Slow progress - please help if you can!

Time between posts on this blog are likely to be long. Rapid progress in the beginning was fueled by finding of a large chromosome 14 (Chr#14) segment that was traced to a definite common ancestor for several matches shared between descendants of John Jacobs, Jr. and his brother, Daniel Jacobs. Since that time, we have not yet found another similar segment; the ones shared between family lines have been smaller (therefore with common ancestors farther back in time and more difficult to identify). For those of you who are Jacobs cousins (especially those in lines other than John, Jr.) who we've shared this site with, we need your help if we are to find another large, useful segment. Please consider getting tested, if you haven't already, or transferring your data from Ancestry.com to Gedmatch.com (or even MyHeritage), if you have tested there. Another helpful act would be to allow me to view your matches on Ancestry.com, as others have; because Ancestry.com's database is the biggest around, it is more likely that we'll find useful matches, including new Jacobs cousins, there.

We have a lead theory - that Huldah Harwood is the daughter of one of the sons of Peter and Mary Harwood of Concord, Middlesex, MA - but we need to keep building the supporting data. 

One development since the last post was a great find by our  Jacobs cousin, Sarah Oliver, who discovered a Sarah Harwood that married an Elias Bowker. This was intriguing because it held the potential of being a second connection between the Jacobs and Harwood families. Further investigation proved that connection. 

Elias Bowker, born in 1733 in Hopkington, Middlesex, MA, was the son of John Edmund Bowker, who was  born in 1689 in Sudbury, Middlesex, MA, and died about 1740 in Hopkinton, Middlesex, MA.  Elias was the brother of Capt. Daniel Bowker, our ancestor, who married Sarah Brigham, and fathered Hannah Bowker, wife of John Jacobs, Jr., son of John and Huldah (Harwood) Jacobs.  

Elias Bowker married Sarah Harwood, b. June 26, 1735, in Lunenburg, Worcester, MA, the daughter of Nathaniel Harwood, a son of Peter Harwood of Concord, Middlesex, MA, and Hannah Taylor, daughter of James Taylor of Marlborough, MA.  Peter Harwood and Mary Fox are suspected of being in the direct line of our Huldah Harwood, who was likely a first-cousin of Sarah Harwood. We had long wondered about what connection there was between the Jacobs family and the Bowker family of Sudbury (where Daniel Bowker lived and where John Jacobs, Jr. married Hannah) and this seems to provide an explanation. 

Though we have not found another gem like our Chr#14 segment, we have two others that are intriguing. While they are large segments, they so far have not been found to have been passed down to any of our Jacobs cousins outside of our John Jacobs, Jr. line.  What is intriguing about them is their connection to Concord, MA and the families there that are in the ancestry of Peter and Mary (Fox) Harwood - in particular the Wheeler's and Brooks families. Peter Harwood was a son of Nathaniel Harwood, who married Mary Barron and that union is in the ancestry of Josiah Proctor - meaning it was a portal for the Chr#14 segment; this is the kind of evidence we are seeking. If we are right about Peter and Mary Harwood being Huldah's grandparents, proving it more solidly would involve triangulating another segment narrowed to John and Huldah to one of the people in that pedigree.  Eventually we may get lucky and find that segment, however our timetable could be sped up significantly with the help of more descendants of John and Huldah.