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host · 01-04-2007, 12:17 PM

Shani....thank you for creating this thread. Coincidently, just the other day, I searched TFP for the term "genealogy" and there were zero results. It is however, a difficult word to correctly spell.

I've been squinting over this 1824 deed, I obtained from the town clerk's office up in CT, looking for clues to my "brick wall" on my mother's side.
I think it accurately represents what you described, as far as the challenges of correctly reading old documents. It was handwritten on a plain piece of paper, no pre-printed form.

My ancestors' names are all over on the right....that isn't the problem. I'd like your opinion on the names in the first six lines of visible script, and the names of the witnesses on the lower left. I won't tell you what I think, until after you give your opinion:
 <img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/deed2.jpg" height=540 width=682> 

There is a better view at this link, and thee view expands, using my firefox browser, anyway, with a mouse click on the display of the picture:

http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/deed2.jpg
 
I was fortunate in that most of my mother's side's genealogy had already been document by a third cousin who I happened across, online. There was only one or two "brick walls", and I had the "beginner's luck" of breaking through one of them, when I found this during a google search:

Quote:

Page 777 360. ISAAC. isaac hall, son of Isaac and Mary Moss Hall ...
Children: 212 Daughter, m Jonsey Curtis ; 213 Wyllis, b 1760, m Mehitable Mix, ... Children: 216 Joel, in Hannah Hall, of Wallingford, daughter of Dickerman ...
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/other/ABL/...ealogies2.html - 281k -

The above reference an entry on page 817 of the History of Wallingford, published in 1870, (Nathaniel (Hull) .132) This established that the Jerusha Hull who had married my GGGG=grandfahter, Jauncey Curtiss, in 1793, was the daughter of Nathaniel Hull and Mehitable Beadles. My cousin, the family genealogist had overlooked the entry, because the name "Jerusha" was absent...the histoyr referred to her only as ".213 Daughter", and because "Jauncey" was spelled "Jonsey".

We then researched the ancestry of our newly discovered GGGGG-grandparents, Nathaniel (1743 -1771) and Mehitable (1745 - 1776), and Mehitables line was:
Father: NATHANIEL BEADLES b: 15 DEC 1703 in Wallingford, New Haven, CT
Mother: ELIZABETH HITCHCOCK b: 26 JAN 1707 in Wallingford, New Haven, CT

Father: NATHANIEL HITCHCOCK b: 18 APR 1679 in Wallingford, New Haven, CT
Mother: SARAH JENNINGS b: 29 AUG 1684 in Hatfield, Hampshire, MA

Father: STEPHEN JENNINGS b: ABT 1647 in Unknown -based on marriage date
Mother: HANNAH DICKINSON b: 6 DEC 1648 in Wethersfield, Hartford, CT

Father: JOHN DICKINSON b: BEF 22 AUG 1624 in bp Billingborough, Lincolnshire, England
Mother: FRANCES FOOTE b: 1629 in East Berholst, Suffolk Co., England

The interesting revelation was that my GGGGGGGG-grandparents were Hannah Dickinson, kidnapped with her children and carried off the Quebec, where she gave birth to a daughter she named "Captivity", and her husband, Stephen Jennings, who pursued the indians to rescue her and his stepchildren and newly born baby, and bring them back safely to Hatfield:
 <a href="http://www.agribusinesscouncil.org/Jennings%20Heritage/cornerstone_for_courage.htm">Cornerstone for Courage: The Case of Stephen Jennings
and The American Deliverance (1677-78)</a> 

A brief description of the entire saga here:

Quote:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....art/GILLET.htm
vi. SAMUEL GILLETT baptized in Windsor 22 Jan. 1642/3, married HANNAH DICKINSON 23 Sept. 1668 in Hadley (Hatfield?), MA, killed 19 May 1676 at Turner’s Falls. Samuel & Hannah settled on the frontier at Hatfield, MA. Hannah was born 6 Dec. 1648 in Wethersfield, died after 1687. She was a daughter of Sgt. John & Frances Dickinson. She married (2) Stephen Jennings in Hatfield 15 May 1677 and they removed to Brookfield, MA. Samuel and Hannah had 4 children.

