This is the 2013 second edition of the 1990 genealogy of Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut and his Wife Alice Tomes. It is the first of three volumes, the second and third coming up in the next few months. The majority of my work time over the last dozen years has been this project. Whew!
It is available in both paperback and hardcover formats. Just go to our online store to see your buying options:
Click here to visit the Welles Family Association Store.
Here is what we say about it on the Welles Family Association's webpage:
Gov. Thomas Welles came to New England in 1635, settling in Hartford in 1636 and moving to Wethersfield in 1646. He remains the only man to have held all four top executive positions in Connecticut government. An entailed property case involving their sale of land as they left Old England connects both Gov. Thomas Welles and his wife Alice (Tomes) Welles unequivocally to their origins and families in England.
Volume 1 covers the Welles and Tomes ancestries in England and the first four generations to live in New England. The first edition was completed in 1990 by Connecticut Valley genealogy specialist Donna Holt Siemiatkoski. The second edition corrects and expands the information in the first edition. The genealogy includes all descendants in both the male and female lines.
In the early seventeenth century, Connecticut Colony was founded and Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor were established along the Connecticut River. Dynamic Puritan churches were the center of these towns. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the colony’s growth as the population expanded to more towns along the river and to towns inland. Welles and his descendants played parts in two wars with Native American tribes, received a new colonial charter in 1662 from King Charles II and then protected it from an English governor in 1682, engaged in lively trade with England and the Caribbean, and fought in the French and Indian War, and a few participated in the Revolutionary War. They were among the founders of Yale and Williams colleges and served as legislators, judges, ministers, generals, sea captains, and homemakers.
This book follows descendants in both the male and female lines. It extensively covers family surnames Welles, Wells, Chester, Thompson, Hawkins, Judson, Shelton, Curtiss, Tomlinson, Botsford, and Bostwick. Towns of residence include Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield, Stratford, Fairfield, Shelton, Woodbury, Roxbury, Boston, and Wellesley.
(When a book is 659 pages long, it's hard to provide a quick synopsis.)
I look forward to creating some blog posts about the document analysis process. I have a few self-criticisms to post as well.
