Thomas Ford - Parents of Thomas Ford?

I was unaware of the "Ford of Ellell Hall" ancestry idea for Thomas Ford of Northampton, MA

Here's what Burke's Landed Gentry, page 443 has on the line:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZNEKAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA453&ots...

The family of fforde or Ford is one of very ancient settlement in Staffordshire. So far back as the 12th century, they were established at Ford Green, in Norton-leMoors. In the time of Henry VIL, Hugh Ford, sen. (son of John, grandson of William, and great-grandson of Richard del Forde, temp. Richard II.), settled his estate on his grandson, Hugh Ford, son of Bichard, who bad d. v. p. Huoh, the younger, was father of William Ford, living 1521, whose son, Huob Ford, of Forde Green, co. Stafford, living 1538 and 1564, was s. by his son, William Forde, of Forde Green, living 1604, who m. 1569, Alice, dau. of Richard Harblutt, of The Loyde, co. Stafford, and had a son and successor, Htoh Forde, of Forde Green, who m. Margery, dau. of Michael Dickinson, of Fooker, co. Stafford, and was father of William Forde, of Forde Green, living 1679, ....

Hi, Erica.

Thanks for your reply. :-)

Since Della Gray Barthelmas doesn't cite any sources in her book about Thomas Ford's ancestry, I don't believe we can reliably trace his lineage back to William Ford of Forde Green. If there is a firm connection, I haven't been able to establish it.

Thomas Ford is in my seventeenth-century maternal line. My "Ford" surname comes from my paternal line, and I can only trace it back to the nineteenth century (South Carolina and Georgia). I don't know if the two are somehow connected, but it would be interesting to learn if my father's Fords had New England roots.

Best,

Joe

Joe

I was wondering how you had a Ford surname as Thomas Ford "ancestor of millions" had only surviving daughters.:)

It seems that your book (which does have good ratings from librarians for its biographical & genealogical presentation) presented a once more popular theory. The Great Migration project is more current; I uploaded how Anderson summarizes the evidence for English ancestry to the Thomas Ford profile. They find that Torrey & Jacobus, working in the 1930s, look to a possible Powerstock, Dorsetshire origination (although they don't comment on the Joan Way possible marriage in that parish).

Dating seems "off" for the "of Ford Green" origin & that theory does not seem popular these days.

Hi, Erica.

The descendants of many New England colonists, of course, did end up in the South, but other immigrants directly colonized Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Sorting it all out can be quite a challenge.

My connection to Thomas Ford is as follows:

Thomas Ford & Elizabeth Chard Cooke
Elder John Strong & Abigail Ford
Jedediah Strong & Freedom Woodward
Thomas King, I & Abigail Strong
Thomas King, II & Sarah Mygatt
Timothy King & Sarah Fitch
Roswell King, I & Catherine Barrington
Roswell King, II & Julia Rebecca Maxwell
Roswell King, III & Catherine Ashmead
Frederick Wells King & Katherine Rosalie DeLeGal
Julia Fraysse King & Joseph Vernon Dillon
Julia King Dillon & William Lamar Ford
Joseph Dillon Ford

In this case, Roswell King, I, born in Connecticut, moved to Georgia, where many of his descendants still live. My paternal Ford line is traceable to Bibb County (Macon), Georgia, where William Ford and Delilah Dye—both born in South Carolina—were married in 1836. One of my current research projects involves trying to establish their ancestry.

I try to focus on primary sources, but these can be difficult if not impossible to come by. So it often comes down to searching for reputable secondary sources.

Many thanks for the feedback!

:-)

Joe

Joe, your tree is very interesting - do you know if the Georgia Land Lottery prompted the "removal" from Connecticut?

And your question about primary, secondary, tertiary sources also leads, in my mind, to a question about collaborative efforts such as Geni, and how we sometimes needs to re think more traditional histiography.

I see Geni for instance as a "people's history of everybody.". I add what I know, you add what you know, and everyone knows more. :). Do we need documents? Yes, of course, all history is based on artifacts. But as important is interpreting and contextualing the evidence.

I tend to focus my efforts on "first immigrants" into an area. That adds an "ordinary" person to the broader forces of history and in a two way fashion: perhaps we don't realize how much an individual Georgia planter shaped the territory, much as he shaped the land itself.

