Research notes

The research files as written so far, sorted by family line. They are the raw material for people/ and sources/: nothing here is deleted when facts are moved out, so the reasoning behind every entry stays readable.

Where a file and a later file disagree, the later one wins. Several files open with a READ THIS FIRST block that gives the current position; it overrides anything further down the same file.

Research decisions records rulings on conflicts between files. It overrides everything else here. Questions to decide lists the conflicts still waiting for a ruling.

Where to start. For a line's ancestry, its master family tree file (who is who) and then its research file (the evidence). For what to do next: Questions to decide, the records still to fetch in gedcom/ancestry-lookups.md, and the open case in paulson/. The most important questions are followed as research threads in ../threads/, each with its trail of what was found, at the head of the site's To-do page. New uploads wait in inbox/.

Holbrook (holbrook/)

File	What it is
Holbrook-Master-Family-Tree.md	Who is who, from Thomas Holbrooke of Norton Malreward to Frances Fairchild Holbrook. Last revised 1 Oct 2026.
early-holbrook-family-england.md	Research findings for the English generations (Somerset parish registers, wills, Lord 1942).
Holbrooke-PCC-Wills-1503-1617.md	Transcriptions of Holbrooke wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
Mollie_Typescript_Review.md	Claim-by-claim check of Mollie (Holbrook) Pfeiffer's family typescript.
richard-holbrook-at-sea-and-penn-cove.md	Capt. Richard Blackmer Holbrook Sr.: his two New Bedford whaling voyages (the Hydaspe, 1841-45, round the world; the Globe, 1845-50), how Mollie's sea stories line up with them, his route, and his first years at Penn Cove (the Ebeys' diary, his brother's letter of 1854, the legislature of 1861-62). 13 Oct 2026. Replaces the master tree's and the typescript review's (H7) account of his years at sea.
familysearch-brief-richard-jr-maud.md	A search brief for a browser assistant on FamilySearch: Capt. Richard B. Holbrook Jr.'s second family and Maud (9 Oct 2026).
paul-jones-crockett-around-the-world-on-foot.txt	The chapter on "Paul Jones" (Emil C. Pfeiffer, husband of Mollie Holbrook) from Davy Crockett's Around the World on Foot: The Early Globetrotters, as uploaded 11 Oct 2026; a secondary account (Davy Crockett, Around the World on Foot: The Early Globetrotters, the chapter on "Paul Jones" (Emil C. Pfeiffer)).

Mayo (mayo/)

File	What it is
Mayo_Line_Research.md	Sarah Mayo, wife of Deacon Elisha Holbrook, and her Mayo, Mulford and Howes ancestry. Replaces Mollie's "Mary Mayhew" line.

Low and Tyler-Ginn (low/)

The Low side of the Holbrook-Low tree: the ancestry of Harriet Phillips Low.

File	What it is
Low_Master_Research.md	The Low male line from Thomas Low of Chebacco to Harriet, one section per person (Ahnentafel numbers from Harriet), with the Deer Isle, Hancock County, Essex court and Washington Territory records found in October 2026, the documents worth clipping and the records still to obtain. First edition, 6 Oct 2026. Current for the Low male line.
Low_Line_Research.md	Her father Capt. Nathan Low's side: the Low male line, the Essex County wives' lines, and the Thompson ancestry of Rebecca (Thompson) Low. 1-2 Oct 2026. Its Low male-line parts are replaced by Low_Master_Research.md; it stays the full treatment of the wives' lines (Boreman, Lamb, Wise, Tompson, Varney, Proctor, Cogswell, Lord, Fuller, Emerson, and the Thompson, Foster and Kneeland lines).
Tyler_Ginn_Line_Research.md	Her mother Hannah Read Tyler's side: Tyler, Read and allied lines, and the Ginn side.

Freeman and Ellis (freeman-ellis/)

File	What it is
Freeman_Ellis_Master_Family_Tree.md	Who is who, from Edmund Freeman of Pulborough to Nancy (Ellis) Holbrook.
Freeman_Ellis_Line_Research.md	Evidence and reasoning, five research passes.
Freeman_Ellis_Anecdotes.md	Incidents and records in their own words, each with an evidence tier.

Warren and Bartlett (warren/)

File	What it is
Warren_Line_Research.md	Richard Warren (Mayflower) down to Phebe (Stephens) Ellis; checks Mollie Pfeiffer's typescript claim by claim.

