•Friday, October 10, 2014
Yes, I do love deeds...and every other kind of land record, such as tax lists, ownership maps, and surveys, for they've been key sources in my research, helping me to link one generation to another. of course before digging into land records, you need to know where to look for them, that is, the county or town where your ancestors lived at a particular time. In the case of my Bishop ancestors, I learned this important fact only last year (2013), after 25 years of trying to find the parents and birthplace of my 3rd great grandfather John Fitch Bishop.
So as soon as I found John's birth record in South Brimfield, or Wales, Massachusetts (see my first post "One Less Brick Wall"), I was eagerly 'off to the races'. The strategy was to find and analyze every available record for the town of South Brimfield and its parent town Brimfield, which mentioned the surname of Bishop, especially William and Catherine Bishop, my 4th great grandparents.
Along with the birth record kept by the town clerk, a record found on Ancestry.com, another source popped up on Ancestry which mentioned the family of William and Catherine: a compilation of family histories in the town of Wales, Massachusetts, by Absalom Gardner[1]. On page 33, Gardner lists three family groups of Bishop's: the family of John and Elizabeth Hooper Bishop, the family of their son John and his wife Rebecca Davis, and the family of William Bishop -- also said by Gardner to be the son of John and Elizabeth -- and his wife Catherine Fitch.
According to Gardner, John and William Bishop, supposedly father and son, had resided on a parcel of land known as "the Nichols Place".
Seeing this, I revised my research strategy -- now I was looking for land or ANY records for this town which involved John and/or William Bishop, and also for a good description of a piece of land known as "the Nichols Place".
To my surprise, I found no record in Brimfield or South Brimfield which linked John and William Bishop. However, I did find evidence that a William Bishop was the son of Ebenezer and Lydia Bishop. My next post will be a timeline for Ebenezer, showing the birth of a son named William on November 6, 1738, in Woodstock, Connecticut[2], Ebenezer's residence before moving to Brimfield.[3]
The first deed for this William Bishop was dated August 14, 1762, and it begins:
Now for the second part of my research strategy involving land records, finding proof that the land William and Ebenezer (not John andEbenezer William) had lived on was at some time referred to as "the Nichols Place". By tracking that piece of land through all of the South Brimfield deeds, I found that proof.
The first helpful clue was thanks to a deed in 1794, several years after Ebenezer and William had left South Brimfield. This description read "land and buildings which formerly belonged to Ebenezer Bishop & by him conveyed to his son William Bishop", a tract containing 135 acres which was bounded by (among others) William Weatherbee, Asa Houghton and Malachi Nichols.[6]
In 1802, Malachi Nichols purchased the same 135 acres from Josiah Hayward.[7] And because of Malachi's ownership, the farm was called "the Nichols Place'.
There was one final 'clincher' for me, found on a microfilm I rented from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, FHL 954498, Massachusetts Tax valuations for 1784. On the first page of landowners in South Brimfield were the following names, in this order: Malachi Nichols, Benjamin Tiffany, Jacob Tiffany, Asa Houghton, William Bishop, Benjamin Tiffany jr and William Weatherbee.
This was evidence that this William Bishop was 'my' William, since he was a neighbor of both Malachi Nichols and Benjamin Tiffany, Jr, 'my' William's son-in-law.[8]
Notes:
So as soon as I found John's birth record in South Brimfield, or Wales, Massachusetts (see my first post "One Less Brick Wall"), I was eagerly 'off to the races'. The strategy was to find and analyze every available record for the town of South Brimfield and its parent town Brimfield, which mentioned the surname of Bishop, especially William and Catherine Bishop, my 4th great grandparents.
Along with the birth record kept by the town clerk, a record found on Ancestry.com, another source popped up on Ancestry which mentioned the family of William and Catherine: a compilation of family histories in the town of Wales, Massachusetts, by Absalom Gardner[1]. On page 33, Gardner lists three family groups of Bishop's: the family of John and Elizabeth Hooper Bishop, the family of their son John and his wife Rebecca Davis, and the family of William Bishop -- also said by Gardner to be the son of John and Elizabeth -- and his wife Catherine Fitch.
