Visit to Chappaqua, NY - Kip/Kipp Family

We made a side trip to Chappaqua, New York to visit the New Castle Historical Society located in the Horace Greeley House on King Street in Chappaqua. We wanted to see if they had anything on the Kip/Kipp family who lived in Westchester Co. This is the Loyalist Kipp family who came to Canada after the Revolution. We had a chat with a very nice gentleman Gray Williams. They did not have a lot of additional information except that he does know a lot about the various houses the members of the Kip/Kipp families who were not Loyalist lived in after the Revolution. We drove down Kipp street and also stopped and had a brief look at the old Quaker Meeting House at Chappaqua. The one thing I can say about that area is that it is hilly and the roads are very narrow. It seems to be rural but at the same time very built up. The Quaker meeting house also has an attached cemetery, but it was a wet day and we did not have time to wander. It looks very overgrown as well. I gave Mr. Williams a copy of the genealogy of the Loyalist Branch of the Kipp Family for their files.

Connecticut State Library, Hartford, CT

The next day was a bit rainy which was OK as we made a visit to the Connecticut State Library in Hartford, CT. We had prepared in advance a spreadsheet of items to look at. With my wife`s assistance we made it through the list.

The big plus for me that day was that the Library had a complete copy of:

Abstract of Title of Kip's Bay Farm in the City of New York, with all known maps relating thereto...also, the early history of the Kip Family and the genealogy as refers to the title, by John J. Post. New York. 1894.

This book contains about 2056 pages. It is basically a legal summary of all land transactions affecting the Kip`s Bay Farm area in Manhattan up to about 1894.

I was able to take photographs of about 700 pages, a third of the book. I will go back another time for the rest. The reason I want this book is that these pages may offer family relationships which I can then verify in or add to the Kip/Kipp Family in America genealogy. There are only two other complete copies that I know about at Columbia University, NYC and New York Public Library, NYC.

The Connecticut State Library has a number of useful indexes for CT genealogy including Probate Estate Index, Barbour VR Index, Church Records Index, Hale Tombstone Index etc. We need to return for further research especially on my Allen family.

I have two Founders of Ancient Windsor CT, Thomas Dibble and Joseph Loomis. I am joining their association.

Hartford, CT has a very unusual State building just across the street from the Library. We had a quick walk around downtown before we left and also visited the Ancient Burying Ground to see the memorial obelisk for the Founders.

Last Connecticut Tombstone

The last tombstone we had on our list to locate was for my 6th great-grandparent Benjamin Burt (1680-1759). He was the one involved in the Deerfield, Mass. raid of 1704. The cemetery was the Titicus or Olde Town Graveyard, Ridgefield, Fairfield Co., CT. We located the cemetery easily enough using the GPS. This was a huge cemetery and was actually made up of about 4 different cemeteries. We did find the old section but it was a rainy day and the tombstones in that section were a dull reddish brown colour to start with and they were wet so we did not actually find the stone we were looking for. We will have to return at a later date. The cemetery GPS reading is Lat. N 41.29200 W -73.50200.

Connecticut Tombstones continued

The fourth tombstone we were looking for was in a rather forlorn little cemetery (about 25 stones) with the tombstones set off from an apple orchard with a ring of boulders. This was Niles Family Cemetery at Groton, New London Co., CT. The GPS helped us locate it. As we were leaving a state trooper stopped and asked if everything was OK. I said yes we were just do a cemetery tour! That didn't phase him at all! The tombstone in this cemetery was for my 6th great-grandparent Nathan Niles (1720-1778). The picture on Find A Grave looked readable but the stone we saw had lettering on it which was obscured by lichen making it difficult to read. I had no tools with me. Also the day was a bit damp, misty and dull. The GPS reading was Lat. N 41.37856 Long. W -72.00386.

The fifth tombstone was located in the Wightman Cemetery, Groton, New London, Co., CT which was just around the corner from the Niles Family Cemetery. This was a larger cemetery and the memorial stone was easy to find. It could be that Rev. Valentine Wightman (1681-1747) my 7th great-grandparent was buried here but this is a memorial stone erected in 1890. He was a pioneer of Religious Liberty and Founder in 1705 and 42 years pastor of the First Baptist Church of Groton. The GPS reading was Lat. N 41.38751 Long. W -71.99512.

The sixth place we visited was not a cemetery but a memorial plaque on the Joseph Loomis House in Windsor,CT. The Joseph Loomis House is on the grounds of the Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, CT. It is not open to the public as it is occupied by school staff. Joseph Loomis (1590-1658) was my 11th great-grandparent. GPS reading Lat. N 41.84531 Long. W -72.63961.