Collins and Reed (collins-reed/)

File	What it is
Collins_Reed_Master_Family_Tree.md	Who is who. Revised 27 Sep 2026 for the Reed findings.
meredith_collins_research.md	Main research file, Colonial Virginia to the American West.
Meredith_Collins_Origin_Line_Addendum.md	The colonial origin of the Collins line (Thomas Collins "Molata", Riddle, Gibson).
Reed_Family_Investigation_Addendum.md	James Reed, his parents and children; the Clay vs. Morgan readings.
Molata-Addendum-Laws-Riddle-Bruner.md	Local-context dossier: the laws, William Riddle, Capt. Eli Bruner, Dick Holbrook's shooting.

Bruner (bruner/)

File	What it is
bruner_family_research.md	Eli Woodruff Bruner and Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Collins, and the Bruner family's Indiana origins.
adam-bruner-sources.md	Adam Bruner and Elizabeth Rice: the 1917 Illinois burial list and the family account of 1977 (13 Oct 2026).

Ellingwood (ellingwood/)

File	What it is
Ellingwood_Master_Family_Tree.md	Who is who, from Ralph Ellingwood of the Truelove (1635) to Jordan, with how each parent-child step is supported. First edition, 4 Oct 2026.
Ellingwood_Master_Research.md	Evidence and reasoning, one section per generation, with the sources and the records still to obtain. First edition, 4 Oct 2026.
ellingwood-ch2-research.md	Chapter Two research file, 1674-1692 (Essex Quarterly Court records).
Ellingwood_Kin_Connections.md	Notable connections on the Ellingwood line: Martha Rowlandson's parents and her uncle Rev. Joseph Rowlandson (Mary Rowlandson an aunt by marriage); Robert Hitchborne as Paul Revere's cousin; famous descendants of the Ellinwoods (the Hichborns, the Abbot brothers, Leonard Ellinwood and others); new material on Finley. For Notable connections, 7 Oct 2026. Its Rowlandson finding replaces the Family Tree file's "no connection found" (Part Eight) and the Chapter Two note.
Ellingwood_Wives_Families.md	The families of the wives on Dick's line: the Pattullos (Mary Pattullo a sister of Duff Pattullo's father, proven), the Shorts, the Elliotts, Adamses and Deyoes (probably the New Paltz Huguenots), and the Rices and Sylvesters of Maine; sixteen conflicts with the pages. For Notable connections, 7 Oct 2026.
Ellingwood_Woodbury_Rand.md	The Woodbury, Rand-Cheever-Ivory and Slater lines behind the Ellingwoods: Sarah Woodbury from John Woodbury, the Old Planter of Salem; Susanna Rand's Lynn Rands and Ivorys; the Ezekiel Cheever question (no descent); corrections to the tree's held generations; famous kin (Levi Woodbury, Charles G. Dawes, Henry Adams, Phillips Brooks, Timothy Pickering and others). For Notable connections, 7 Oct 2026.
Ellingwood_Cape_Cod.md	Hope Holdershaw's and Hannah Brown's Cape Cod ancestry: Hope's mother Sarah Cole descends from Nathaniel Bassett, whose daughter Mary is the Holbrooks' ancestor, so Dick and Frances were seventh cousins once removed (probable); the tree's Shaw-Knowles line for John Holdershaw is very probably wrong; the Coles, Nickersons and Snows. For Notable connections, 7 Oct 2026.
Deyo_Hopkins_Kin.md	The famous kin through the New Paltz Deyos checked step by step (Chambers, Fitch, LeFevre and A. B. Hasbrouck probable; Snyder possible; the Uptons held), and Stephen Hopkins's famous descendants through Constance and Giles (Robert Treat Paine probable; Knowles, Rockwell, Bush, Harry Hopkins, Janney, Swift possible). 9 Oct 2026.
Short_Pattullo_Comparison.md	Ruth Short's ancestry in the archive, the Ancestry tree, WikiTree and the FamilySearch tree, compared: where they agree, two FamilySearch errors, the twenty-four people FamilySearch adds (Mary Jeffrey's parents William Jeffrey and Mary Lyall probable; Jane Robson's parents possible; the deeper Jeffrey generations not usable), new Pattullo indexes (Halkett's 1809 baptism naming Alexander and Jean; their 1806 marriage at Inveresk), and the records that would prove each step. Builds on Ellingwood_Wives_Families.md. 10 Oct 2026; its READ THIS FIRST block has the afternoon's records (Ruth's birth, her parents' marriage, the gravestones), which settle John Short's and Alexander Pattullo's birthplaces and correct Jean Watson's.
Ruth_Short_Descendants.md	Ruth (Short) Ellingwood's descendants through her four daughters: the Dorman, Lee, Smith and Belmondo families from their obituaries (the Lees down to the great-grandchildren), how each was tied to the family, the records still to fetch (among them those for Doug Smith's Canadian citizenship by descent) and the searches that came up empty. 11 Oct 2026.
Pattullo_Bloody_Sunday_1938.md	The working notes behind the thread on Duff Pattullo (first opened on Bloody Sunday, 1938): what was read on the relief camps, the 1938 relief money and rules, the Vancouver sit-down, Pattullo's temperament, his forest policy and the fisheries, which quotations were checked against the originals, and where the sources disagree. 10 Oct 2026. The argument is in Duff Pattullo, 22nd Premier of British Columbia: what did he get right, and what did he get wrong?.
Pattullo_Premiership_2026.md	The notes for the thread's widening into a retrospective of Duff Pattullo's career (12 Oct 2026): the Lands years (soldier settlement, the South Okanagan, Sumas, the forests), opposition and the 1933 platform, the money, the Pattullo Bridge, the forestry camps, the parks and the north, Rowell-Sirois and the fall of 1941, with how each source was seen. The argument is in Duff Pattullo, 22nd Premier of British Columbia: what did he get right, and what did he get wrong?.