According to Gardner, John and William Bishop, supposedly father and son, had resided on a parcel of land known as "the Nichols Place".
Seeing this, I revised my research strategy -- now I was looking for land or ANY records for this town which involved John and/or William Bishop, and also for a good description of a piece of land known as "the Nichols Place".
To my surprise, I found no record in Brimfield or South Brimfield which linked John and William Bishop. However, I did find evidence that a William Bishop was the son of Ebenezer and Lydia Bishop. My next post will be a timeline for Ebenezer, showing the birth of a son named William on November 6, 1738, in Woodstock, Connecticut[2], Ebenezer's residence before moving to Brimfield.[3]
The first deed for this William Bishop was dated August 14, 1762, and it begins:
To all People to whom these presents shall come Greeting. Know ye that I Ebenezer Bishop of Brimfield in the County of Hampshire in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in new England, cooper, for and consideration of the sum of three hundred pounds lawfull money of sd Province to me in hand paid by my son William Bishop of sd Brimfield in ye County & Province aforesd, Husbandman.[4]This record was in Volume 4, page 380. In the same volume and on page 381 was a mortgage deed which begins:
To all People to whom this Deed of Mortgage shall come Greeting. Know ye that I William Bishop of Brimfield in the County of Hampshire in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in new England, Husbandman, for & in consideration of the sum of Fifty three pounds six shillings & eight pence lawful money to me in hand paid by my Honoured Father Eben'r Bishop of sd Brimfield, cooper.....etc.[5]Both of these transactions are for the same 134-acre piece of land, which is evident from the description of the land, including the names of bordering land owners/neighbors. A bonus in this mortgage, and another example of why I love deeds, is the mention of William's four sisters: Lydia, Lucretia, Rebeckah and Mary Bishop. As part of the mortgage agreement with his father, William was to pay each of his sisters "the sum of thirteen pounds six shillings & eight pence" on or before a scheduled date, which seemed to have been designed so as to give each sister her allotted sum when she reached 16 or 17 years of age.
Now for the second part of my research strategy involving land records, finding proof that the land William and Ebenezer (not John and
The first helpful clue was thanks to a deed in 1794, several years after Ebenezer and William had left South Brimfield. This description read "land and buildings which formerly belonged to Ebenezer Bishop & by him conveyed to his son William Bishop", a tract containing 135 acres which was bounded by (among others) William Weatherbee, Asa Houghton and Malachi Nichols.[6]
In 1802, Malachi Nichols purchased the same 135 acres from Josiah Hayward.[7] And because of Malachi's ownership, the farm was called "the Nichols Place'.
There was one final 'clincher' for me, found on a microfilm I rented from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, FHL 954498, Massachusetts Tax valuations for 1784. On the first page of landowners in South Brimfield were the following names, in this order: Malachi Nichols, Benjamin Tiffany, Jacob Tiffany, Asa Houghton, William Bishop, Benjamin Tiffany jr and William Weatherbee.
This was evidence that this William Bishop was 'my' William, since he was a neighbor of both Malachi Nichols and Benjamin Tiffany, Jr, 'my' William's son-in-law.[8]
Notes:
- Gardner, Absalom, A Compendium of the History, Genealogy and Biography of the Town of Wales, 1873, page 33. Accessed on Ancestry.com
- Woodstock (Connecticut) Vital Records, page 65
- Massachusetts, Hampden County Deeds, Vol. M, pp 216-217; 1740
- Ibid, Vol. 4, page 380, 1762
- Ibid, Vol. 4, page 381, 1762
- Ibid, Vol. 35, page 606, 1794
- Ibid, Vol. 69, page 596, 1802
- Ancestry.com, Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 (database on-line), Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011; record of marriage of Benjamin Tiffany & Parthena Bishop, November 27, 1783, in South Brimfield, Massachusetts
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