On November 15, 2008, we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the Great Migration Study Project.
During my early years in genealogy, while handling typical client commissions, I was constantly faced with the problem of learning what research had already been undertaken and published for a family of interest. This search frequently consumed much of the time allocated for research and became very frustrating.
Thus arose the concept of a reference work for New England genealogy which would update and supplant Savage and some of the other single-colony-based compendia.
Work began on November 15, 1988 with the pilot project which became the Great Migration Begins series of volumes which covered immigration to New England from 1620 to 1633.
Sketch format:
Section one - migration
Section two - biographical sketches including occupation, church membership, education, estate, land grants and deeds and probate.
Section three - genealogy presentation of two generations
Section four - comments discussed interesting aspects of the immigrant's life or unresolved problems in chronology or genealogy.
Officeholding has evolved over time and a distinction has been made between civil offices and military service.
Education has also evolved - it now includes notes regarding books owned by the immigrant through probate records.
The Great Migration Newsletter was originally conceived to serve three purposes:
- to publish useful information about Great Migration towns and records
- to produce additional income to support work on the books
- maintain a strong subscriber list to create a market for the books
Over two decades the Newsletter has satisfactorily fulfilled the three purposes originally contemplated. Unexpectedly, however, the preparation of each issue has generated an additional result. By forcing me to examine records from a different perspective than when compiling a sketch, work on the lead article and Focus section has served as a sort of research and development division. The analysis of records in the Newsletter setting has brought to light unanticipated data, which has in turn been incorporated directly into individual sketches.
Cummings, Abbott. The Age at First Marriage of Young Men in Eighteenth-Century New England, New England Ancestors, Summer 2006.
Stated law throughout the entire region was quite specific on the subject from the earliest years. The Colony of Connecticut, for example, in its Code of Laws formulated in May 1650, had set the legal age for a young man at twenty-one, and forbidden that he marry before that time "without the knowledge and consent" of parent or guardian. A century and a quarter later this remained a prevailing understanding, as we find in legislation entitled the "Regulating of Marriages" enacted February 15, 1779, "by the representatives of the freemen of the state of Vermont." No young persons, the law declared were to enter the state of marriage "before they arrive to lawful age; that is to say, a male person to the age of twenty one years, and a female person to the age of eighteen years, without leave first obtained from the parents (if living) . . . or guardians of such person."
A major modern study of the subject is Thomas P. Monahan's The Pattern of Age at Marriage in the United States, published at Philadelphia in 1951. Focused on New Jersey after the colonial period.
Greven, Philip Jr. Four Generations: Population, Land & Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts. Concludes that men married considerably later than commonly thought, at an age often related to the father's ability to establish his sons on an independent basis. "Without the means to support a wife, marriage was virtually impossible."
Greven reported: The average age at first marriage for 2nd generation was 26.7 years; only five married before age 21. After 1730 he reports the average age of 4th generation men declined to 25.3 years and this over all decrease persisted for the most part, from 1730 to 1770.
The author created his own study using eleven reliable genealogies, surveying 1,024 males in the 18th century:
1700-1719 age 21-5; age 22-3; age 23-16; age 24-9; age 25-9; age 26-5; age 27-4; age 28-3; age 29-7; age 30-3
1720-1739 age 21-10; age 22-17; age 23-19; age 24-17; age 25-18; age 26-7; age 27-7; age 28-7; age 29-3; age 30-4
1740-1759 age 21-13; age 22-25; age 23-20; age 24-22; age 25-22; age 26-11; age 27-18; age 28-7; age 29-5; age 30-3
1760-1779 age 21-20; age 21-33; age 23-31; age 24-28; age 25-20; age 26-19; age 27-22; age 28-10; age 29-7; age 30-6
1780-1799 age 21-27; age 22-39; age 23-43; age 24-48; age 25-43; age 26-28; age 27-36; age 28-17; age 29-22; age 30-7
Table 2: First marriage under 21:
1700-1719 age 20-2; age 19-3
1720-1739 age 20-7; age 19-6; age 18-4
1740-1759 age 20-9; age 19-4; age 18-3; age 17-2
1760-1779 age 20-7; age 19-7; age 18-5
1780-1799 age 20-8; age 19-18; age 18-3; age 17-1; age 16-1
Dearborn, David. County Deed & Probate Records for Suffolk & Middlesex Counties, New England Ancestors, Summer 2006.
