I traced, to the best of my knowledge so far, my father's male line. I came up with a few interesting things. Henry Adams (which is also my father's name), b. 1583, lived in Barton St. David, Somerset, Eng. and died in 1646 in Braintree, MA. He had seven children. I'm guessing “St.” means Saint and not street. Barton is a parish of Somerset. I don't have the exact location, but I'm in the neighborhood! It's about 100-150 miles west of London. I'm definitely going to check it out when I'm there. My new avatar is the coat of arms of Somerset.I don't know what old Henry did in England, but Somerset was known for farming, raising or herding goats, and mining. I found some history, although I need to research the accuracy more, and found out Henry wasn't a Puritan, but he was among one of the original colonialists. The Adams's became a prominent Colonial American family, because Henry had many grandchildren. One of them is a patriarch of the Adams presidents. If true, this makes me like a 100th cousin of the presidents. (I really need to check this out more too though). My father's line eventually moved to Bristol, RI just before the Revolutionary War. One of my cousins did a pretty accurate (I assume, because she paid for it) geneology, but she only went as far back as the 1700s. I wanted to take it further to see where my father's line came from. One of my great+ grandfathers, Nudigate Adams, served in the Revolutionary War in Bristol in a fort that still exists. It's at the end of a bike path I ride all the time, so I visit it a lot. And there was a marriage to an Irish girl in the late 1800s, so I do have some Irish in me. I'm definitely going to check this out more because it's really cool. My main concern is the accuracy of where we came from and when we came here.
That is really neat. If you really want to do more research on it all, I bet you could uncover more by looking through library archives. Historical receipts, inventories, and especially lawsuits that mention people you are looking for are only some of the documents which can be very helpful.
Yes, I'd like to find out where the information came from about his not being a Puritan. Maybe there's records in England. The timing of our arrival makes sense, and the Braintree to Bristol conection I'm fairly confident about. Also, going up a few different branches confirmed other details. My cousin did a good job. She has digital files of old birth and/or death certificates.
Geneaology is very cool. My Great-Aunt did a lot of research on our family about 20 years ago to qualify for the Daughters of the American Revolution. She took all her research and turned it inot a book called “They Walked These Streets” that she had self-published and sent to most of the present family members. It's fun to find about our ancestors.