While we were in the Windsor, CT area we also visited the tombstones of two of Joseph's sons, Samuel in the Woodlawn Cemetery GPS Lat. N 41.97686 Long. W -72.63205, Suffield, Hartford Co., CT and John in the Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, Hartford Co., CT. GPS Lat. N 41.85891 Long W -72.63917.

Massachusetts and Connecticut Tombstones

I had determined to locate a few tombstones before we actually left home for the conference. However, at the conference I looked up a few more names in my tree and finally ended up with 10 tombstones to locate.

The first one was for Deacon William Holton (1610-1691) and his wife Mary Winche (c1650-1691), my 8th great-parents. The cemetery was Bridge Street Cemetery located in Northampton, Hampshire Co., Massachusetts. This was just a few minutes down the road from Deerfield. We located the cemetery by GPS. This was a large cemetery and fortunately there was a worker in the cemetery that morning and he directed us to the stone. This was actually a memorial "stone" installed by the Holton Family Association in 1938. So we are not sure if they are actually buried at that location. GPS reading Lat. N 42.32553 Long. W -72.62580.

The next tombstone was located in the Old Westfield Cemetery, Middletown, Middlesex Co., CT. Again the GPS coordinates guided us right to the cemetery which is located on a wooded country road among some local houses. This was a small cemetery and we easily located the stone for John Higby (1707-1789) and his wife Sarah Candee (1710-1792) my 6th great-grandparents. GPS Lat. N 41.57791 W -72.72835. We took off across country for the next cemetery and took a drive down a Higby Road.

The third tombstone was located in the Linwood Cemetery, Colchester, New London Co., CT. The GPS took us there. This was a large cemetery as well with no one around to assist. So we spread out and started looking for the Dibble surname. My wife found it. The stone was quite readable and was for my 8th great-grandfather Ebenezer Dibble (1671-1758). It was surrounded by Foote tombstones. GPS Lat. N 41.57104 Long. W -72.34141.

Nearby was a memorial stone which mentioned my 9th great-grandparent Nathaniel Foote (c1592-1644), who settled in Wethersfield, CT about 1630.

New York Tombstone

The next day after visiting Deerfield, we took a driving tour of Connecticut all the way down to Long Island Sound, to find a number of cemeteries and the tombstones of my ancestors, which I found through the use of Find A Grave. I hadn't put any thought into this before, but someone pointed out to me by e-mail that the tombstone of one of my ancestors still existed at Rock City Falls. We made this stop before we went to the conference.

Rock City Falls is on Route 29 West of Saratoga Springs, NY. We had no problem finding the cemetery as we had the GPS coordinates. When we arrived at the cemetery we asked ourselves, how are we going to find the tombstone? However, we knew it was old and we knew what it looked like. So while I was taking some photographs, my wife
wandered off and had located the tombstone about 2 minutes later. The ancestors in question were my 5th great-grandparents Deacon Daniel Rathbun b. Feb. 27, 1731 d. Jan. 17, 1823 and his wife Sarah Higby (1736-1835). The GPS reading for the tombstone is Lat. N 43.04943 Long. W -73.91841. Daniel's tombstone was still readable but the one for his wife was laying flat on the ground and the lettering was very worn but sort of readable with much difficulty.

We did a little drive around and found a historic plaque which I photographed and transcribed below.
Rock City Falls
V. Rathbun settled pre-1800.
Area grew around early saw,
grist mills; stores; hotels;
schools; 1810 Methodist Ch.;
mid - 1800 paper mills Kilmer,
West; P.O.; Catholic Ch. 1872.

I decided to take a quick tour of the town and turned left and found the Rock City Falls Post Office. I went in and met a very nice lady whose name was Emigh (pronounced Amy). She knew that the name Emigh was a Palatine name going back to the 1709/1710 Palatine emigration to New York State. She knew about the Rathbun connection to Rock City Falls and gave me a contact, her father or father-in-law who was 94 then. I will write and say thank you. We also found the Town of Milton offices where we obtained the name of the local historian.

