welcome
This website pertains to the genealogy research of my 2nd great-grandparents:
- Clayton Brown, born in 1813 in Elmira, New York and then later lived in Bradford, Tioga, and Lycoming counties in Pennsylvania. He migrated to Genesee County, Michigan at the close of the Civil War, where he raised his family. He spent the end of his life with his daughter's family in Cedar, Nebraska where he died in 1887. Clayton was buried in Oakdale, Nebraska.
- Sara(h) Jane Hildreth was born in Minisink, Orange, New York, daughter of Daniel Hildreth and Sarah Crane. She married Clayton Brown in 1842, and together they had 10 children: George Mickle Brown, Joseph Crane Brown, Daniel Hildreth Brown, Amanda Jane Brown (Whitmore), Elmira Brown (Whitmore), Clayton Brown, Jr., John H. Brown, Emmanet Brown (Coquigne), Elmer Ellsworth Brown, and Susan Minnie Brown (Thorp).
My Brown family has Quaker roots and could very well have been Scot-Irish in origin, a research topic of interest to me! My Hildreth family were English and were among the earliest settlers of Southampton, Long Island, New York.
Like all genealogical endeavors, my work is based on the work of others. I especially want to thank my cousin, H.B. Whitmore, who paved the way, as it were, by sharing his knowledge and experience with me. What else is there? Thank you.
latest research
The last month or so has been a flurry of research pertaining people who once lived in colonial Gloucester County, New Jersey and had the name John Brown! I have made contact with another wonderful Brown researcher, and just returned from a research trip to New Jersey. For this Brown research, I was able to visit the Alexander Library at Rutgers University, the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton, and the Gloucester County Historical Society in Woodbury, NJ. It was a busy trip to say the least, and I'd like to say I found all the answers to my questions, but alas. Genealogy is about working to unearth the clues, and then working to understand them, and that process is always in motion.
As a result of all this research activity, I have added several documents to my library that reflect some of the evidence being considered and some of the thoughts I have while attempting to piece the clues together. These articles are works in progress as I seem to be learning new things about this line every week, so I definitely reserve the right to change my mind on anything I've written about this Brown family up to this point. The hope is, however, that sharing our research will lead to discoveries and insights that might not otherwise happen, and that is also what genealogy is all about for me.