The Slovak Yankee

Tombstone Tuesday: Daniel Dudley 1719-1811

Newport, N.H.  Son of last week's Deborah (Buell) Dudley.

Tombstone Tuesday: Deborah (Buell) Dudley 1693-1789

 This is lychen-covered and I didn't want to hurt the stone.  However, you can still the name Deborah in the upper right and 1789 on the lower left.  This from the Pine Street Cemetery, Newport, N.H.

Wallis Family Cleanup

Just some minor changes.  I thought the blog pages on the right were too cluttered, so I collapsed the Wallis family pages into two larger pages, one for each of Samuel³ and William³.   I also combined the two Dudley pages as well.  All the same information is there.  I've added nothing on either page.  However, if you've hyperlinked to a specific page, you may need to update your link.

Thanks. 

Someday I will add the next Wallis generation.  I have not abandoned that idea at all.  It's just been put off for now.

When Are Brick Walls Telling You That You're On The Wrong Track?

There are all sort of brick walls in research.  Sometimes you have no idea of where to go next, i.e., no parents' names at all.  Sometimes there are names, but you have no idea of the place.  Sometimes you have a good idea of who the parents were, but you cannot find proof of the relationship.  It is this category with which I want to take issue.

Been there, done that, got all the T-shirts.  I discussed some of this in this posting.  I remember needing a Polly Dudley available to marry my Amos Learned on 10 December 1818 at Dublin, N.H. [Index to births, marriages & deaths registered in Dublin, NH 1760-1990 by Nancy E. Campbell and John W. Harris (Dublin, NH: The Archives 1991), p. 13 and 34.]  Polly is a diminutive of Mary, so I was searching both Pollys and Marys born ca. 1787 based on Polly's age in the 1850 census.  I narrowed my search to a Polly Dudley, the daughter of Nahum⁵ (Joseph⁴ Benjamin³ Joseph² Francis¹) and Margaret (Howe) Dudley of Westmoreland, N.H.  She was unresearched as was her entire family.  I worked on this for a good couple of years, but could never find the proof I needed.  Finally, I knew I was barking up the wrong tree, because in her mother's probate papers, she signed her name, whereas my Polly always signed deeds by mark.  

Defeated, I asked my friend, Marshall for some advice.  He noted that she named a child Josiah Dudley Learned.  As Marshall pointed out, she did not choose that name from a hat.  In fact, her last three children all had family names, the other two being Calvin Sanger Learned and Abiah Russell Learned [my great³-grandmother].  Calvin Sanger (after whom Sangerville, Maine was named) was a cousin from Sherborn, Mass.   Russell was the maiden name of Amos's maternal grandmother.  So, six or so years later, I still lack proof for Polly's parentage.  So, now the situation is this: (i) the proof doesn't exist; (ii) the proof does exist, but I'm looking in the wrong places; or (iii) there's no proof because the relationship didn't exist in the first place.  I'm beginning to think that option #iii is a distinct possibility.  So, now I need to wipe out all my preconceived and long-held notions--totally purge my thoughts, and start over with what I really know.

The Truth About Polly:

Amos Learned married Polly Daniels on 10 December 1818 in Dublin, New Hampshire.  This marriage record appears in the New Hampshire vital records, and is likely a late submission to the state from the town records of Dublin, which also notes the marriage.[1]  Dublin is noted at the residence of both bride and groom and no parents are given for either.  This marriage also appears in the records of Justice of the Peace, John Snow, where the couple is listed as Amos Learned and Dolly Daniels, both of Dublin on 10 December 1818.[2]

This couple appears in three secondary sources.  In the 1967 Learned Genealogy, the bride is called Polly (Dudley) Daniels and the year of the marriage is incorrectly given as 1817.[3]  This work is largely based on the 1882 Learned Genealogy which contains the same information.[4]  Tracing back even further, this 1882 genealogy must have relied on the 1855 History of Dublin, which notes the marriage as just 1818 and calls the bride Hannah Daniels.[5]  The question becomes, was Polly a Dudley or a Daniels?

After her marriage to Amos, Polly had two children born in Dublin:  Amos (Jr.) on 20 June 1819 and Louisa on 27 October 1820.[6]   Polly released her dower rights on several Cheshire Co. deeds between 1819 and 1821, in each of which she was called Polly B. Learned and signed with a mark.[7]  None of these deeds provided any clues to her parents.  There are no deeds in which she was either a grantee or grantor in her own right.  Shortly after February 1821, Amos and Polly removed to Weld, Maine, where they had four more children:  Jesse, born 10 December 1821, Josiah Dudley, born 4 December 1822, Calvin Sanger, born 19 August 1824, and Abiah Russell, born 5 June 1830.[8] Polly and Amos were living with their son Calvin in Canton, Maine in 1850.  She was aged 63 years; Amos was aged 69 years, and both were described as born in New Hampshire.[9]  By 1855, Amos was living in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and Polly was not with him, presumably having died between 1850 and 1855.[10] 

---

[1] Nancy E. Campbell and John W. Harris, Index to births, marriages & deaths registered in Dublin, N.H., 1760-1990 (Dublin, N.H.:  Dublin Town Archives, 1991), hereinafter Dublin VRs, pp. 10 and 13.