Massachusetts is justly famous for its extraordinary vital records, arguably the oldest and the most comprehensive for any state. But the experienced genealogist knows that vital records alone are not enough to document a family history, especially when deed and probate records contain such a wealth of information. Suffolk and Middlesex Counties together occupy a large portion of eastern Massachusetts and the county courthouses - located in Boston and Cambridge respectively - are but a short subway ride or brisk walk away from NEHGS.
In Massachusetts, probate records are found in the county Registry of Probate office, although in some counties (including both Suffolk and Middlesex), older records are now at the Massachusetts State Archives. Deeds are recorded in the county Registries of Deeds.
Suffolk and Middlesex were two of the original four counties in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that were established in 1643. Prior to 1793 Suffolk County extended all the way to the Rhode Island border and included all of what is now Norfolk County, created from Suffolk in that year.
Drummey, Peter. The Massachusetts Historical Society, New England Ancestors, Sumer 2006
Abigail, the MHS online catalog available through the MHS website, www.masshist.org, contains brief descriptions of almost all of the Historical Society's manuscript collections and links to more extensive electronic finding aids for almost 200 collections.
Duffy, Janis. Massachusetts State Archives, New England Ancestors, Summer 2006
Massachusetts State Archives holdings date from the beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 and document the settlement of lands in Maine and Massachusetts, the arrival of immigrants, and the development of state government.
Military records in the Archives cover conflicts from the 17th through 20th centuries. The Archives hold records of state pensions and bounties of Maine land grants for Revolutionary War veterans or their heirs not eligible for federal pensions.
Maps and plans held by the Archives range from 1600s to the present.
Deeds for Suffolk County, 1689-1800, but the grantor/grantee indexes are held at the county level.
Gibson, Marjorie. Suggestions for Researching Colonial New England Women, New England Ancestors, Fall 2008.
One of the most frustrating and difficult genealogical challenges is finding information about early colonial female ancestors. I undertook this task in 1999 with Mary Ann Hubbell (a Hubbell by marriage; I am a Hubbell by birth.) We met online and although we lived 2,500 miles apart, never met, and spoke by telephone only four times, we wrote a book in eight years about Hubbell wives by communicating and sending files and chapters via the Internet.
In Hubbell by Choice: The Ancestry of Some Early Connecticut Women, we traced the ancestry of the three wives of Richard Hubbell, as well as the wives of his sons and grandsons. Many early vital records were never recorded; others were lost, burned or destroyed. Thus we had to turn elsewhere.
- Bible Records - this source can provide data often available nowhere else.
- Wills and Estate Inventories - except for marriage records, often the only place to find a woman's married surname is in her father's will, if he was alive when she married. Often wills can provide some insight into interpersonal dynamics. The 1662 will of William Hill, first husband of Sarah (Jurdaine) (Hill) (Sowther) Greenleaf of Boston, stated "Beside when I married my wife She brought me A silver bowle a silver porringer a silver spon She sent or gave them to her son James Hill without my consent." Wills & estate inventories can also provide details about culture and daily life.
- Court Records - one of the best sources for early American women is court records, frequently the only document where women were named as plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses or beneficiaries. Court records cover women accused of name-calling, lying, complaining, spousal abuse, and violent crimes. Other women disobeyed masters, ran away, fornicated, stole, cheated, committed adultery and protested Puritan executions.
- Divorce Records - these important records should be overlooked.
Differing definitions - During the colonial period, the term "Mrs." was sometimes used as a title of social rank, not marital status.
- Junior does not always mean "son of" but can indicate two sons (by different wives) given the same name and living at the same time. It can indicate two men not father and son living at the same time (uncle/nephew, cousins or no determined relation). A man could use "junior" early in life and "senior" later in life as well as 3rd, 4th, etc.