The Ellingwood chapters themselves are in books/ellingwood/.

Paulson (paulson/)

File	What it is
anna-paulson-swedish-origins.md	Anna Mary (Paulson) Flynn's Swedish origins: an open case. What is known, the two families wrongly attached to her (Malmö, Riseberga), the searches done, and where to look next. 5 Oct 2026.

Dwyer (dwyer/)

File	What it is
Dwyer_Master_Research.md	Jerome Dwyer back through Edwin, Cornelius, and John Dwyer and Mary Ryan, with the Tisdell, Connelly, Flynn, Paulson and Owens families. First edition, 5 Oct 2026.
Flynns_of_Emily_Township.md	John Flynn and Ann Murray of Emily Township, Ontario: the Peter Robinson land and census records that make John very probably the John Flyn of the Brunswick (1825); their household in 1851 and 1861; no famous kin found. For Notable connections, 6 Oct 2026. Adds to the master file; doesn't replace it.
Dwyer_Tisdell_Connections.md	Notable connections on the Dwyer and Tisdell side: Capt. Edgar J. Boudinot Jr., USN (a grandson of Cornelius and Martha Dwyer); the 1916 Renville County history's volume I on Henry and Elizabeth Tisdell; the Edwin C. Dwyer Co. in the trade press and directories; context for John Dwyer's moves; conflicts to settle. For Notable connections, 6 Oct 2026. Adds to the master file; doesn't replace it.
Flynn_Family_Connections.md	Notable connections on the Flynn side in the U.S.: James Murray Flynn as "Justice Flynn" of St. Joseph, his pension bills and 1918 campaign; Col. Richard T. Flynn (Winifred's brother) from the 140th Infantry to his retirement in 1957; Sister Mary Losa; namesakes ruled out (Gillian Flynn among them). For Notable connections, 6 Oct 2026. Adds to the master file; doesn't replace it.

Hatten (hatten/)

