New England Genealogy

Anyone working family trees and find themselves back in New England? I thought I'd open a thread for those who might need some help, a bit of history, or some information.

The two families I'm most interested in
besides the Perkins Family are the Alexanders
and the Wallaces. But their best-know ancestry is outside of New England, I suppose primarily in the upper South and Midwest. One branch of each arrived in New England (Massachusetts) in the 19th century.

My great-grandmother was a Wallace, and my
paternal grandmother an Alexander. My father
never met any of his grandparents, although he
was named Wallace after his maternal grandmother's maiden name.

I suppose there are dozens, perhaps hundreds
of Wallace families and Alexander famlies, and I
don't know where to start. Any ideas?

Roland, are you working on a tree online somewhere? If not, I would recommend Ancestry.com (I assume they still have some free accounts) and start with yourself and work back. No one can see the information on living people. It takes some practice but you'll soon have the hang of it. Ancestry has some nice tutorials you can watch, and they do create "hints" to help you along. Once you are back beyond the 1940s, the Federal Censuses are a big help. And you can learn some interesting things about your ancestor - how much schooling they may have had, what their occupation was, where they were born, or their parents were born. Remember, every generation doubles, so you have 8 great grandparents, 16 2nd greats, potentially 32 3rd greats and so on (intermarriage oftentimes reduces that number as you move back into the era where 1st and 2nd cousin marriages were more common).

Something to remember as you move backwards: There were land grants to soldiers after the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Generally-speaking, colonists tended to move westward from where they currently lived. So, New Englanders moved into upper and Western NY into Ohio...

The Perkins family of Ipswich, Massachusetts is very prominent and there are probably thousands of descendants living now. John Perkins, the immigrant, b. 1583, arrived in 1631 on the ship "Lyon" from Warwickshire, England, with his wife Judith and six children. Their daughter, Mary Perkins Bradbury, was convicted a witch at Salem and was jailed but "escaped." She was 70 or so at the time and it is believed that her hubby, friends & family, just came and got her.

I have 6 family lines going back to John and his wife.

". . .recommend Ancestry.com (3)

Im hearing of it for the first time, so thanks!

"John Perkins, the immigrant. . ." (3)
Then we are probably related, as the line of John the
immigrant's (b. 1583) being my ancestors is one of the few things
in my ancestry that I'm fairly sure of. My family, as I remember it from childhood (the 1940s) believed that 1648 was the date of
his arrival in Ipswich. My mother, who was a Mallon and a Perkins
only by marriage, was the one who passed the doubtful Perkins/Alexander lore on to me. I don't remember my father showing any interest in his ancestry, except that he did do a
a typescript of his grandfather George Perkins's Civil War diaries; I
have the original of most of the diaries, which have been
published under the title Three Years a Soldier, edited by
another great-grandson of George Perkins (1841-1891).

No so many years ago being interested in Ancestry met trudging through cemeteries, visits to local libraries...etc and lots and lots of paper. I did do a bit of that slogging on two lines for a while, but I really didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to it.

I am from Attleboro, MA. A sadly displaced New Englander that returns there whenever she can. The families names I am most interested in are:
Vachon, LaMontagne, Dolan & Knight.

I have had some luck with the Knight family, but little luck with the others, as the all originated in Canada.

I had a h.s. teacher in Cambridge MA, named Dolan. (1940s). We never did know her first name, although we did know the first names of almost
all the teachers.ʻ Didnʻt know her ethnicity or religion, or place of birth,* either. Her politics I assumed to be conventional Republican.

Are there many Dolan families in the Attleboro area? Is the name Irish ethnicity?

*But we did soon find out that she was a great supporter of the U.Sʻs West, as opposed to our local "East". She told us "America begins at the Alleghenies." but never emphasized any particular "Western" state. She had a slight accent, but I couldnʻt tell which kind; I only realized that it wasnʻt the local (Bostonian) nor one of the many "Southern" accents.

>6 dontor: I have an acquaintance here in NH who is a Vachon. Definitely French Canadian. Are you on Ancestry; you might find them searching through the Canadian records. How far back are you? I'm guessing they immigrated to the area for work. Attleboro was prominent in manufacturing the 19th century, wasn't it?

I have several lines of Knight back to two different early 17th century immigrants, who came in north of Boston. Hard to make a connection from that though.

(sorry, I seem to forget to come to this group and check posts)