- Infant could refer to someone under legal age
- Orphan might be used for a child under twenty-one years whose father was dead but mother still lived.
- Nephew sometimes meant grandchild.
- Brother could mean brother-in-law, a brother in Christ, or a minister
- Koehler, Lyle. The Search for Power: The Weaker Sex in Seventeenth Century New England, Urbana, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980
- Martin, John. Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship & the Founding of New England Towns in the Seventeenth Century, Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1991
- Morgan, Edmund. The Puritan Family: Religion & Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-century New England, New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1966
- Otto, Julie. Who Was Your Mother's Mother's Mother's Mother? Researching Matrilineal Lines, online lecture available through NewEnglandAncestors.org
- Smith, Joseph, ed. Colonial Justice in Western Massachusetts 1690-1702: The Pynchon Court Record, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961
- Ulrich, Laurel. Good Wives: Image & Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Hart, Frederick. Long Island Sound as a Genealogical Region, New England Ancestors, Winter 2009
From the time of the first European settlements in New England in the 1630s until the advent of the railroads over two centuries later, the easiest and fastest way to travel was by water.
Researchers of this region must therefore be prepared to find ancestral records in a variety of jurisdictions, from one shore to another, from town to town along a shoreline, or even in areas adjacent by water travel, such as Narragansett Bay, Block Island, East New Jersey, New York City, or the Hudson River Valley. Connecticut researchers must become familiar with Long Island sources. Long Island researchers must investigate Connecticut sources.
Long Island Sound is an estuary, fed on its Connecticut side by an assortment of large, medium and small rivers. The Connecticut River itself drains a major part of interior New England and extends the navigable water route from the Sound substantially inland to the Middletown and Hartford areas. The Sound is about 110 miles long and twenty-one miles across at its widest point, near New Haven, with its deepest natural harbor at New London. The relevant geographical feature for genealogists, however, is the plentiful number of small and medium-sized harbors where European settlements began. Access to water routes greatly facilitated economic interaction among these communities.
About 1675, surveyor Robert Ryder made the first map of Long Island Sound actually drawn to scale, which named communities along both the northern and southern shorelines.
Except at the Sound's widest part, the northern and southern shorelines are in sight of each other in good weather. In the colonial period, communities across the water might have seemed even closer than they do today because of the regularity of travel between them.
Resources:
Hoff, Henry. Historical Connections between New England & New York: An Overview, New England Ancestors, Winter 2009
1624-1783 - New York's oldest settlements under the Dutch (1624-1664) were collectively called New Netherland, and were scattered along the Hudson Valley between present-day New York City and Albany. New Netherland was lightly settled, and its leaders always feared being taken over by the English, especially since the New England colonies had larger populations.
In addition, some Dutch lived in New England - and many English lived in New Netherland. This mixture resulted in personal connections.
After the Dutch surrendered New Netherland to the English in 1664, Charles II granted the entire colony to his brother, the Duke of York, to include all islands between Cape Cod and Cape May [New Jersey] except for Block Island.
After 1664 New Englanders continued to migrate into New York, sometimes in great numbers. And because the eastern border of New York was in dispute until after the American Revolution, records of a family may be found in both New York and Connecticut (or Massachusetts).
During the American Revolution there was much movement between New England and New York. Patriots fled New York City and Long Island to live in Connecticut, at least temporarily. Some Loyalists moved in the opposite direction to seek refuge in British-held New York City or Long Island.
1783-1900 - In the years following the American Revolution, New York's eastern borders were agreed upon, as were the claims of Massachusetts to portions of western New York. During the next hundred years, upstate New York was settled by New Englanders - and to a lesser extent, downstate New Yorkers and New Jerseyites. Travel was still by water, to the extent possible; this was made easier by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.
A typical westward migration pattern from New England often involved multiple stops along the way, perhaps from Connecticut or western Massachusetts to the Hudson Valley to central New York to western New York to the Midwest. Chain migrations occurred as families from the same New England towns joined in the westward migration.