File	What it is
Kuchenmeister_Panian_Haberkorn.md	Margaret (Kuchenmeister) Hatten's ancestry: the 1922 Barron County biographies, the Delano paper, the Stari trg ob Kolpi registers (the Panian, Mihelič and Schneller generations proven), the Haberkorns of Sherrill and their house on the National Register; George Panian, a founder of Almena; Almena and Theodore Hamm; no famous kin found. For Notable connections, 7 Oct 2026.
Browne_Chapin_Cumins.md	Henrietta (Browne) Hatten's ancestry as the tree gives it: Edward Browne and Ella Persis Chapin, whom two family genealogies give no children (the link to Henrietta is in doubt); Ella's well-sourced ancestry, the Chapins, Braces, Cumins, Converses, Walbridges and Pynchons; notable ancestors and famous kin (J. P. Morgan, Taft, Cleveland, Stowe, Eliot and others), held until Henrietta's parentage is settled. For Notable connections, 7 Oct 2026.
Hatten_Philbrick_Marvin.md	The Hatten surname line: Patricia's father and grandmother proven by the 1950 census; the Hattens of Bath County, Virginia, and Jackson County, Ohio; Ralph Wanless, blacksmith and Revolutionary scout; the Philbricks; Ruth Marvin's probable descent from the Lyme Marvins, the Mathers, the Noyeses and Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower, and through Katherine Wise from Joseph Wise of Roxbury, also Frances's ancestor; famous kin (the Mathers, the Marvins, Stephen Tyng Mather). Two links are weak: Ralph A. Hatten's father (possible) and Ruth Marvin's (probable). For Notable connections, 8 Oct 2026.
Allee_Sawdy_Soule.md	Sarah Edith (Allee) Hatten's ancestry: the archive's "William Allee" is really Walter Allee of Ashtabula County, Ohio (another man's dates and parents were attached); Sybil (Sawdy) Allee, who shot a bear; Albert Allee of Long Prairie; a possible Soule descent (George Soule of the Mayflower, Obadiah Holmes, Richard Borden) and its famous kin (Lincoln, the Bordens, Silas Soule, the Perrys), held because the Sawdy-Soule link is contradicted by the Mayflower Society's volume. For Notable connections, 8 Oct 2026.

McMillan and Frost (mcmillan/)

File	What it is
McMillan_Frost_Master_Research.md	Lucile McMillan's ancestry: the McMillans of Lochaber, Nova Scotia, and the Frosts of Oyster Bay, with the Adams, Humphrey, Bell and Fairchild families. First edition, 5 Oct 2026.
McMillan_Humphrey_Bell_Connections.md	Notable connections on Lucile McMillan's father's side: the MacDougalls of Glen Urquhart (Penuel's father the bard of "Bràigh Rùsgaich"); the Humphreys of Ashford (not Michael Humphrey's family); the Enoses of Union and, behind them, James Eno the Windsor barber, John Bissell of the ferry and Thomas Holcombe; the 1827 Bell-Giraud marriage; famous kin (Gifford Pinchot, Oliver Ellsworth, Gen. Roger Enos, the Bissells, Gen. Thomas Holcomb); 19 new pages. For Notable connections, 8 Oct 2026. Adds to the master file; corrects it on the Humphreys and on "Abigail Chaffe".
Frost_Underhill_Bowne_Feake.md	Notable connections on the Frost side: the Long Island Quaker families of Oyster Bay (Frost, Wright, Prior, Bowne, Feake, Cock, Underhill, Dickinson, Townsend), with Elizabeth Fones and the Winthrops behind Hannah Feake; John Bowne and the Flushing Remonstrance; Capt. John Underhill (only possible); famous kin (the Winthrops, the Bownes, Robert Feke, Myron C. Taylor). For Notable connections, 8 Oct 2026. Tests the master file's compiled claims and corrects several Quaker dates.
Fairchild_Raymond_Woodworth.md	Notable connections on the Fairchild side: Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett and (possibly) the Norwalk and Stratford Fairchilds above him, the Raymonds, Whitneys and Wheelers; the Woodworths of Scituate and Lebanon, the Stockbridges and the 1676 Scituate garrison; the Clawsons; famous kin (Samuel Woodworth, Lucius Fairchild, the Oberlin Fairchilds, David Fairchild, Henry J. Raymond, the Perry commodores). For Notable connections, 8 Oct 2026. Everything above Jonathan rests on a possible link (his gravestone age).

King Philip's War (king-philips-war/)

Research across every line at once: what part each ancestor alive in 1675-1678 played in King Philip's War, and where their paths crossed. The argument is in What part did the family play in King Philip's War, 1675-1678?. The work was done region by region on 12 Oct 2026, each region's notes read in the printed records (Bodge's transcripts of the Massachusetts Archives and Treasurer Hull's journal, the Plymouth, Massachusetts and Connecticut colony records, Hubbard, Mather, Church, Gookin, the town histories), with page images checked where a list's columns or dates mattered. Tiers and confidence as elsewhere.

