Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Update on The Early New England Families (1641-1700) Study Project

 The New England Historical and Genealogical Society (www.AmericanAncestors.org) created the Early New England Families Study Project several years ago, and it has already produced two published volumes of biographical sketches of scores of New England families, with many more in work.  

You can access information about the study at   https://www.americanancestors.org/browse/publications/ongoing-study-projects/Early-New-England-Families,-1641--1700 (two screen shots below):


The web page notes:
The Early New England Families Study Project provides accurate and concise published summaries of seventeenth-century New England families. Using Clarence Almon Torrey's bibliographic index of early New England marriages and its recent successors as a guide, the project focuses on individuals who immigrated from 1641 through 1700, grouped by year of marriage.

Alicia Crane Williams is Lead Genealogist of the Early New England Families Study Project. In nearly forty years of work as a professional genealogist, she has compiled and edited number of multi-family genealogies and surname works and was editor of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower descendants’ periodical, The Mayflower Descendant. She is the genealogist of the Alden Kindred of America and editor of the John Alden family for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants’ series, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations.

Search Early New England Families Study Project, 1641−1700 current sketches now.

Members: View a list of sketches in our database by browsing the database. Use the "Volume" menu to view and select a specific sketch.

Click here to download a pdf listing of all available sketches.

Purchase the paperback version of Volume 1.

Purchase the hardcover version of Volume 1.

Purchase the paperback version of Volume 2.

Purchase the hardcover version of Volume 2.

I downloaded the PDF listing of the 118 available sketches.  Here is the top of the list:


Here is the top of the sketch for one of my known ancestors, John Grout:
There are 8 pages in this sketch, including details about each spouse, land and property, community, military, court, occupation, personal, estate, children, and commentary (there may be other topics also depending on the circumstances of each subject).  Each section is well sourced with footnotes.

After perusing the entire list, I note that I have the following known ancestors on this list:

*  John Bigelow (1617-1703) of Watertown
*  John Grout (1609-1697) of Watertown and Sudbury
*  Daniel Morse (1611-1688) of Watertown, Dedham, Medfield and Sherborn
*  John Pike (1613-1689) of Ipswich, Newbury, Dalisbury, Woodbridge
*  Daniel Smith (1606-1660) of Watertown
*  George Woodward (1616-1676) of Watertown

There are quite a few children of my ancestors in the earlier generations on the list, and some of them are covered in the earlier The Great Migration compendiums by Robert Charles Anderson.

The full sketches are available to NEHGS members, and can be downloaded as a PDF file.

Hopefully, the full series, when completed, will have many more sketches of my ancestral families.  Maybe my descendants can enrich my work with information from those sketches.

This set of extensive biographical sketches of Early New England Families will be very useful and helpful to researchers with New England families listed in Torrey's New England Marriages books.

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Disclosure:  I am a current NEHGS member and have been since about 1994.  American Ancestors is my go-to site for most New England records, especially Massachusetts vital records and probate records.


Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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3 comments:

iamstevie23ami said...

Ohh.... myyyy..... so much to learn.....

Kristin Hubbard said...

I clicked on the link to see if any of my family names are in the project but the link doesn't appear to be working. I am most curious to learn if I should buy Vol.1 or 2 or both as I do know that I have hundreds of family members who arrived/lived in New England pre-1700. Please advise as to where to find the list of names.

Thank you!

Kristin

Kristin Hubbard said...

Hi Randy, thanks so much for that link! I was able to see the list of individuals featured which included one of my ancestors Daniel Wing 1616-1698 of Sandwich, Barnstable , MA.! Unfortunately without a membership I wasn't able to see much more but it was exciting to find one family member who made the list! I was hoping to see my Hubbard ancestors (possible french Huguenots having originally been named "Hubert" and coming from St. Saviour, Jersey) who were early settlers of Maine. But none the less it was exciting to find at least one name I recognized. I am relatively new to researching my tree so will have to dig deeper and see if I can find anyone else from the study. I have a free membership for American ancestors currently but will probably join in time. I only recently joined ancestry.com having run into dead ends on sites like geni.com and family search.com. Thank you so much for the link and for your blog, I'm slowly looking around and learning from you so much appreciated and keep up the good work!

Best wishes, Kristin