far away (over 20 or 30 miles) from Southborough, my studies of the land records indicate that there were people from all over eastern Massachusetts who bought or sold land in Southborough and its neighboring towns, including some Brown persons.  I'm still working on the land records!

4)  The possible candidates, assuming that I've captured all of the Hannah Browns born between 1715 and 1730) and married between 1735 and 1760 in eastern Massachusetts, include:

*  Hannah Brown, born 1727 to John and Elizabeth (Potter) Brown of Concord.

*  Hannah Brown, born 1728 to Jonathan and Sibyl (Dudley) Brown of Littleton and Concord.

*  Hannah Brown, born 1729 to Caleb and Elizabeth (Jewett) Brown of Boxford.

My hope is that there are land and probate records for those parents that will either rule out or confirm that their daughter Hannah is the wife of John Phillips.

5)  I know that I haven't considered Hannah Browns born or married in western Massachusetts (say, west of Worcester), New Hampshire, Rhode Island or Connecticut.  Also, I haven't found Hannah Browns who don't have a birth record in the published vital record books.

As you can see, working on a person with a fairly common given name and surname in a small region of a state over a limited period of time can be a challenge!

This is an ongoing project - I'll deal with probate records (as best I can) in the next post in the series.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/08/searching-for-hannah-browns-parents.html

copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Now that you have a couple of candidates for Brown parents, you might try searching those families in the NEHGS search to see if they appear in any journals. But of course birth records can be spotty in this era, so your search among the extremely common name of Brown continues, I guess...

Gretta Hewson
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