Deerfield, Massachusetts

After the NERGC Conference, we headed off on the remainder of our trip which involved staying at the Deerfield Inn, Deerfield, Mass. overnight. I have visited Deerfield, Mass. several times but wanted to stay in the town at least one time. My ancestors Benjamin Burt and Sarah Beldin (Belden, Belding) lived there and were taken captive in the French and Indian raid of February 29th, 1704 and then marched to Quebec. While in Quebec they were put under the protection of Christophe DuFrost sieur de la Jemmerais at Varennes, Quebec. Son Christopher was born at Varennes and named in his honour. Benjamin and Sarah probably worked as servants at the Sulpician Seminary and in the Convent of the Congregation de Notre Dame in Montreal. Through the negotiating efforts of Lieut. Sheldon, commissioner from Massachusetts, who went to Quebec three times, the Burt family, Rev. Mr. Williams and others from Deerfield were ransomed and were returned to Massachusetts about two years later in 1706. My ancestor Seaborn Burt was born on the return trip.

The remainder of our trip involved going to the Connecticut State Archives, a number of local graveyards (all found by GPS and actual graveyard sites marked by GPS now), The Horace Greely Home, Chappaqua, NY and a workshop by the New York Genealogical Biographical Society at Elmsford, NY. All of this was done readily with the use of a GPS - a must tool for genealogists. I will write about these things.

New England Regional Genealogical Conference

Additional comments on the New England Regional Genealogical Conference
Posted by my wife Elizabeth on her blog.
http://kippeeb.blogspot.com/ Monday April 15th, 2011

New England Regional Genealogical Conference 2011

New England Regional Genealogical Conference 2011

From April 7th to the 9th we attended the New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC). This conference is held every two years somewhere in New England. This year it was held in Springfield, Massachusetts. There were about 800 registered for the conference and it seemed to be well organized. The sessions were held in two different hotels across the road from each other. This meant there could be lots of walking between sessions. The marketplace itself was quite small and compact.

We received the syllabus in advance as a PDF file on our email but as part of the registration we also asked for one print copy and one copy on CD. Our Hotel was interesting in that the rooms were in a triangle around an open central area (12 stories high). It was a bit scary to look down on the registration area on the 2nd floor from the 9th floor!

The Opening Session was given by D. Joshua Taylor, Director of Education at NEHGS, and was titled Exploring New Paths to Your Roots: Genealogy`s Next Generation. He gave a fat moving talk which was greatly enjoyed by the many of the 800 people who attended this conference. He looked at Facebook, Wiki, Geneabloggers, Family Search Wiki and Who Do You Think You Are. He emphasized what you can already see at the Conferences - not everyone is grey haired! There were a lot of young people at this conference. They were sitting there with their Ipads going to the sites that he mentioned and tweeting to those who did not have the good fortune to be in the lecture. He also mentioned that the new face of genealogy is people researching just the ancestors that interested them and ignoring the rest. Research will use global resources, and will be undefined by age, gender or nationality, with digital end products.

For my first session on Thursday I chose a talk by Scott Andrew Bartley, Tracking A moving Target: Sources to Identify Your Ancestors and Where they Lived. This was a case study in which he talked about the usual sources that one would use to research an ancestor. He also talked about direct vs. indirect proofs and primary vs. secondary proofs. He also talked about widening the search to sibling, children and their descendants, because one does not know where the one piece of evidence one needs to break down a brick wall will be found. A good basic talk.

My second session was a talk by Richard L Kimball, Pathways Between New England and Nova Scotia. This was of more interest as he talked about the history and the various waves of settlers coming to Nova Scotia. Natives, Acadian, Foreign Protestants, New England Planters, Scots/Irish, United Empire Loyalists and Hessian Soldiers. Land and sea travel were of utmost importance and motivations were discussed.

The third session was a talk by Craig Roberts Scott, The Impact of Bounty Land on Migration Within and Out of New England. This speaker was quite interesting as he had a 15 or 20 minute question period before his talk. He fielded diverse questions and always provided an answer. Very opinionated!. It was during this per-talk session that he mentioned about using a source such as The Burpee Seed Catalogue to determine where your farming family might have settled after leaving their home. The seed catalogue of course provides information on planting zones.
He pointed out that across history governments have awarded bounty lands to soldiers for service rendered. This land is usually granted outside of their own state or country. US sources can be found in State and Federal archives.

The marketplace or they say the exhibit hall opened at 6 p.m.. We were fortunate to attend as there were a number of family associations who were there that evening but not for the remainder of the conference.

In the evening, there were some special interest groups offered and I headed off a Connecticut Research session. They did talk about Connecticut sources such as the Connecticut State Library, the Connecticut Society of Genealogists (which I joined), the Connecticut Historical Society (needs to be investigated), town histories, the Barbour Collection and the Hale tombstone collection and a state wide index of probates as well as other items. All of interest for finding my New England ancestors. A Foote Family Association was there and I talked to them briefly and will probably join the association. My ancestor here is Nathaniel Foote who married Elizabeth Deming. They immigrated to the New England Colonies in the 1630s and were at Wethersfield Connecticut.