File	What it is
King_Philips_War_Register.md	The register: every ancestor and near relative found in the war, with their line, their part, the evidence and how sure it is; the crossings; the corrections the research made to the pages; the questions left for a ruling. Start here.
Context_and_Native_Side.md	The frame: a dated chronology, June 1675 to April 1678, with the sources' casualty figures; the causes and the Native side (Metacom's grievances, the Atherton mortgage, the praying towns, James Printer); what happened to the defeated (captives sold, children bound, conquest lands, the Narragansett townships); the narrators and printers; the historians since; the family's own dealings with Native people.
Plymouth_Colony.md	Plymouth Colony, Cape Cod and the Rhode Island border: Pierce's Fight, Scituate, Plymouth, Middleborough and Church's company, Sandwich, Yarmouth and Eastham, Rehoboth and Swansea.
Massachusetts_Bay.md	Weymouth, Dorchester, Roxbury, Boston, Woburn, Concord and the Nipmuc country (Mendon, Brookfield, Lancaster, Medfield, Sudbury): Capt. John Holbrook's company, the Fosters, the Mathers and Athertons, Capt. Joseph Sill.
Essex_and_the_East.md	Essex County (Beverly, Lynn, Ipswich, Rowley, Gloucester, Salisbury) and the Eastern war to 1678: Bloody Brook, the Narragansett campaign, Brocklebank's company, Wells and Sheepscot.
Connecticut_and_Long_Island.md	The Connecticut valley (Springfield, Hadley, Northampton, the Falls Fight), the Colony of Connecticut (Windsor, Lyme, New London) and Long Island and New Paltz.

The Holbrook-Low Colonial Tree (colonial-tree/)

The interactive tree on the Projects page (trees/holbrook-low-colonial-tree.html) was built from the files above and went further in places (FamilySearch images, Sarah Chittenden's ancestry, life details for most colonial ancestors). Its person-by-person content was moved into people/ and sources/ in October 2026. These files keep the rest of it, as written, so the tree page can be retired without losing anything. The stories (Small world) and the notable ancestors and famous kin (Notable connections) have their own pages under Family line research, from connections/, and each research case's conclusion is under the people's open questions.

File	What it is
research-cases.md	Eight open research questions, each with the trail of findings, the reasoning, where it stands and the next steps (Richard Warren's origin, the English Holbrooks, the two weakest New England Holbrook steps, Sally Ginn's father, Mary Foster's parents, Thomas Low's English origin, Mercy (Nye?) Ellis, the McMillan line).
stories.md	Twenty-one short accounts that run across several ancestors.
notable-ancestors.md	Short life stories of forty ancestors whose lives stand out.
famous-kin.md	Famous people who share an ancestor with the family, and how the lines meet. Their side is compiled.
mollie-claims.md	The tree's summary of fifty-eight claims in Mollie's typescript, with what the records say. The full review is Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer's typescript: a claim-by-claim review.

The Ancestry tree (gedcom/)

File	What it is
ellingwood-family-tree-2026-10-04.ged	The family's Ancestry tree, exported 4 Oct 2026 (652 people). Holds living people: never publish it.
report-ellingwood-mcmillan.md	Round one of comparing it with the archive: the Ellingwood and McMillan sides, what was imported and what is held.
report-dwyer-hatten.md	Round two: the mother's side (Dwyer, Flynn, Hatten, Kuchenmeister) imported; the Holbrook side compared.
report-siblings.md	Round three: brothers and sisters of the direct line; everyone else in the file accounted for.
ancestry-lookups.md	Records to look up on Ancestry and FamilySearch, the ones found, and the searches that came up empty, including what the Notable connections research couldn't reach.

Archive (archive/)

Older versions kept for reference. Don't cite these; use the current files above.

File	Replaced by
meredith_collins_research-2026-09-before-update.md	Collins-Reed Family Research: From Colonial Virginia to the American West
Collins_Reed_Master_Family_Tree-2026-09-23.md	Collins-Reed Master Family Tree (27 Sep)

Mentioned in these files but not here

• REED_FAMILY.pdf: Paul Heinegg's published research on free African American families of colonial Virginia and North Carolina. Not ours, so not kept here; cited as a compiled source.
• Holbrook-Records-Order-List.md: a list of records considered for ordering. None ordered yet.
• Holbrook_New_England_Life_Details.md: life details for the New England Holbrooks, cited by the colonial tree's research cases. Its content reached the tree, and from there the people pages; the file itself is not here.
• Collins_Reed_Family_History.md: not yet located.

Records requested

• Draper Society: emailed by Jordan, October 2026, asking for information. No reply yet.