John Johnson

JOHNSON GENEALOGY. REGORDS -OF- 1-HE DESCENDANTS -OF- JOHN JOHNSON OF IPSWICH AND ANDOVER, MASS. 1635-1892. WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING RECORDS OF DESCENDANTS OF TIMOTHY JOHNSON, OF ANDOVER, AND POEMS OF JOHNSON DESCENDANTR, COMPILED BY REV. WILLIAM W. JOHNSON, COMPILER OF "RECORDS OF THE DESCENDANTS OF DAVID JOHNSON, OF LEOMINSTER, MASS." AND "RECORDEI OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THOMAS CLARKE, PLYMOUTH, 162a-1697," One generation p&Bneth away, and another generation cometh: TheBe wordB which I command thee this day shaJJ /Je in thy J,eart; and thou sha.Jt teseb them diligently to thy children. Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tel1 their r.hlldren, and their children another generation.-BIBLE. Pub!i,;,hed by the Compiler, NORTH GREENFIELD, WISCONSIN. 1892. ,JOSIAH JOHNSON. ?'.,;. llS. !See-- page~).-; PREFACE. From the summit of Sinai thomiands of years ago, in the midst of thunderings and lightnin?;s, Jehovah gave to the human race a moral code to be observed by the people of every land, and of every clime throughout all ages, and a part of this code proclaimed to every man and woman and child, "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy Gnd giveth thee." The duty enjoined in this commandment includes in its requirement not only respect, and kindness and honor to parents while living, but a kind and honorable remembrance also of ancestors who have departed. Hence it is becoming and appropriate in the members of a family line to collect and pre serve and transmit to posterity the history of their progenitors. The work of the genealogist is to trace ancestral lines, and to connect one generation with another during a succession of years, to gather ~terns of interest in connection with each family, and to preserve a correct and reliable history of the descendants of a remote ancestor. It is a laudable undertaking thus to honor fathers and mothers, and a commendable "pride of ancestry," is no dis paragement to any individual, and any person, who is not inclined to entertain a filial regard for his forefathers, is certainly not to be admired in this respect. In the year 1876 the Author of this book compiled and pub lished a genealogical work entitled "Records of the Descendants of David Johnson, of Leominster, Mass.," making the said David the starting_point of the line he was tracing, though in fact he was of the Fourth generation of an English ancestor at that time unknown. And living in the West far away from the great Libraries of the country, which contain rich stores of historical and genealogical information, and not having access to the records of those towns and counties of Massachusetts where the early generations of the family resided, he wus not able to trace the line back beyond the said David, although from some tra dition, or other cause, he entertained the idea that the father of David bore the name Josiah and that he was the grandson of Capt. Edward Johnson, of Woburn, although no definite con firmation of the idea could be found in the records. From David Johnson, the number one of that book, all the lines of descent both male and female were very thoroughly traced, producing a book quite acceptable to the numerous descendants. But the author of the book was never satisfied -4- with leaving the line thus incompletely traced, and in the sum mer :of 1890, while recovering from a long p9ri~ of sickness, he resolved to make one more effort to fully trace the ancestral descent back to the emigrant ancestor who settled in America. Soon after this. by correspondence, he made the acquaintance of Hon. Edward F. Johnson, of Woburn, Mass., a lineal descend- . ant of Capt. Edward Johnson, bearing the name of his dis tinguished ancestor and possessing much of his persevering spirit, who with a kindness and generosity uncommon in this selfish world, offered his assistance in tracing this line, and as a result of his researches in the Registry of Essex and Middlel'lex counties, the line was established by documentary evidence beyond the possibility of a doubt. This being accomplished the author at once determined to publish a new book. :Fourteen years had past away since the publication of the first, and many changes had taken place by death and otherwise during the interim; a new generation had a.risen upon the stage of life, and the family line had been fully "·erified and established. All these events imperiously demanded another publication. And that demand has brought the present volume into existence. In recent years many works of this kind have been given to the public. Some person in almost every family line seems to be animated by a laudable spirit, and a commendable zeal to engage in the work of rescuini the family history from that obscurity which a long aeries of years has thrown over it.. In these works the records appear in different forms, possessing different degrees of merit. The compiler of these records con siders that form the best, which presents the facts in a manner the most readily perceived and the most ea~ily understood, and he has found no form in the numerous works which he has examined that better accomplishes this purpose than the one which he has adopted. The records are entered in the order of the generations, and families of the same generation appear in connection with each other in the book. The descendants commencing with a des ignated ancestor, are numbered in the regular order of descent from the firat to the last. The descendant number of each descendant is placed on the right hand side of the page opposite his name, and when any descendant becomes the head of a family, the descendant number iH placed before the name of that person in connection with the record of that family, on the left hand side of the page, and in its new relation may be .con sidered the number of that family. And thus if the rearler desires to know anything more of a person in a future direction be will turn forward until he frnds his descendant number on the left, or if he desires to see the record of the family of that person's father, he will note the num her before his name and turn back until he finds this number on the right. In this way ihe book in its general arrangement becomes an index to itself. -5- The line of descent is given with each family record, included in a paranthesis. The ancestors of the successive generations are designated by an index figure placed over the right of the name denoting to which generation each belongs, and of those who bear the patronymic name, only the christian name is given, and the index placed after it, but when there is a divergence from the patronymic name in tracing the female lines, the index figure is placed after the surname, and in names ol the female descendants of a female line, the index is placed after the natal name. In this work the female branches of descent are traced as fullv and extensively as the male branches. The descendants of a female ancestor, who lose the patronymic name by her marriage, are considered worthy of the same attention, as the descendants of a male ancestor who retain the patronymic name. Gene11logists however differ on this question. But in some of the ablest genealogical works that have been published both lines have been traced. We have no space for the discussion of this question, but would refer those who R.re desirous to obtain information on this subject to the able and unanswerable arguments of Dr. D. P. Hulton, in his Preface to Vol. 1, of the Winslow Memorfal. In preparing these records the birthplace of each descendant is given, whenever it could be obtained, not always, however, in connection with his own family record, hut more frequently in the record of his father's family, especially where all the chil dren were born in the same plac1>. 'l'he abbreviations found in this work are comparatively few, and such as .are generally used: b. born, m. married, d. died, unm. unmarried, dau. daughter, res. residence, P. 0. Post-office; etc. Many difficulties are encountered in t~e preparation of a genealogical work. Nearly all of the information desired iri re~ lation to three or four of the earlier generations must be sought for in the records of the towns and counties where the ancestors settled, and in some aases the records of those towns were but imperfectly kept, if kept at all, and in cases where the records were properly kept, in many instances they have been multila ted or destroyed, or have become faded and illegible by the action of time, and hence a family line is sometimes broken with no possibility of restoring the missing Unk. In ·case of the later generations, the information must be obtained by correspondence, and the numerous families being scattered far and wide throughout the country, a difficulty arises, first, in finding their location, and when their location is known, such is the indifference in many familie'3 in regard to their ancestry, that tb.e compile, is frequently obliged to write a second or third time before he gets a proper response, and in fact must write numerous letters which will never be answered. And when by patient and persevering efforts, for years perhaps, in face of all these difficulties the book is issued from the press, .he will find, not only many noble men and women with appre- -6- ciat.ive hearts, and generous impulses, an<l open purses, waiting to hail with joy the advent of the book, but he also will find some non-aµpreciati ve ones, who wiil entertain• the idea that a book the sales of which will never reach 300 copies, may be sold as cheap ns a spelling-book which will be sought by a million purchasers.

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