Friday was a full day. Between the morning and afternoon sessions we had about 2 1/2 hours to visit marketplace and have lunch. We had not purchased lunches and this provided a bit of a challenge but we managed.

My first session of the day was a talk by Colleen Fitzpatrick, Genealogy & the Six Degrees of Separation. Her specialty is forensic genealogy or how to find people. While the topic is of interest and she mentioned many sources that she uses, the talk itself was about cases where she found various people. She also said that while there used to be on the average six steps required to find a person, with new technology available the number of steps has now been reduced to three.

The second session was a talk by David Quimette, Discovering Old-World Origins from US Records. This talk had great content where he talked about what pushed people to leave home and what promises their new home offered. He covered all of the main research sources.
He also put forward the Ten Rules of Immigrant Research:
- Expand the circle of people you research
- Correlate evidence and explain discrepancies
- Use timelines to correlate evidence and find gaps
- Consult published genealogies and local libraries
- Question assumptions and family legends
- Expand circle of records you consult
- Draw conclusions gleaned from multiple records
- Draw upon local and ethnic sources
- Anticipate and manage spelling issues
- Use maps and gazetteers to see where they lived.

A real genealogist can always find another record!


My third session of the day was a talk by John Philip Colletta, Erie Canal Genealogy: The Peopling of Upstate New York and the Midwest. While John is usually an interesting speaker, this was not one of his better talks. However he did mention records which are available that document the canal workers and the business and the commercial travellers and the immigrants who used the canal. The canal did provide a ready path for people moving west.

My fourth session of the day after visiting marketplace and having lunch was a talk by Nora Galvin, Where Have All the People Gone? Migration Out of Connecticut before 1850. This talk had good content. She talked about what motivated people to leave (religion, politics, family, etc.), what prevented them from leaving (geographic, political), where could they go (barriers, wars HBC), how did they go (water and land), right to land (purchase, possession) etc.

The last or fifth session of the day was a talk by Michael J. Leclerc (NEHGS), Western Massachusetts Migration. This talk had good content. He talked about the settling of New England and the expansion to Connecticut, Rhode Island and Long Island and New York. Settlements were mostly along waterways. with the coming of roads and canals settlement expanded to new areas. After the Revolution land boundaries were settled and new lands were opened for settlement. He also discussed the usual records which can be consulted. His finishing remarks included:
- Look far and wide for resources you may not have looked for!
- No one roams alone!
- Look at connections!

Saturday lectures for me started with a talk by Mary Ann Boyle, Where Did They Go? Following the Paths of New Englanders Who Left New England. She is a commercial searcher and her talk was semi-interesting. She did talk about harvesting data by time, place and source. She emphasized using national databases and using new technologies such as e-mail, blogs, family associations and other innovative sources to find people. One of her techniques is to harvest data, that is collect everything on the subject and analyze the data. Widen a search to sibling, family, friends and neighbours. Use the traditional research sources as well as electronic databases and new technologies.

The second session of the day was a talk by Janis P. Duffy, Using Collateral Lines to Grow Your Family Tree. She talked about her FAN Club, that is consult Family, Associates and Neighbours. Mine documents for all information.

The third session of the day was a talk by Sandra MacLean Clunies, Where is Great-Grandma Hiding? Finding Forgotten Females. She covered the usual research sources and added studying the men in her life.

The fourth session was a talk by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, Roads Back to Rhode Island. This talk had good content. She covered a lot of Rhode Island history, and things that determine where our ancestors settled such as geography, faith groups, wars etc. Many types of records are available such as town, county, colony, church, maritime and gravestones.

The last session of the day and conference for me was a talk by David Quimette, Digitizing the Records in the Granite Mountain. This was a general talk about how Family Search is systematically digitizing records from the Granite Mountain Records vault in Utah. He gave a brief history of the vault and the digitizing efforts worldwide.

Saturday evening we did go to the Banquet where John Philip Colletta, PhD spoke on Hacks and Hookers and Putting Up Pickles: Snares of Yesteryear's English. His talk was humorous and enjoyed by all present. The banquet was excellent and we learned that we were to be treated to breakfast in the morning.

Sunday morning breakfast was quite pleasant and included a visit by The Cat in the Hat from the Dr. Zeus museum in Springfield. We then headed off to the remainder of our trip which involved staying at the Deerfield Inn, Deerfield, Mass. overnight. My ancestors Benjamin Burt and Sarah Beldin lived there and were taken captive in the French and Indian raid of Feb. 29th, 1704 and marched to Quebec. They were returned to Mass. about two years later with my ancestor Seaborn Burt being born on the return trip.

