All roads lead to Chelmsford, MA

Despite the evidence discussed in the last blog post connecting our Bowker family to the Concord Harwood line, the evidence pointing to the Andrew Harwood line is actually more significant at this point in time. A major source of confusion is that both lines went through Middlesex Co., MA and had a presence in Chelmsford and its vicinity. Both lines had a good chance of connecting to the same family and picking up common segments. In fact, the Chr#14 segment is evidence of that, being present in known descendants of the Andrew Harwood line and showing the potential of being in the Concord line by them being represented (via Nathaniel Harwood, who married Mary Barron) in the Josiah Proctor tree; but did it come from the Nathaniel Harwood's or Mary Barron's line (actually the data is more suggestive of Mary Barron's line). That there is only the potential of the Chr#14 segment being transferred via a Harwood line, with no proof yet of it actually being transferred by a Harwood, is an important fact in favor of Huldah being part of the Andrew Harwood line. We have identified several Andrew Harwood descendants, via James Harwood, Jr. (who married Lydia MNU... Maiden-Name-Unknown). James Harwood Jr. was born in 1695, such that one of his sons could have been the father of Huldah. Not only that, between 1728 and 1734, his children's birth dates and birthplaces have no written records supporting them; this suggests that Huldah, b.1733, could be explained as a child of James Harwood, Jr. (as I've discussed before). 

There is circumstantial evidence in the fact that Archibald Harwood, a descendant of James, Jr. lived in Windsor Co., Vt near  Chester, where John and Huldah lived. Daniel Jacobs had children named James and Lydia, while John, Jr. named a daughter Lydia. One of John Jr.'s children was named Cyrus and this name has turned up too in the lines of Daniel and possibly Samuel (if he is in fact, as I theorize, the father of the Bolton, Warren Co., NY, Jacobs family). The name Cyrus (not a common one) is also found in the Archibald Harwood line. 

Also, new segments of interest have been discovered since the last post. One, a Chr#5 segment matched to CJK,ND,DAJ and DFJ of the John Jacobs, Jr. line and also to multiple descendants of the Daniel Jacobs line, shows multiple shared matches with descendants of Archibald Harwood. Along with the Archibald Harwood matches, there are sets of matches whose pedigrees converge of Blanchards and Chamberlains, both families that have Chelmsford, MA connections. We are still researching these lines at this time, trying to find a common ancestor between the different sets of matches having this Chr#5 segment. 

We've seen DNA matches suggesting that Frank Gurly Jacobs, b. 1842 in Grafton, Windham, Vt, could be a part of our Jacobs family and we recently proved it with paper-trail evidence. Frank Gurly Jacobs was the son of a Joseph, b. abt. 1806 in Dorset, Bennington, Co., Vt, who was the son of Daniel and Abigail (Lawrence) Jacobs of Dorset. There is a Vermont Vital Statistics record for Joseph that states he was the son of John and Abigal Jacobs of Dorset, however this was clearly a mistake, as there was no John in Dorset married to an Abigail... only Daniel. Of the multiple DNA matches we have to Frank Gurly Jacobs, we were fortunate to have one (CTV) that was willing to share her matches with us and also uploaded her data to Gedmatch. With this access, we found more descendants of Frank Gurly Jacobs as well as other Jacobs cousins in her matches; we also obtained the matching chromosome details from GedMatch. Cousin LT has two segments matching to CTV and both are on Chr#10. Again, we are still in the process of researching pedigrees, but one of them clearly leads to the Barrett family of Chelmsford. This is significant because James Harwood, Jr.'s mother was Lydia Barrett of Chelmsford, daughter of John and Sarah (MNU). There are also some pedigrees converging on Butterfields, yet another Chelmsford family. This is all very significant, but with both Concord Harwood and Andrew Harwood lines going through Chelmsford, how do we know which family to attribute them too? At his point, I can't answer that question. The evidence continues to accumulate and the hope is that an answer with high credence eventually emerges from it.