It’s been eons since I posted … life gets busy.
Barrett Genealogy Update
I have been working diligently on our family genealogy. Two males of the Barrett line (direct linage from Cyrus) have submitted their DNA for the Barrett DNA research. The results are in… pretty much. Our DNA closely matches those who have documented their ancestry from Thomas Barrett, b in 1591 or 1602 (the date is unknown positively) in Norwich, Essex County, England. He came to America in the late 1630s. It is believed he came with 2 brothers, John and Humphrey. They all settled in Massachusetts, as many of the emigrants did in those days. In the “Encyclopedia of Massachusetts” by Henry L. Dawes, the first record of Barretts was Robert Barrett who settled in Maine. He was a fisherman in Maine. Some of the Barretts from his family were living in Winter Harbor and Cape Porpoise areas. There is no proof of them being related to Thomas or not.
There are stories about the Barretts who were part of this family who went to PA and NY. This is important since Cyrus and Elias were both born in PA. Unfortunately I have not found our Cyrus and his brother Elias among those stories. However, Humphrey has descendants with the name of Cyrus, as well as a number of Samuels and Daniels. Another descendant of Thomas, Lysander, also has a Cyrus, and his father was named Daniel. Now, you may not think that is important, but if our Barretts continued with the habits of naming their children after the older family members this holds importance as we have a number of Daniels and Samuels in our family. Cyrus named his first two sons Daniel and Samuel. There was also a Lysander living a county over from Cyrus and Elias in Ohio… a coincidence perhaps?
Because we are only one or two markers off from those who descend from Thomas it is my belief (not documented or proven) that we “could” be descended from one of his brothers or cousins, possibly one who was in Ireland before coming to America. Since our family lore has been that we were from Ireland, I still am looking for matches there.
An interesting fact is that my cousin is only one marker off from some who are descendants of Thomas where my brother is two markers off. It is possible that the marker that Rolland has that is different from the others is related to the Cystic Fibrosis gene. I am still investigating this. I do know that some other branches of Barretts have had Cystic Fibrosis in their lines, so it is worth looking into.
As always I am looking for any family info that people want to submit to me to go in the database I have of Barretts. I also still have CDs of The Barrett Saga that I wrote in 2008. I can also print it out as a book for anyone who wants that. It is approx 280 pages long and it includes all of our genealogy from all of the different trees that make up our Barrett clan. For privacy issues, you’ll be happy to know that I do not have the most recent generations in the book, but I really would like to have it in my database for future generations. Since I do not have all of the info on children of some of my own nieces and nephews you can see that I am missing important info. So, anyone who wants to send me info, pictures, etc I will gladly add it to my electronic database.
