On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 00:06:30 EST, you wrote: >I notice in this message you have the line for Clara Barton. >The Aunts always said she was a cousin, but never wrote down how. Do you have >that info on her so that you could send it to me?? I haven't had a chance to >look for it yet, as I am trying to piece together my husband's French Canadian >background. There must be a lateral to my Rufus family somehow. Would be >delighted to know how. Betsey, My wife's family also had the idea that Clara Barton was a distant cousin. I spent several years trying to prove that connection. Last year I finally connected my wife back to Rufus Barton (1606-1648) of Warwick, RI. If there is a connection with Clara Barton, it would be only if her ancestor Edward and Rufus Barton were related in a previous generation. In my online database at http://www.angelfire.com/tx/royc I have indicated that Edward's father is Marmaduke Barton and that Marmaduke and Rufus are brothers. Both of these are unproven, but it allows me to put them all in one connected database. I am fairly sure that Rufus had a brother Roger and they were both in Manhatten as early as 1642 when Rufus was driven out by the Duch because of his Quaker orientation and removed to Rhode Island. Here is a little authoritative information on Rufus and Roger Barton: The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, July 1928, page 239 contains an article entitled The Descendants of Solomon Barton of Duchess County, New York, and Monkton, Vermont. It starts out: Ancestry: It has been stated that the original ancestor in America of Solomon Barton was Edward Barton, a sea-captain, who brought his family from England and settled in Barbadoes Island. No printed record of this has been located, although it is said to exist in the Barbadoes. The same uncertain source is responsible for the statement that two sons of Edward, namely Roger and Rufus came to the Island of Manhattan about 1641 from Barbadoes. Rufus, very shortly afterwards went into the English colony at Providence, R. I., and was the founder of the Barton family of that Section. Roger settled amongst the Dutch and in August, 1642, leased land of the Reverend Everardus Bogardus, second husband of Anneke Jans, on Manhattan. However, in the July 1951 edition of The American Genealogist, page 136, George E. McCracken of Drake University clearly proves it was Rufus Barton, not Roger, who signed the lease. McCraken goes on to indicate Rufus was still on friendly terms with the Dutch in 1642 and he may have stayed out with his lease and not have migrated until 1646. Roy Leggitt, full-time RVer spending a week dry-camping in the desert at Quartzsite, Arizona.