Monthly Archives: March 2012

Navigating Speedbumps: Pond Lineage

John A. Pond Sr. family, 1892, left to right, front - John Albert and Nancy Jane (Mason) Pond; standing - Laura, Henry Edward, John A. Jr., Charles Arthur, Jeptha, and Arch E. standing directly between John and Nancy. --From "Laclede County, Missouri: History and Families"

There is some controversy of the father of John A. Pond Sr., a prominent figure in Pond family history.  John Albert Pond was a Civil War soldier, and has quite a paper trail.  However, nothing on paper directly mentions his parents.  He just appears on the scene, so to speak.  I am quite confident, though, that his father was actually Samuel B. Pond for a few reasons; location, age/timing, and the 1830 and 1840 Census of Samuel B. Pond of Barlow, Ohio.  The number of children and their ages corresponds perfectly with the birth of John A Pond.

Samuel B. Pond’s father, Samuel is also hard to trace.  He is the one who migrated to Barlow.  There is however one sentence in the book “A Genealogical Record of Samuel Pond and His Descendants” (on page 21) that mentions Him and his migration to Ohio.  This book directly traces the family to Samuel Pond (1609-1654), who immigrated from England in 1635 to Windsor, CT.  There are several grave sites for his descendants that still exist in Connecticut.  His land records stated in the same book can be found on the map below.  He purchased land from Mr. Hanford and Mr. Branker along Little Meadow and Plymouth Meadow.

1640-1654 Ancient-Windsor-Ct-map

Brown Family Men, Take Note…Cook for Your Wives!

When at my grandmother’s funeral several months ago, I took the occasion to find some of my relatives grave sites.  Particularly my G-Great Grandfather David S. Brown (1853-1926 Four Mile cemetery, Anniston, Alabama). When I asked my Aunt (who still lives in the area) about him, she said that his wife, Lizzie, had died in a fire by “catching her dress on fire while loading wood in her stove.”  I remembered reading a similar story online when doing research before. So I looked it up again and found an obit. for my G-grandfather’s sister-in-law who died in a fire while cooking.  I posted the story and assumed word of mouth had transferred the story to my G-Grandmother…WRONG!!

Amazingly, my Great Grandmother Lizzie also actually died in a fire…while cooking.   SO… Brown husbands, cook for your wives!

Here’s the article.

“THE CLEBURNE NEWS” Issue of Thursday, MAY 2, 1935:

MRS. BROWN IS DEAD FROM BURNS

Burns suffered from several months ago as she started a fire at her home at Jacksonville, proved fatal to Mrs. Lizzie Brown, who died at 1 o’clock Friday morning at the home of her son Ernest Brown, at 705 King street in Anniston.  She had been with her son since the accident and several days ago was reported to be recovering.

Crossing the Pond: Evan Humphreys

I’ve been doing lots of reading on my family’s pond-hopper, Evan Humphreys. Rumor is that he came on a ship called Assurance de Lo (of London) in 1635.  At any conclusion, records do show that he settled in Surry, Virginia, which is across the bay and slightly inland from the Jamestown settlement.  September of 1677, Evan first appears in records naming him as a man servant to a Rowland Davies.  After taking a step back, I realized that his mother’s maiden name was also Davies.  An uncle? Grandfather?  I am not quite certain.  I plan to do more research on the Davies family to try to connect them, however records from Wales are proving quite difficult to locate.  The surname Davies seems to be like Smith is in America, and the given name Evan is like John…they’re everywhere.

More to come…

UPDATE 3/10/12: After only a few years, I finally found the passenger list for the Assurance. Here’s the book on Google. Listed is only an Evan Ap-Evan (Ap is a Welsh prefix similar to Mc or Mac in Irish names) and a Jo: (John) Humfrey. I believe this is the source for the confusion, but there is no evidence of any relations and definately no Evan Humphreys listed.