DGS Fall Seminar 2021: Finding Your Colonial Ancestors
by Jim Thornhill
Parishioners and townspeople alike entered the small building that served as the Wethersford town hall and church. This was the fourth meeting to select a new minister. Like the previous three, this one started with a civilized discussion, but soon became a verbal brawl, with stinging accusations flying like barbed arrows.
After four failed attempts at securing a minister, the church sent word to their neighbors in New Haven for help settling the dispute. The New Haven advisors found the situation unsolvable and decided that the only peaceful resolution was to relocate one of the dissenting groups.1
Fortunately, New Haven had recently purchased an area named Totoket from the Mattabeseck tribe.2 A dissenting faction left the Wethersford church and moved to the new community of Totoket.3 This group contained a distant ancestor of mine, Edward Frisbie.4
Edward was one of many immigrating from Europe during the colonial period. These immigrants braved a perilous journey across 3000 miles of ocean to come to ports along the northeast coast of America. Once here, they began new lives, securing pieces of land, marrying, starting families, building towns, and passing their accomplishments on to new generations. These activities generated records – records we now use to discover the stories of our ancestor’s lives.
That’s where DGS’s upcoming Fall Seminar can help. David Lambert, Chief Genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, will show us how to discover the records left behind by those brave souls that made the journey to America. Finding records from the colonial period can be challenging, but David will unlock the secrets you need to tell the stories of your ancestor’s lives. Join us October 23rd for Maine to Virginia: Finding Your Colonial Ancestors.
1 J. Rupert Simons, A History of the First Church and Society of Branford, Connecticut: 1644-1919 (New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor Co., 1920, p. 4-5.
2 Simons, First Church at Branford, p. 2.
3 Simons, First Church at Branford, p. 5.
4 Simons, First Church at Branford, p. 9.