Many New England families who settled in New York retained their ties to New England or returned to New England.
Sources:
LeClerc, Michael & Christopher Child. Western Massachusetts Families in 1790, New England Ancestors, Summer 2008.
Western Massachusetts was a crossroads of migration, with pioneer families arriving from middle and eastern Massachusetts and other New England states and later generations moving north into Vermont and west into New York and beyond. The transient nature of families in this area, especially during the post-revolutionary years, makes western Massachusetts a major target area for thorough genealogical treatment.
The series will cover families in the counties of Berkshire and Hampshire (which at that time included all territory west of Worcester County). Present-day Franklin and Hampden were formed Hampshire County in 1811 and 1912 respectively.
In 1790 the population of Berkshire County was 30,291 and that of Hampshire County 59,681 making a total of just under 90,000.
The Western Massachusetts Families in 1790 will contain family sketches for heads of household.
McClure, Rhonda. Finding Family Photos on the Internet, New England Ancestors, Summer 2008.
Fortunately for today's genealogist, the Internet offers many sites that make available digitized images of unidentified photographs, in an attempt to identify subjects, and reunite the photos with descendants of those depicted.
A number of resources can help identify the approximate era based on clothing worn in the photograph, including:
McClure, Rhonda. If Only I Could See the Original Record: Finding Documents on Footnote, New England Ancestors, Winter 2009
More sites, including NewEnglandAncestors.org are offering digitized documents online. NEHGS also now offers access to the collections of Footnote.com from computers within the library. Founded in 1997 as iArchives, Inc., Footnote specializes in digitized documents for genealogists and historians. This subscription-based website provides searchable images of vital records, newspapers, city directories, and more, presenting an "unaltered view of the events, places, and people that shaped the American nation and the world."
Digitized collections include:
Researchers of this region must therefore be prepared to find ancestral records in a variety of jurisdictions, from one shore to another, from town to town along a shoreline, or even in areas adjacent by water travel, such as Narragansett Bay, Block Island, East New Jersey, New York City, or the Hudson River Valley. Connecticut researchers must become familiar with Long Island sources. Long Island researchers must investigate Connecticut sources.
Long Island Sound is an estuary, fed on its Connecticut side by an assortment of large, medium and small rivers. The Connecticut River itself drains a major part of interior New England and extends the navigable water route from the Sound substantially inland to the Middletown and Hartford areas. The Sound is about 110 miles long and twenty-one miles across at its widest point, near New Haven, with its deepest natural harbor at New London. The relevant geographical feature for genealogists, however, is the plentiful number of small and medium-sized harbors where European settlements began. Access to water routes greatly facilitated economic interaction among these communities.
About 1675, surveyor Robert Ryder made the first map of Long Island Sound actually drawn to scale, which named communities along both the northern and southern shorelines.
Except at the Sound's widest part, the northern and southern shorelines are in sight of each other in good weather. In the colonial period, communities across the water might have seemed even closer than they do today because of the regularity of travel between them.
Resources:
- Hoff, Henry. Genealogical Research on Long Island, Tree Talks 24 (June 1984):67-79Hoff, Henry. Genealogies of Long Island Families from the New York Genealogical & Biographical Record, 2 volumes. Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987
- Long Island Source Records from the New York Genealogical & Biographical Record, 2 volumes. Baltimore; Genealogical Publishing CO., 1987
- Long Island Genealogy
- New York Genealogical & Biographical Society
- Seversmith, Herbert. & Kenn Stryker-Rodda. Long Island Genealogical Source Material, Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society, Special Publication No. 24, 1962
- Jacobus Donald. History & Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield, 2 volumes in 3. Fairfield: Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter, DAR, 1930-32; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1972.
