Landmarks Of Rensselaer County New York

Census records and name lists for New York are found mostly at the county level, which is why this work shows precisely which census records or census substitutes exist for each of New York's sixty-two counties and where they can be found. In addition to the numerous statewide official censuses taken by New York, this work contains references to census substitutes and name lists for time periods in which the state did not take an official census. It also shows the location of copies of federal census records and provides county boundary maps and numerous state census facsimiles and extraction forms.

Drawing from a wide range of sources, this work is a continuation of one line of the Bulkeley family, focusing on the ancestors and descendants of Moses Bulkley (1727-1812) last presented in The Bulkeley Genealogy by Donald Lines Jacobus in 1933. The relationship between the earliest American ancestors on this line, Reverend Peter Bulkeley and Reverend John Jones, founders of the First Parish Church in Concord, Massachusetts in 1636, is re-examined. New evidence revealing critical errors made by Concord historians since 1835 will re-characterize the essential clerical friendship the two men shared and show the true reasons for John Jones's removal to Fairfield, Connecticut in 1644. Using census records, rare newspaper articles, obituaries, wills, surrogate court records, and family stories, this line of the Bulkeleys of Concord and Fairfield is chronicled in a new family history covering the mid-18th century to the present. The Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckley genealogy is supplemented with genealogies of several families these Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckleys married with in the 19th and 20th centuries. This work evolved into a "search and rescue mission," and offers a comprehensive on-paper reunion of families that have been documented to the beginning of the 20th century, and a few who have never been documented in a genealogy.

In 1636, Roger Williams, recently banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of his religious beliefs, established a settlement at the head of Narragansett Bay that he named “Providence.” This small colony soon became a sanctuary for those seeking to escape religious persecution. Within a few years, a royal land patent and charter resulted in the formation of the “Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” which incorporated Williams’ original settlement and espoused his tenets of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. During the ensuing decades, thousands of Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and Huguenots relocated to Rhode Island from other New England colonies, the British Islands, and Europe in search of religious freedom. One such individual, John Thomas, an immigrant from Wales, made significant contributions to early settlements at Jamestown on Conanicut Island and at Wickford on the nearby mainland of Rhode Island. He was the first town constable of Jamestown in 1679, and later owned hundreds of acres of land in the towns of North and South Kingstown. This fully indexed work traces and sketches the lives of his descendants, many of whom were at the forefront of the great American westward migration, and represents the most comprehensive compilation of them to date. It is the result of twenty years of extensive research and includes detailed information from military pension archives, will and estate records, agricultural data, county histories, and migration patterns that far exceeds the standard for genealogical works of this scope and magnitude. It is important for us to remember those who helped shape our nation. This work provides valuable information for those who are interested in this family and its evolution in America.