What is a genealogy?
Genealogy is the study of human ancestries and histories. A family genealogy is a record of all the known members of that family, sometimes traced back to a common ancestor. Discovering who your ancestors are is one way of learning more about your family’s history and cultural heritage.
People often refer to a genealogy as a “family tree.” This is a useful description! Like trees, genealogies grow “branches” as new family members are born, grow up, and start families of their own. Weddings add new people—“in-laws”—to family trees who are now related by marriage. In this way, a one couple can have many descendants across the generations. Of the 102 passengers who famously traveled to Cape Cod on the Mayflower in 1620 only 53 survived the first winter, but their descendants number in the millions today.
Family histories, documents, and legal records are among the most common ways to find out about the people from whom you are descended. This essay shares a small portion of the genealogy of John Stebbins, who was among the early settlers of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Sources for information relating to John and his family include church records, town histories, wills, published family histories, and other documents recording the presence and activities of the Stebbins family in North America in the 17th and early 18th centuries.
Son of Rowland Stebbins “the Immigrant”
Indigenous people have lived on the American continents for many thousands of years. All other people, including John Stebbins’s family, came from somewhere else. For those of European. African, or Asian descent, this meant a journey by an ancestor, willing or forced, across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Stebbins family traces its arrival in North America to John Stebbins’s father, sometimes referred to in older family genealogies as “Rowland the immigrant.” Rowland Stebbins was born in 1592, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. According to surviving parish records of St. Mary’s Church in Bocking, Essex County, England, “Rowlandus, s[on] of Thomas” was baptized on November 5, 1592. As it was common religious practice in England to baptize babies as soon as possible after they were born, Rowland was probably born just days earlier. The same source recorded Rowland Stebbins’s marriage to Sarah Whiting in 1618 when he was 26 years old. The couple had four children:
- Thomas, born 1620
- Sarah, born 1623
- John, born 1626
- Elizabeth, born 1628
John was eight years old when his parents made the decision to emigrate to the newly established colony of Massachusetts Bay in North America. Surviving records reveal that the family began their 3,000 mile ocean journey from the English port of Ipswich on November 30, 1634. A 15-year-old girl named Mary Winch came with them; she may have been a relative or a servant. The family traveled on the ship Francis, landing at Boston. From there, they traveled to Roxbury, Massachusetts, where they settled.
Five years after their arrival in Roxbury, Rowland Stebbins relocated his family to the newly settled town of Springfield, Massachusetts, on the Connecticut River. Perhaps the promise of good land lay behind the decision to move; an early map of Springfield shows that John’s father owned land on both sides of the Connecticut River in addition to two other parcels of land. Rowland was also good friends with Springfield’s founder, John Pynchon, who came from the same part of England as the Stebbins family. Like the other early settlers of Springfield, Rowland had to live there for at least five years to keep his land grant. Town records reveal that Rowland Stebbins stayed in Springfield for the required five years and actively participated in the community. John’s mother, Sarah, died there in 1649 when John was 23 years old.
John apparently returned to Roxbury at some point, as he came from there when he purchased his own land in Springfield in 1651. Sometime in the 1660s, John’s father Rowland moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, about 20 miles from Springfield. John settled there, too, and he was also among the early landowners of Pocumtuck (Deerfield.) Rowland Stebbins died on December 14, 1669, aged 77 and is buried at the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. His will named John as the executor of his estate. Rowland’s instructions to leave his land to surviving male children and money or goods to female children was typical of the time. He left special bequests of clothing, household goods, and money to his daughters and grandchildren. He divided the remainder of his estate between his two sons, Thomas and John.
John Stebbins’s branch of the Stebbins family tree
John Stebbins (1626-1679) married twice. On May 14, 1646 he married Mary, widow of Abraham Munden, probably the daughter of Thomas Munson of Hartford. Their children were:
- John Jr. born 1647
- Thomas, d. 1649
- Ann, born 1651
- Edward, born 1653
- Benoni, born 1655
John married his second wife, Abigail Bartlett of Northampton on November 17, 1657. Their children were:
- Samuel, born 1658
- Abigail, born 1660
- Thomas, born1662
- Hannah, born 1654
- Mary, born 1666
- Sarah, born 1668
- Joseph, born 1670
- Deborah, born 1672
- Benjamin, born 1674
- Rebecca, born 1676
- Thankful, born 1679
John Stebbins was 53 years old when he died March 9, 1679, “in an unusual manner” that raised concerns that witchcraft may have been involved. A jury of inquest was called and found “several hundred spots, small ones as if they had been shot with a small shot which we scraped and under them were holes I[n] his body.” An investigation followed and the evidence laid before the court in Boston, but no prosecution followed. Because John Stebbins died intestate (without a will) the colony courts apportioned his estate among his widow and children.
Although he owned land in Deerfield, John apparently never settled in there, but his sons, John Stebbins, Jr. (1647-1724) and Benoni (1635-1704) did. John, Jr. led an eventful life, including being captured with his entire family in a raid on the town in 1704 by the French and their Native allies. Only John, his wife Dorothy, and his son John Jr. returned; descendants include family members born to the children who did not return from Canada. John Stebbins’s son Benoni (John Jr.’s brother) was captured by a raiding party led by Ashpelon, a Pocumtuck sachem in 1677 as King Philip’s War (Metacom’s War) drew to a close in southern New England. Benoni escaped his captors and returned to Deerfield five years later, building a house on his father’s land in 1682 that was burned in the raid on the town in 1704. Benoni was among the 50 people killed in the attack.
Like his father, John Stebbins Jr. (c1685-1760) married twice. He married Mary (maiden name no longer known) in about 1714. They had nine children—John Stebbins, Sr.’s grandchildren:
- John, born 1715
- Ebenezer, born 1716
- Joseph, born 1718
- Mary, born 1720
- Abigail, born 1723
- Samuel, born 1725
- Experience, born 1727
- Thankful, born 1729
- Moses, born 1731
On Mary’s death in 1733, John Jr. married Hannah Ashley. They had four children:
- Simon, born 1736
- Dorothy, born 1738
- David, born 1741
- Hannah, born 1744
Piecing it together: genealogy, history, and the Stebbins family in Deerfield, Massachusetts
The Stebbins family genealogy is an example of how genealogists and historians can work together to “tease out” the life story of a colonial family. The Stebbins family and other family trees can reveal a great deal about family and community. For example, decisions John Stebbins and other early settlers made about where to live and raise their families is woven into early town histories. For the Stebbins family, the sometimes tragic outcomes of those choices reflected the perils of living in the contested territory of the mid-Connecticut River Valley.
Although colonial families varied in size, John Stebbins was typical in having many children and in remarrying following the death of his first wife. Husbands of women who died in childbirth or other causes usually remarried, often quickly, provide a mother for the children and a “helpmate”. Children were generally born about two years apart; this may have been because of breast feeding, a natural preventative of conception. John Stebbins and other parents frequently experienced the death of a child due to the inability at the time to treat infections and reduce fevers, as well as accidents and warfare.
We can learn how the court-devised system distributed John Stebbins’ estate among his widow and children following his mysterious sudden death. The death date of John’s son, Benoni, reveals that he was killed in the disastrous Deerfield Raid of February 29, 1704. What other stories might be part of a family genealogy?
