Homodox

You Know You're a Puritan If . . .

Your will contains the following paragraph:

In the first place I doe comit and humbly resign my soule into the hands of God that gave it in confidence of the eternall salvacon thereof through the infinite mercy of my good God and the alone merits of my blessed Redeemer. And for my body my desire is that it may be decently interred in the Parish Church of Kingsomborne in or near the place where my Grandfather was buryed and that without any unnecessary expenses I intending mourning for my Children and a decent and sober entertainment to such of my Friends and Neighbours as shall please to accompany me to my grave, desiring that a serious sermon of mortality may be made to the living there present without any commendacon of the dead in whom there is not anything praiseworthy. 

From the will of Thomas Dowse, dated 26 February 1680/1. Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 4 Drax; PROB 11/372

Jesse Helms 1921-2008

Sen. Helms died today.  See an article I wrote about his ancestry after the jump.

Happy Fourth!

Here's to my ancestors who fought in the American Revolution:

Last Name                  First & Mid Name                   Birth Date                        Birth Place

BERRY                          Stephen                           21 Apr 1724                    Rye, New Hampshire

COFFIN                         Abner                             25 Apr 1738                    Exeter, New Hampshire

DUDLEY Josiah 27 December 1745 Saybrook, Connecticut

HEARD                          Jonathan                          abt 1758                     Rochester, New Hampshire

HEARD     Reuben 9 March 1721/2 Dover, New Hampshire

LEARNED    Benjamin 23 July 1741 Sherborn, Masssachusetts

MARTIN                        James                             18 Jul 1759                     County Down, Ireland

PINKHAM                      Thomas                           8 Oct 1752                      Dover, New Hampshire

RUNNELS                      Abraham                         23 May 1719                   Durham, New Hampshire

WALLIS Nathaniel abt 1746 Greenland, New Hampshire

YORK                            Benjamin                         14 Jan 1761                Nottingham, New Hampshire

 

The Price You Pay For Making Whoopee

As I noted in this posting, my ancestors were fined for fornication to the tune of 40 shillings each in 1691.  That's the same purchashing power as £537.25 today or roughly a $750.00 fine.  Ouch.

Error or Editorial?

In 2005, William Bart Saxbe, Jr. contributed the marriage record of Smith Woodward and Thankful Pope whose name was originally transcribed as Poop.[1]  This couple was married at Dorchester, Massachusetts, on 29 July 1691, and had their first child, Sarah, on 20 September 1691.[2]  You do the math.  Consequently, they were convicted of fornication on 13 November 1691 and had to pay forty shillings each.[3]  So, perhaps, the town clerk was editorializing rather than misspelling.  Whatever the case, I remain their 9^th great-grandson.

---

[1] TAG 80 (2005):263.

[2] A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston Containing Dorchester Births, Marriages, and Deaths to the End of 1825 (Boston, Mass.: Rockwell and Churchill, City Printers, 1890),  p. 35.

[3] Abstract and Index of the Records of the Inferior Court of Pleas (Suffolk County Court) Held at Boston 1680-1698 (Boston, Mass:, The Historical Records Survey, 1940), p. 136.

Where The Records Are

I'm just finishing a piece on the English origins of Elizabeth (Dowse) Allen, the wife of Samuel Allen.  This woman was born in London; married there; came to the colonies with her husband, the Royal Governor of New Hampshire, who died at Newcastle, N.H., and then sort of slips away from the records.  Until today.  Samuel Allen's estate is administered from his wife's last residence which was Charlestown, Mass.  Although in Suffolk County today, in 1708, it was part of Middlesex County, so in volume 12 of the Middlesex Co., Mass. Probate you find Samuel Allen's administration which notes that his wife died by 30 September 1708.  

And such is genealogy.  A family largely associated with New Hampshire or Boston has important records in a neighboring county where you would not intuitively look.

Samuel Allen ca. 1635-1705

Samuel Allen (1635-1705) bought Mason's Patent in 1691 for the sum of £750. Mason's Patent was the right of ownership to all that is now present-day New Hampshire (first given to John Mason). He then wangled the King to make him Governor of New Hampshire, now a royal colony. He never succeeded in his ventures. I'm presently writing an article on the ancestry of his wife Elizabeth (Dowse) for the July issue of the New England Historical & Genealogical Register. Using the super web site: Measuring Worth, you can see that £750 in 1691 has the same purchasing power as roughly £100,000 today. That would be about $150,000.00. Not a bad little sum to plunk down for all of New Hampshire (which, of course, is tax-free). Unfortunately by the time 1691 rolled around, two or three generations of inhabitants had lived there and very much wanted to keep their land as their own. No surprise there. Also no surprise that Samuel Allen's descendants were still fighting over it into the 1770s. Litigiousness is a tradition in the U.S.

Genealogical Lecture

If you're near or in Bennington, Vermont today, I'll be lecturing at 1:30 p.m. at the Bennington Museum on

Where The Best Genealogical Research Is: Internet v. Print Genealogy

for the Genealogical Society of Vermont.  Come on down.

Genealogical Karma II

A distant cousin just sent me a jpg of a digital photo he took of a daguerrotype of my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents!  Yes, that's five greats and certainly a record for me.  They are Finlay Sinclair (1785-1859) and his wife Martha Lawrence (1789-1877).  How odd to stare into the eyes of people born over 200 years ago.  Thank you cousin!

Soc.Genealogy.Medieval

I've been a long-time reader and sometime contributor to an online discussion group on medieval genealogy (SGM for short).  It's an interesting place.  Sociologically, you've never read so many rants by so many people on such a narrow topic.  If there is a such thing as a genealogical pissing contest, SGM is it.  However, you need to treat it like I do.  It's a bar fight that you watch and ocassionally, someone throws a full bottle of beer.  You catch it and voila--free beer.  Meanwhile, the brawl goes on and you duck the chairs and other flying debris.  That is to say, there are some marvelous researchers out there posting new information.  You just need to know which ones to read and which ones to avoid.