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Newberry’s
and Collateral Families before 1710 may be incorrect
In
recent months it has come to my attention that there are some parts of the
Newberry genealogy, along with collaterals, that are
probably incorrect. The John Newberry genealogy has been published
by amateur genealogists time and again, and with the power
of the Internet, the inaccuracies have been perpetuated again and
again. This problems are glaring, and the inconsistencies appear
to have begun two generations ago when my grandmother and her cousins did
their histories for the LDS Church.
The people who have done this genealogy had the intention of finding
the names of their ancestors in an effort to baptize those
people in their lines who were not already LDS, in order to help them in
the afterlife to achieve a higher plane. Their zeal to know
their roots may have put them on the path to inaccuracy.
In looking at my grandmother's undocumented genealogy, I have begun to try
and document the history that she has written.
In doing this, I am finding a lot of historical inconsistencies that are
unexplainable. The fact is, these inaccuracies keep mounting,
the further I look back into the history. These are things that can
be verified with early state and town histories.
As pointed out in another section of this website, this Newberry family
seems to come out of nowhere. All the Newberry
genealogies that I have read, never have connected the John Newberry b.
1710 up with the English folks who were out of Windsor,
Connecticut. Just recently, I have been in contact with another
genealogist who concurred with me on this.
*Samuel
Smith
The first of these that I found was for Mary Smith Newberry's father,
Samuel Smith. In the history provided by my grandmother,
and that which is posted on the LDS Church's genealogy website for the
family, we find that Samuel Smith's history is fairly
sketchy. It does however say that Samuel's parents and
siblings born in Chatham, Georgia - and died there. The only
child in
this family who was born outside of Georgia was Samuel, who was born in
N.Y. He was purported to have been born in 1766.
There is no firm date. He was however married around 1791 to Jane
Stephens in Warwick and died in 1811 at the family farm
there.
As it turns out, Samuel was not born in Georgia as grandmother's history
stated. He was probably born in N.Y. We have found
that his father was probably Isaiah Smith. Little more is known
about Isaiah at this point in August 2006.
Impossibility of Georgia
After checking the Chatham, Georgia
historical references. It was found that this family could not have
been part of the area,
simply because there were no colonies there at the time. Many people
wrote to tell me that the first settlers there could not
have been this family, nor was the time frame correct.
*Stark
Family
The Stark name is also connected to the
Newberry family. This family may still connect, but another recent
search of the
history of New London, revealed, there were
NO COLONISTS in residence in New London
during the early dates that our
Stark group supposedly were born there. The following is from the
New London county website showing the first settlers in
New London. Note the dates.
"William Cheesebrough
from Rehoboth, MA was the first actual
settler of New London in 1649,
followed immediately by
Thomas Stanton of Hartford, Indian interpreter, [I have found
Stanton arrived in 1637 in Hartford] and in the next ten years by
the families of: Walter Palmer, George Denison, Thomas Miner;
James Avery, Johnathan Brewster, The Rev. Richard
Blinman, John Picket, Lion Gardiner, John Hayes,
Robert Hempstead, John Gallup, John Stebbins, John Winthrop,
Peter Harris, John Chennery, Cary Latham, Robert
and Thomas Park(e), Obadiah Bruen, James Rogers, Thomas Hewitt,
Matthew Griswold and others."
As stated above, the
first settlers to New
London
didn't arrive until 1649 and the
genealogical history states these Starks were
born in
New London
as early as 1582! That's
67 years earlier than the first whites were known to have colonized
New London
.
The only people who were in
New London
, and most other parts of
Connecticut
at the time were the Native people. In the
New London
area the tribes would have been the Pequots and Niantics. Only the
third Stark entry below appears to be
correct for our Newberry family, although I have not personally
confirmed it.
The LDS genealogy
website shows the information for Aaron Stark as follows:
*Aaron Stark
B: Abt 1582
of New London, New London,
Connecticut
M. Abt 1604
of New London, New London,
Connecticut
*
Aaron Stark
B: Abt1606/1608
New London, New London, Connecticut
D: 1685
Groton, New London, Connecticut
***John Stark***
B: 1652
New London, New
London, Connecticut
D: 8 Sept. 1703
New London, New London, Connecticut
M: Abt 1686
Groton, New London, Connecticut
To: Elizabeth Packer
B: 1670
Greenland, Rockingham, New Hampshire
Child - Elizabeth
Stark b. 1686 - married John Newberry in New London
April 5, 1707
Their son was John Newberry born 1710.
Additionally,
there are other folks listed on these lines in New London, which could not
possibly be correct, unless they were
Christianized Native Americans - which is a possibility that I intend to
investigate. These are the Packer, and Friend families.
There was a Stark Family in
New England - in New Hampshire. I
found that John Stark was a Tory commander. See -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Star
Perhaps it was the relatives of this
Revolutionary War player who were related to our Starks
in New London. The information is so inaccurate as to make it
impossible to figure out without a lot of effort at this point.
Settlement of
New England by the English and Dutch
What follows is the beginning of a
time line to show the period of settlement in New England and New
York. I will add to this
as I continue researching. I began with reading the history of the
Pilgrims and followed it forward. It is helpful in figuring out
the time frames of settlement in various parts of Connecticut.
1613
-
The Dutch explored
Connecticut
and settled on the
Connecticut River
.
1633 -
The English pushed further up the Connecticut river (to the exasperation
of the Dutch) and established an outpost in
Windsor
, then one in Saybrook. The Indians asked the Plymouth Puritans to
settle the land in
Windsor
and open a
trading
house.
1636 - English
settlement spread to Withersfield on the
Connecticut River
. The same year
Hartford
began with some 50
Mohawk
warriors taking up residence alongside the whites.
Block Island
was overtaken by white settlers as retribution
for the death
of a white settler in the same year.
Roger
Williams treats with Narragansetts and lives with them for a season, after
being banished from the colony.
Boston
Magistrates regard the Pequot as the enemy.
1637
- Thomas Stanton arrives and speaks
the Indian language. |