- Families of Ancient New Haven, The American Genealogist/New Haven Genealogical Magazine, volumes 1-8 repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1974
Hoff, Henry. Historical Connections between New England & New York: An Overview, New England Ancestors, Winter 2009
1624-1783 - New York's oldest settlements under the Dutch (1624-1664) were collectively called New Netherland, and were scattered along the Hudson Valley between present-day New York City and Albany. New Netherland was lightly settled, and its leaders always feared being taken over by the English, especially since the New England colonies had larger populations.
In addition, some Dutch lived in New England - and many English lived in New Netherland. This mixture resulted in personal connections.
After the Dutch surrendered New Netherland to the English in 1664, Charles II granted the entire colony to his brother, the Duke of York, to include all islands between Cape Cod and Cape May [New Jersey] except for Block Island.
After 1664 New Englanders continued to migrate into New York, sometimes in great numbers. And because the eastern border of New York was in dispute until after the American Revolution, records of a family may be found in both New York and Connecticut (or Massachusetts).
During the American Revolution there was much movement between New England and New York. Patriots fled New York City and Long Island to live in Connecticut, at least temporarily. Some Loyalists moved in the opposite direction to seek refuge in British-held New York City or Long Island.
1783-1900 - In the years following the American Revolution, New York's eastern borders were agreed upon, as were the claims of Massachusetts to portions of western New York. During the next hundred years, upstate New York was settled by New Englanders - and to a lesser extent, downstate New Yorkers and New Jerseyites. Travel was still by water, to the extent possible; this was made easier by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.
A typical westward migration pattern from New England often involved multiple stops along the way, perhaps from Connecticut or western Massachusetts to the Hudson Valley to central New York to western New York to the Midwest. Chain migrations occurred as families from the same New England towns joined in the westward migration.
Many New England families who settled in New York retained their ties to New England or returned to New England.
Sources:
- Benson, Richard. Colonial New England & New York Research: The Sources are Different, New England Ancestors 4 (2003) 3:23-25.
- Benson, Richard. Upstate New York Research: Still Difficult but Getting Easier, New England Ancestors 5 (2004) 2:22-25.
- Davenport, David. The Yankee Settlement of New York, 1783-1820, Genealogical Journal 17 (1988-1989): 63-68.
- Doherty, Frank. Settlers of the Beekman Patent, Dutchess County, New York, 9 vols. Pleasant Valley, NY website: www.beekmansettlers.com
- Fox, Dixon. Yankees & Yorkers, New York: New York University Press, 1940
- Lustenberger, Anita. When Connecticut Became New York: Researching in the Oblong before 1800, Connecticut Ancestry 47 (2004-2005):169-78.
- Remington, Gordon. New York State Probate Records: A Genealogist's Guide to Testate & Intestate Records, Boston: NEHGS, 2002.
- Torrey, Clarence. New England Marriages Prior to 1700.
LeClerc, Michael & Christopher Child. Western Massachusetts Families in 1790, New England Ancestors, Summer 2008.
Western Massachusetts was a crossroads of migration, with pioneer families arriving from middle and eastern Massachusetts and other New England states and later generations moving north into Vermont and west into New York and beyond. The transient nature of families in this area, especially during the post-revolutionary years, makes western Massachusetts a major target area for thorough genealogical treatment.
The series will cover families in the counties of Berkshire and Hampshire (which at that time included all territory west of Worcester County). Present-day Franklin and Hampden were formed Hampshire County in 1811 and 1912 respectively.
In 1790 the population of Berkshire County was 30,291 and that of Hampshire County 59,681 making a total of just under 90,000.
The Western Massachusetts Families in 1790 will contain family sketches for heads of household.
McClure, Rhonda. Finding Family Photos on the Internet, New England Ancestors, Summer 2008.
Fortunately for today's genealogist, the Internet offers many sites that make available digitized images of unidentified photographs, in an attempt to identify subjects, and reunite the photos with descendants of those depicted.
A number of resources can help identify the approximate era based on clothing worn in the photograph, including:
- Gernsheim, Alison. Victorian & Edwardian Fashion, A Photographic Survey, New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1981.
- Gorsline, Douglas. What People Wore, New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1980.
- Harris, Kristina. 59 Authentic Turn-of-the-Century Fashion Patterns, New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1994.
