A Female Path to New Revolutionary War Ancestors

 

 My favorite history era has always been the Revolutionary War time period and I’ve always been curious about life in that time period.  My genealogy journey began with a quest to confirm a family legend of a patriot ancestor.  Little did I ever imagine it would lead to the discoveries I have made.

In 2002, I confirmed two Woodward ancestors who fought in the Revolution.  Although my family tree has grown considerably since then, those two have been my foundations.  

 The grave of Deliverance Woodward, Revolutionary War soldier, in Etna, New Hampshire.

In the years since, I developed a pet peeve about the sometimes sparse information on females and so I try to be diligent in fairly researching the women.  Recently, I began looking closely at my 2nd great-grandmother Charlotte Barney who married Edwin C. Woodward in Castleton, Rutland County, VT in 1839.  Edwin’s grandfather and great-grandfather, Jonathan and Deliverance Woodward, are my two patriot ancestors.  It was while I was digging around in Charlotte’s hints on Ancestry that I found a long BARNEY lineage on her side.  Specifically, the book GENEALOGY OF THE BARNEY FAMILY IN AMERICA, by Eugene Dimon Preston, published in 1990, provided her ancestors back to Edward Barney (1570-1645) in Bradenham, Buckinghamshire, England.   I found the book completely accessible on Family Search through google.  It sounded a bit daunting at first but was easy to download and manipulate after a couple tries;  I would encourage anyone to try this technology. 

 

Title page of the Barney Family genealogy published in 1990.  Note the Family History Library at Salt Lake City stamp in the lower right hand corner of the front page. 

Adding these ancestors to my tree resulted in an overload of confirming hints for each of them, which I’m still carefully evaluating.  Among these Barney ancestors are two more Revolutionary War patriots!  Joseph Barney III, from Bristol County, Massachusetts, and his son Joseph Barney IV, also born in Bristol County and buried in Rutland, VT, are the two new patriots with service in Massachusetts.  These men are Charlotte’s grandfather and great-grandfather. 

 

Grave site of Revolutionary War soldier Joseph Barney IV in Rutland, Vermont.  Note the old stone behind the rather new-looking stone.  Photo courtesy of Jen Snoots of Find A Grave.

Not surprisingly to me, both father and son appear to have very interesting wives, Lois Martin and Experience Simmons, respectively, who also come from well documented families.   They are next on my to-do list for a deep dive. 

As a side note, most of these ancestors are buried in different cemeteries so I have several new-to-me cemeteries to visit now on my next trip to Vermont.  A cautionary tale:  Joseph Barney IV is buried in West Street Cemetery in Rutland and I learned from Find A Grave that the front entrance gate is locked.  After some phone calls, I learned that the Rutland City Clerk’s Office holds the key to the gate and one can make an appointment to pick up the key when visiting.   Cemetery access is something I previously took for granted but will verify in the future for other cemeteries.  I can imagine if your visit was planned for a weekend, you would be out of luck. 

In conclusion, I am grateful and blessed to have found now four Revolutionary War ancestors, starting as I did, hoping to find any glimmer of hope that I had even one, and I realize that the fabulous resources we have now are more to credit than my research skills.  Now I’m curious what these ancestors would say if they could see me piecing together the family history.