Confirmed Findings

Revolutionary War Patriots (5 confirmed direct ancestors)

• 🟢 Justus Barrett (1745–1833) — Dutchess County Militia, 7th Regiment. Cited in New York in the Revolution as Colony and State and militia land bounty records. Line: Robert → Dorothy → Willard Fellman → Emma Barrett → John R. Barrett → Simeon Barrett → Justus Barrett.
• 🟢 Captain Winthrop Roe — cited in Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots. 1790/1800/1820 census in Kensington, NH; moved to Cortland Co., NY late in life; d. 1832.
• 🟢 Abraham Lashier — "Sergeant," cited in New York in the Revolution.
• 🟢 Abel West Sr (1747–1836) — DAR Lineage Book Vol. 34, proven patriot service. m. Hannah Chapman, 1774, Vernon, CT.
• 🟢 Johannes "John W" Barthel (1736–1808) — cited in New York in the Revolution, Rhinebeck, Dutchess Co. Grandson of a 1710 Palatine immigrant.

Colonial Town Founders

• 🟢 Thomas Minor (1608–1690) — co-founder of Stonington, CT (one of 4, with Walter Palmer, William Chesebrough, Thomas Stanton). Kept a diary 1653–1684, published 1899. Buried under Stonington's oldest gravestone.
• 🟢 Walter Palmer (1585–1661) — the other confirmed Stonington founder; father-in-law of Thomas Minor (daughter Grace Palmer m. Minor). Has a surviving "wolfstone" grave marker, one of few in the US, cut from Minor's own property. English origin town (Yetminster vs. Frampton, Dorset) genuinely disputed among professional genealogists — 🟡.
• 🟢 Thomas Tracy — founder of Norwich, CT (1660), negotiated with Narragansetts before King Philip's War.
• 🟢 Thomas Leffingwell — Norwich founder. Jointly with Tracy, relieved Mohegan sachem Uncas during an 1645 Narragansett siege; both were granted 400 acres by Uncas (became the town of Preston).
• 🟢 Stephen Post — founder of Hartford, CT (name on Founders' Monument); later Saybrook proprietor. In 1650 jointly assigned with Thomas Tracy to build Saybrook's fort. His marriage to Hester Hyde is documented in Reuben Hyde Walworth's own Hyde Genealogy (1864).
• 🟢 William Hyde — founder of Hartford and Norwich, CT.
• 🟢 Rev. Joseph Clarke Sr. — Newport/Westerly RI, RI General Assembly member; brother of Dr. John Clarke, who spent 13 years in London securing Rhode Island's 1663 Royal Charter alongside Roger Williams.
• 🟢 Thomas Angell — original companion of Roger Williams, Providence founder (1636).
• 🟢 Rev. Samuel Hubbard — founded the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in America, Newport, 1671.
• 🟢 Elder John Crandall — whipped in Boston (1651) for illegal Baptist preaching; founding Baptist Elder of Westerly; died of wounds from the Great Swamp Fight (1675).
• 🟢 Tobias Saunders — Westerly Conservator of the Peace; negotiated with Narragansett sachem Ninigret (1675); m. Mary Clarke (sister of Rev. Joseph Clarke Sr.).

Governors, Statesmen, Notable Figures (direct ancestors)

• 🟢 Governor Thomas Dudley — 4-term Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• 🟢 Anne Dudley Bradstreet — Dudley's daughter (your several-times-great-aunt, not direct ancestor) — first published poet in the American colonies.
• 🟢 Major General Daniel Denison — top military commander, Mass. Bay Colony militia; m. Patience Dudley (Gov. Dudley's daughter).

Salem Witch Trials

• 🟢 Frances Alcock Hutchins (b. ~1612 – d. 1694, Haverhill, MA) — arrested Aug 19, 1692, accused by Timothy Swan, Ann Putnam Jr., and Mary Walcott. Imprisoned 4 months; released Dec 21, 1692 on £200 bond posted by son Samuel Hutchins and son-in-law Joseph Kingsbury. Never tried; died naturally in 1694. Primary source: surviving court warrant.

Dutch (New Netherland) Lines

• 🟢 Jan Martense Van Aelsteyn (Van Alstyne) (1623–1698) — founding Dutch patriarch of Kinderhook, NY.
• 🟢 Pieter Barendse Coeymans — namesake family of Coeymans, NY, Albany Co. ⚪ exact birth year disputed (1574 vs. ~1590) even among legitimate sources.

German Immigrant Clusters (3 separate waves, same Dutchess Co. NY destination)

1. Palatine wave (~1710) — Barthel/Hack/Lutz/Sornberger families, from Rheinland-Pfalz/Hessen, fleeing war and famine, settled Dutchess Co. under Queen Anne's sponsorship.
2. Württemberg wave (~1740s) — Junghans/Seitter families, from Ensingen and Flacht near Ludwigsburg/Böblingen; well-documented via specific baptismal/marriage register notes in the source file.
3. Later Baden wave (~1840s) — Fellman/Bachmann/Zeisert families, NOT to America but to Waterloo, Ontario, Canada — a documented German- Mennonite settlement; m. by Bishop Benjamin Eby, founder of that community, in 1847.
4. 🟢 One tiny German village — Schweppenhausen, Bad Kreuznach, Rheinland-Pfalz — independently produced 4 ancestor lines (Lutz, Rauch, Lott, Wolt) before their joint emigration.

Great Migration Colonial Immigrants (Norwich/Stonington cluster)

• 🟢 Thomas Bliss (1618–1688, Norwich) — genealogy traces to historian Frances Manwaring Caulkins (1795–1869) as a collateral descendant. ⚠️ NOTE: the published 1881 Bliss genealogy has known errors flagged by professional genealogists — treat exact generation links with care.
• 🟢 Thomas Sluman (1606–1683, Norwich) — m. Sarah Bliss, daughter of the above Thomas Bliss. Confirms Bliss/Sluman families were the same intermarried Norwich cluster.
• 🟢 Robert Abell (1589–1663, Rehoboth, MA) and wife Joanna Abell (later remarried William Hyde as his 2nd wife).

English Origin Points Worth Knowing

• 🟢 Robert Dolman / Thomas Dolman / William Dolman family of Pocklington, Yorkshire — appears via TWO independent paths in the tree (Chapman/Kingsbury route, and Brown/Collins/Tolman route), confirming internal consistency. Thomas Dolman's daughter Elizabeth Vavasour was wrongly attached to a fabricated Pennsylvania Dutch "Bashore/Hetzer" record elsewhere in the file (see debunked-myths.md).
• 🟢 Dorchester, MA was literally named after Dorchester, Dorset by the West Country Puritan group (Rev. John White's "Dorchester Company") who founded it — ancestor Sarah Tolman was born in the English Dorchester, died in the Massachusetts one.