[2] Milli S. Knudsen, ‘Til Divorce Do Us Part: Marriages and Divorces from Cheshire County, New Hampshire from 1776 to 1899 (Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books, 2007), p. 63. 

[3] Eugenia Learned James, The Learned Family in America 1630-1967 (US, 1967), p. 76.

[4] William Law Learned and Joseph G.E. Larned, The Learned family (Learned, Larned, Learnard and Lerned) being descendants of William Learned who was of Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1632 (Albany, NY, J. Munsell, 1882), p. 118.

[5] Charles Mason, The History of Dublin, N.H. (Boston, MA, J. Wilson and son, 1855), p. 360.

[6] Dublin VRs, p. 44-5.

[7] Cheshire County Deeds 79:478, 90:40, 90:86-7, and 90:171.  All the land was in Dublin and part of the fourth range there.

[8] Weld, Maine Town Book, p. 77.

[9]1850 U.S. Federal census, Canton, Oxford Co., Maine, family #145.

[10]Ann S. Lainhart, 1855 and 1865 Massachusetts State Censuses for Hopkinton (Boston:  The Author, 1990), 57.

Daniel Dudley 1754-1803 of Newport, N.H.

Yes, John Dudley's family has his family in the Newport Town Records, but so does his brother Daniel.  In fact, the one brother that doesn't is Josiah Dudley, my ancestor!

 
 

John Dudley 1758-1846

I wasn't kidding about the fact that it's always the siblings of your brick wall ancestor that has all the records.  Here's the family of John Dudley from the Newport, N.H. Town Records.  He also served in the American Revolution and lived long enough to request a pension.

 

Josiah Dudley 1756-aft 1820 of Newport, N.H.

My ongoing love-hate relationship with the family of Josiah Dudley is posted on a page now.

Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet Part II

After thinking about it for a bit, I would re-write even the two sources to which I cited:

Anne clearly states that "It pleased God to keep me a long time without child."  Since the first child is born ca. 1631-2, I would then make the marriage of Anne and Simon Bradstreet ca. 1627, giving her a 4-5 year time waiting for a child.

That puts her birth more in line with ca. 1606.  This works.  Thomas Dudley married on 25 April 1603.  His eldest child, Thomas could be born ca. 1604, leaving a gap to 1608 for Anne.  If born in ca. 1606, she is only 46 at the birth of her last child in 1652 (for which we do have a record).  If it were me, I would now say ca. 1606-1672 as more likely.

P.S. She is not my director ancestor, but the sister-in-law of my ancestor's brother.  My ancestor George Denison's brother Daniel married Anne's sister Patience Dudley.

Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet--Watch Those Dates

Randy Seaver posted a link for Tombstone Tuesday to this posting regarding Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet, the New England poetess.  I want to point out two things about the posting.  The first is that despite someone being famous, very little can be known about that person genealogically. The second thing is that people are careless [please insert nice, caring, P.C. word here] about their own ancestry.  If you post things to the Internet, a public forum, which I feel are less than correct statements, I feel the obligation to point that out.

Anne Dudley lacks definite birth/baptism and marriage records.  Her relative age has to be deduced.  The memorial tombstone uses the dates 1612-1672.  The poster, then notes that Anne was married to Simon Bradstreet in 1628 in Hardingston (no county given) England.  That of course would make her 16 at marriage.  There are several reasons why this cannot be true.  Anne's high social position (daughter of Gov. Thomas Dudley) along with the convention of the time, means that she most likely was at least 18 if not 20.  16 year olds getting married is a 19th century notion that people incorrectly place into the 17th century.  

So what do we really know?  Anne's eldest son Samuel died in Jamaica in August 1682, aged 51 years.  He was Harvard College Class of 1653. His birth can be estimated at ca. 1631 using this information, although both sources I'm using give ca. 1632.  So Anne was married no later than 1630-1.  Based on that date, I would then estimate her birth as ca. 1610.  Looking at what we know about Thomas Dudley, this works.  He is married on 25 April 1603 (at Hardingstone, Northampton, England--this is the place he married, not his daughter).  His first child, Thomas,  is born ca. 1605 based on his going to Cambridge University--A.B. 1624, A.M. January 1626/7.  Second child, Samuel has a baptismal record of 30 November 1608 in Northampton.  Anne would be next.  Based on the usual two year cycle of child birth where a mother nurses, 1610 is a good approximation for Anne's birth.

So, the best information makes her dates ca. 1610-1672, with a marriage date of ca. 1630.  See: Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins 1620-1633 (Boston, Mass.: NEHGS, 1995), I:584-5 (Dudley) and 213-14 (Bradstreet).  Also, Dean Crawford Smith and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton 1878-1908, Part II: The Ancestry of Amanda Spiller 1823-1873 (Boston, Mass.: NEHGS 2008), pp. 49-99, the best treatment of the Bradstreets, including all the English generations, in print.  

William Dudley (1609-1684) Signature