Samuel was with Capt. Turner at the Falls Fight at Peskeompsinson[36] in which 37 English were lost including Samuel and Capt. Turner.[37]

Hannah had been remarried only a few months when on 19 Sept. 1677 she and her 5-year old daughter Mary and her 4-year old son Samuel were captured during an Indian attack on Hatfield. Hannah was pregnant at the time. When the authorities refused to pursue the Indians in fear of ambush, her husband and Benjamin Wait set out together to recover the captives who were headed for Canada. After a journey that lasted all winter they reached Canada in January and negotiated a ransom with the French. There Hannah had a daughter she named Captivity Jennings on 22 Jan. 1678. Hannah returned to home with her children in June 1678.[38] On 22 July 1710 Stephen Jennings while engaged in making hay was ambushed and killed by Indians at Brookfield. Captivity Jennings married Abigah Bartlett. He too was killed by Indians Oct. 1708.[39]

I can guess what you are thinking....it seemed like a BS fairytale to me, too, when I was doing the research. My 3rd cousin is "no nonsense". She took my discovery of Jerusha Hull's parents and signed off on it, and the descendancy, back to Stephen and Hannah.....and, the "story" gets even more unusual details; acco0rding to court records, Stephen and Hannah's daughter, Captivity, born in Canada while her mother and siblings were held hostage by indians, may have later had a child out of wedlock, and research I have done supports the idea that Stephen's son Joseph was correct....Gabriel Jennings was a "pirate", out of Portsmouth, RI, near Newport, and he was probably Stephen's brother.

Quote:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....nder/peck.html
(begins near the bottom of the page):

....Life went on. Steven and Hannah had six more children, and moved in 1690 to Brookfield, Massachusetts where, it is thought, she died about 1705 and Steven was slain by Indians in a raid on Brookfield in 1710.

Children of Stephen and Hannah, all except Captivity born in Hatfield:

i. CAPTIVITY2 JENNINGS, b. 14 March 1678; m. ca. 1700 ABIJAH BARTLETT who was killed by Indians 1708. Before that marriage, " on the last day of the year 1695" there was a judgement in the Brrokfield court. "Whereas William Barnes was sentenced at the quarter session of July last to pay two shillings two pence per week for the maintenance of the child for which he is accused to be the father of by Captivity Jennings; Stephen Jennings, the father of said Captivity Jennings and the said Will Barnes personally appearing in this same session and declaring that they had come to an agreement about the maintenance of the said child." Fifteen pounds was paid and William freed of further obligation. (Eiher, History of Brookfield)

ii. STEPHEN JENNINGS, b. 16 June 1680; killed by Indians 1710.

iii. JOSEPH JENNINGS, b. 23 Aug. 1682; still living in 1751; m. 1) widow MARY RICH, (2) SARAH WEBB; had five children with each. The History of North Brookfield (I haven't checked this) says Joseph was a deacon, called esquire, and had an estate amounting to 1350 acres. In 1733 he laid claim to some property in Newport, RI, saying that he was nearest of kin to the estate of a Gabriel Jennings who had died intestate, he, Joseph, being the son of Stephen who was the son of Gabriel (Newport Court Files, by Jane Fiske). Actually, Gabriel (a pirate) had left a will with no mention of Stephen or any heirs other than a step-son; also it can be shown that Gabriel and Stephen were both born about the same year.

I am hoping to find more proof that Gabriel "the pirate" Jennings, of Portsmouth, RI, was the brother of Stephen Jennings, because, Gabriel's mother, Anne Talby was the daughter of DOROTHY (RAWLINSON) TALBY, hung as a "witch" in Salem, MA, in 1638, for killing her daughter, named "Difficulty":
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/salem/...ges/p2-52.html
<center><img src="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/Perley/vol2/jpgs/p2-52.jpg" height=600 width=500></center>
....and this document [340] indicates that Stephen's son, Joseph may have not been entirely correct in his court claim on the estate of Gabriel, the "pirate". This document shows that Gabriel, and probably Stephen, were the sons of Thomas Jennings, and Anne Talby, daughter of the executed Salem witch:
<center><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/dvimage1.jpg" height=600 width=475><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/dvimage.jpg" height=600 width=475></center>