- Severa, John. Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans & Fashion, 1840-1900, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997.
- Taylor, Maureen. The Photo Detective
- Young, Agnes. Recurring Cycles of Fashion, 1760-1937, New York, NY: Harper & Brothers 1937.
The Internet is an ever-evolving entity - sites are added as others disappear, and new or updated resources appear continually. I consider Google the most effective search engine for such work. Search terms for finding sites that share photographs or try to connect unidentified photos with descendants include:
- photo identification
- photo archive / photo archives
- fashion in photography
- photographers and (city of interest here)
Whether you have unidentified photographs to share, or seek photos of your own family, check the following websites frequently for the newest additions:
- DeadFred Genealogy Photo Archive
- Ancient Faces
- Ford & Nagle
- Ancestor Genealogy Photo Archive
- Pictures - GeneaNet
- HeirloomsLost
- Ancestors Lost & Found
While all sites mentioned above are specific to genealogical research, don't forget state and local archives. Many libraries - private, public and university - own collections of photographs, some photos identified and some not.
McClure, Rhonda. If Only I Could See the Original Record: Finding Documents on Footnote, New England Ancestors, Winter 2009
More sites, including NewEnglandAncestors.org are offering digitized documents online. NEHGS also now offers access to the collections of Footnote.com from computers within the library. Founded in 1997 as iArchives, Inc., Footnote specializes in digitized documents for genealogists and historians. This subscription-based website provides searchable images of vital records, newspapers, city directories, and more, presenting an "unaltered view of the events, places, and people that shaped the American nation and the world."
Digitized collections include:
- Papers of the Continental Congress 1774-1789
- Mathew Brady Collection of Civil War photographs
- Records of the Southern Claims Commission - records from 1870s when Southerners claimed compensation from the federal government for items appropriated by the Union Army.
- Name Index to Civil War & Later Pension Files
McColgan, John. City of Boston Archives, New England Ancestors, Summer 2006
The Archives & Records Management Division of the Office of City Clerk is responsible for managing the records of continuing value created by or for the City of Boston.
- Tax records 1822-1895, 1945-1973 - 19th century records name owner, male tenants over 21, age, occupation & residence the year before
- Voter registration 1857-1920, include naturalized voter registers
- Census records 1820, 1830, 1837, 1845 summary, 1850, 1855
Reik, Connie. The Other U.S. Census: Place Your Ancestors in History Through Statistics, New England Ancestors, Summer 2006.
Have you ever wondered how your ancestors fit into the scheme of United States history, statistically? How did they fit into the general population, ethnically and economically? For example, how many other farms existed in Worcester County, Mass., in 1850, and how did that number grow or dwindle over time?
Tomlinson, Richard. The Connecticut Nutmegger Goes Online, New England Ancestors, Winter 2009
The Connecticut Nutmegger has served as the "journal of record" for the Connecticut Society of Genealogists, Inc. (CSG) for forty years. Beginning with a short sketch of Thomas Hooker's family in the first volume, issues have included family histories - mainly with Connecticut ties - along with additions and corrections to previously published work. Vital records from the Barbour Collection and gravestone inscriptions from the Hale Collection, hundreds of Bible records and recently the ongoing transcription of Lucius Barnes Barbour's abstracts of Hartford District probate records from 1750, plus other record from various sources, provide a wealth of genealogical information.
The Nutmegger launched the popular Ancestry Service. From its inception, CSG strongly encouraged members to submit their family charts. CSG's East Hartford research library currently houses more than 170,000 pages of member charts. The purpose was to help members identify ancestry shared with other members.
Over time, the content changed. Earlier issues focused primarily on the colonial period and English ancestry. Recent issues present a broader ethnic view - such as Vicki S. Welch's "Slaves of a Governor" series in Volume 35 - and documentation of more recent immigrants - such as Janet N. Ryan's "Hermonat/Armonath/Armonatis Families of Naugatauk, Connecticut, A Brief Excursion into Lithuanian Ancestry" (41:99).
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