Surname Saturday: Cotten

With this week's surname study, we return to the American colonies and take a look at my tenth great grandmother, Dorothy Cotten.  It should be no surprise by now, but this line is yet another where I only know of one person with the surname.  However, what I do know is not yet fully verified to reliable primary sources.

Surname Saturday: Benedict

We're back to a surname again of which I know only one person in our direct ancestry lines.  Today we'll look at my wife's sixth great grandmother, Hannah Benedict.  I did do some searching around this week and found her only in Ancetral File and in the one book that I mentioned recently about referencing.  Who is this mysterious woman?

Surname Saturday: Aldis

Today for Surname Saturday, we'll look at another line that connects through Massachusetts Colony.  We alternate back to my wife's side of the family and start from her eighth great grandmother, Hannah Aldis.  As with many of the families from this era, I don't have a whole lot of information on this line yet, but I do know about three generations.

Surname Saturday: Beach

Okay, time to alternate back to one of the lines on my side of the family.  This week, we will look at one of the most heavily researched lines in my family.  It connects back to some of the earliest settlers of Massachusetts Colony and continues all the way to close family members who are still living today.  There are quite a few researchers looking into this line from the early-1800s back to the 1600s, possibly due to the line's connection to Sir Winston Churchill (yes, that Winston Churchill), so this will be a fairly long post with nine generations listed, but there seems to be one universal stumbling block when we go back far enough.

Surname Saturday: Aggar

When I started this blog, it was my intention to cover my lines and my wife's lines each about equally.  So, rather than strictly sticking to my lines for the next several Surname Saturday posts, I've decided to alternate between the two sets, but still follow each alphabetically.  That means that for this week's new Surname Saturday post, we'll take a look at a line that connects as far back as 11 generations ago.

"The British are coming!!!"

A couple years ago, Jennifer and I went to Boston for our 15th wedding anniversary.  We were riding a tour bus around the city hearing about some of the Revolutionary War sites that we passed and found that one of the historical sites we passed had a direct connection to our family.  Remember the story about the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere?  The road along which this ride took place is now part of Minute Man National Historic Park, and Hartwell Tavern is one of the locations on the road.  As it turns out, this building and its residents played an important but lesser known role in the story of Revere's famous ride.