Kipp-Kip-de Kype family

Kipp-Kip-de Kype family
Posted by my wife Elizabeth on her blog.
http://kippeeb.blogspot.com/ Monday April 18th, 2011

My husband has been researching his paternal line for over forty years (Kipp-Kip-de Kype family). The published work on this family that is generally referred to is History of The Kip Family In America, by Frederic E. Kip and Margarita L. Hawley, 1928 (Private printing). Unfortunately my husband did not find the name of his ancestor Isaac Kipp (born 1 Nov 1764, New York, USA (and thought to be Dutchess County)) in the book but there are many lines that are not traced down. He has spent a great deal of time tracing down the many lines and now has a nine generation chart on his webpage for the Kip(p) family of New Amsterdam there as well as worldconnect. Fortunately yDNA arrived and he was able to connect himself back to the Kip family of New Amsterdam by matching people who could trace back with a paper trail (paper genealogy is still most important).

Attending the New England Regional Genealogical Conference has been in the back of our minds for a number of years and we finally did make it there this year. He attended sessions that pertained to New England and New York records for the most part. It is interesting to hear what others have to say on the subject of these records. I think for myself it is the first time that I have had a glimmer of understanding of how people do do their genealogy when they trace back to the 1600s in New England! I have to date found it very very difficult but in my case that isn't a problem at all since I do not have any ancestors on this side of the Atlantic prior to 1818 when my Routledge family arrived (except for a short stay in Halifax in 1807 by my George Lawley when he served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (then the 23rd Regiment of Foot)).

Back to the Kip(p) family and there is an extra bit of interesting genealogy just to make the pursuit ever more exciting. There were three Kipp emigrants from Germany arriving in the 1750s and naturalized in Pennsylvania who spell their name Kipp and with the movement about these families have been confused with the New Amsterdam Kip(p) family. Certainly Ed wondered until he did his yDNA whether he too was a descendant of the German Kipp families. We now have four distinct lines of individuals who trace back to German Kipp families and we are now researching those
lines in terms of locating their emigration point and their naturalization point. Gradually we will see the lines appearing in the census as well so that we can to a certain extent assist people as they search for their ancestral line.

I went onto Footnote.com to spend a day looking at the Kipp family and discovered that the Poughkeepsie Journal is scanned and on this site from the earliest days (prior to 1800!). That will be a tool that might assist my husband with his research. The family lore coming down through the Richard Titus Kipp family (brother to my husband's great grandfather) was that the family had come from Dutchess County New York, The census of 1790 (Isaac Kipp married Hannah Mead 29 August 1790) lists an Isaac Kipp over 16 and in his household there is a female. They are listed beside or with Jonathan Mead (thought to be Jonathan Mead the cooper (and he would be the III, his father was the II cooper and his father the I cooper) and four lines down Nathaniel Mead known to be the brother of Jonathan Mead the Cooper III. Isaac Kipp is missing from the 1800 census at Northeast Town but does appear to be at Rensselaerville, NY and the family there is listed as 4 members under 16 and 2 members over 25. Isaac was born in 1764 so he would now be 36 and Hannah was born in 1770 and she would be 30. They had five living sons by 1800 (Isaac b 1791, Jonathan bc 1792, James bc 1793, John bc 1795 and David b 1797) but one son Jonathan is thought to have not come to Ontario with them - he was known to be in Ontario by the late 1810s. Jonathan Kipp would appear to be with his Mead grandparents on the 1800 and 1810 census. The naming is interesting in that Jonathan would be the forename of Hannah's father and John the forename of the furthest back ancestor on the Mead side before the other two Jonathans. We are left to contemplate was the name of Isaac's father Isaac and his grandfather Jacobus (James)? The name David occurs in the Mead family. On arrival in Ontario, the first known daughter Elizabeth was born just a month after their arrival followed by Phoebe in 1802, Susannah in 1805, Richard Titus in 1807, Benjamin in 1811 (my husband's great grandfather) and Daniel in 1813. We continue searching out these families.

This is a new blog and will take over from an existing blog called Kip/Kipp Family in America http://kipkippfamilyinamerica.blogspot.com/.

I plan to include information about what I am finding on my family names many of which are listed on my webpages http://www.kipp-blake-families.ca/ .

I will also post information from time to time on libraries and archives we have visited and also conferences we have attended.

My wife also has a blog called English Research from Canada http://kippeeb.blogspot.com/ which may at times contain information about my family names.