Abbe-Ashman

Two Colonies and Pioneering Families of North America

The past is filled with captivating accounts of brave immigrants; those who worked the land, and landed gentry descended from royalty. Their stories are quietly heroic, with a few scoundrels for good measure. Some came seeking religious and civil freedom, others pursued opportunity, and the chance to improve their economic circumstances.

Abbe-Ashman:  Two Colonies and Pioneering Families of North America is both the author’s genealogy and family history.  Beginning in 1475 England, the genealogical journey engages readers in the social-political structures which drove the family to brave life in the new world. English settlers and Native Americans in the New England territories first attempted a mutual relationship based on trade, but soon disease, the rapid grown of the English colonies and their need for more land, led to conflict and eventually, war. The history of these four generations is both complicated and fascinating and must be remembered.

For this Volume, she uses the 1916 Abbe-Abbey Genealogy, In Memory of John Abbe and his Descendants as a starting point. Volume One begins with John Abbe’s beginnings in England and offers extensive and current research. Then follow four chapters each covering a generation of author’s Abbe-Abbey ancestors in colonial America up to the American Revolution. Included are genealogies and stories of Allied families – the ancestry of the women who married these Abbe-Abbey men.

Allied families include:  Cooper/Couper, Harberd; Fairfield, Knight, Skepper/Skipper, Fisher; Pease, Goodale/Goodell, Adams, Newton, Vassall, King(e), Lorran; Terry, Lobdell, Helme, Eldred, Rouse, Morgan, Gilbert. These families are traced back in time from the wives of the Abbe-Abbey men, to their own beginnings in England. If you are a serious, or hobby genealogist, and researching any of these lines, this volume could provide lineage data, vital statistics information and stories of these ancestors.

Extensive references have been given, countless books have been consulted in libraries from the author’s home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico to the New England Historical and Genealogical Society in Boston, libraries in Wenham, Massachusetts and Enfield, Connecticut. Numerous web-sites have been searched, and sources confirmed (or noted otherwise), primarily AmericanAncestors.org, Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

The author writes, “I walked through rain-soaked cemeteries and historic homes that are centuries old and lovingly preserved for posterity. I loved every minute of it.” Various museums, and historical societies were also visited, and photos taken which are found within these pages. It was important to ‘walk the land.’

Sections titled: History and Inventions and The Lives and Role of Women are included for each generation, as well as stories from the author’s travels and research.  Images, charts and photographs enhance each section. These features serve, as one “beta” reader commented, “to turn dry lists of ‘begats’ into compelling stories of real people who lived real lives, leaving England behind and forging a new home in a new land.

Volume Two will follow in 2022, featuring Peter Abbey and Hannah Alden Abbey; Volume Three will take the Abbey family to New York State, the settlement of Cleveland, Ohio and eventually to the American West and around the globe.  Volume Four will cover the author’s Ashman ancestors, from England and Ireland, then sailing from New York in 1851, to become a pioneer family of California.

Abbe-Ashman: Two Colonies and Pioneering Families of North America is available on Amazon.