The "Great Migration" immigrants of Colonial New England have been studied for 400 years now - yet there is new evidence; DNA projects, registers & books & letters newly digitalized & available for study, archeological finds, statistical analysis, new ways to analyze history, etc. So if seeking primary evidence to open new doors, where do you start?

I believe quite correctly with a query like yours on this discussion, and thank you very much for it. You asked "how reliable is this secondary source" and I was able to learn enough to answer with a bit of confidence: "for this particular Ford family they seem to be relying on an outdated story for the ancestral presentation.".

Which may not invalidate the rest of it! "English origins of colonial immigrants" are notoriously fanciful, but the descendant lines are often spot on.

BTW my own tree is mostly direct arrivers from England and Scotland to the Virginia & Carolina territories. There is rarely a birth / baptism / marriage / death / ship record for these folk, unlike New England. The best evidence I've found comes from land transactions and probate records.

Hi, Erica.

Thanks for your reply. Let me follow up with a little more information I have on hand.

Roswell King, Sr. (1765–1844) was born in Windsor, Connecticut and relocated to Darien in McIntosh County, Georgia by 1789, some years before the early nineteenth-century land lotteries. His banking interests led him to north Georgia, where he eventually purchased what had been Cherokee Nation land from white winners in a land lottery. There he founded the town of Roswell (now an Atlanta "bedroom" community) and with the establishment of cotton and flour mills became one of the state's early industrialists. He had groomed Roswell King, Jr. to take his place as manager of the rice and cotton plantations of Philadelphia socialite Pierce Butler, a position his son evidently detested because of his aversion to slavery.

The Kings made their fortune in Georgia and became very influential during the antebellum period, but suffered terribly as a consequence of the Civil War. The Roswell Kings in particular also suffered at the hands of historians who have unaccountably relied too heavily on Frances Ann Kemble's heavily biased *Journal of Residency on a Georgian Plantation, 1838–1839*. Kemble was a glamorous English actress whose international celebrity and histrionic literary talent have misled scholars and novelists alike into taking her tendentious "observations" at face value, even to extent of passing over in silence her own patently racist remarks in the *Journal*.

I, too, abhor slavery and the system of agricultural capitalism that sustained it, but having become aware of dubious conclusions and assertions in the scholarly and popular presses about the Kings, I've found myself having to correct historical misinformation about certain of my King ancestors. My intention is eventually to publish a critical analysis of Kemble's *Journal* so that its weaknesses and flaws as a primary source won't continue to seduce the unwary.

I've also been deeply involved recently with a symphonic project commemorating the life and work of steamboat inventor John Fitch, Roswell King, Sr.'s uncle (and my sixth great uncle). Fitch, a poorly understood visionary who was unfairly treated by Jefferson, Franklin, and even Washington, left behind extensive autobiographical information, drawings, and even models, and his spectacular failure amounts to an indictment of American capitalism and "the American Dream" at its very inception.

I'm all for interpreting history, but am careful to distinguish in my own research between demonstrable facts and educated guesses. I realize that geni.com isn't primarily about academic research, but I bring those skills with me to the extent they may prove useful. :-) Primary sources are often hard to come by in genealogical research, but I do try to stick to them as much as possible, and to be selective about secondary sources. But of course, even factually defective "family history" books authored by genealogically inclined descendants can contain valuable information. One of these actually led me to my King ancestry.

I've been lucky that the work of earlier researchers has opened up far more of my ancestral past than I ever imagined possible. Still, there are lots of challenges and missing links I'm working hard to resolve. Genealogy is anything but dull!

Best,

Joe

When I first saw geneology I thought it deadly dull.:). But look at the fascinating history I've just learned from you!

Please keep us informed on your projects, they sound great, and you are absolutely validating my point about it always being worth re visiting, and looking for new primary & secondary evidence.

We worked on a small project about Harriet Tubman, who recently had a new biography published by a "next gen" historian. She was told "you won't find anything we don't already know." Well, she found plenty - just not in the places you'd expect.

Hi, Erica.

I describe genealogy as "history made personal." Actually, I think it could be introduced into school curricula as a means of enabling young people to engage more meaningfully with a past that continuously reshapes the present. In the Digital Age, and with the arrival of DNA analysis, the possibilities of discovery have more than redoubled.

I look forward to our continued collaboration.

Best,

:-)

Joe