Hello from the list manager. With a busy summer behind us and heading into the Holiday season (genealogy season for me :), I thought that I would take this opportunity to see if we can get the list moving again. One quick member statistic -- the list is now up to 128 members as of 8:20 a.m. PST today. With that said, there has been very little activity. This brings me to my request -- suggestion. Since there are so many new members, how about sending a brief bio and who you are looking for (Dutton genealogically speaking)? I'll go first . . . I am Mike Dunton. I have been interested in family history and genealogy since about 1982. In 1996, when the WWW started to hop, I found that there was a lack of information about Duntons (I'll get to my interest in Duttons in a minute). I posted "The Dunton Homesite" [http://www.web-ster.com/miked/] in the end of 1996. Internet genealogy was a new endeavor back then . . . it has been amazing. Anyway, my genealogical quest has been very rewarding. We have been successful in tracing back our main Dunton line to the early 1600s in Massachusetts and many of the maternal and side-branches back several generations. However, the proverbial stone wall has been to find the father and ancestry of Samuel Dunton ca. 1635 of Reading, Mass. Here is where the 'Dutton' interest begins -- While searching the Internet, I ran across a site that listed my ancestor, Samuel Dunton, with his father as being a John Dutton. This John Dutton was reported as having traveled to the colonies with the Winthrop Fleet. I contacted the owner of the site and learned his source. I contacted the source and received a copy of his work. I am yet to find hard documentation, but following is what I have learned. ====================== Samuel (and a Robert) were documented as arriving in the country prior to other 'documented' DUNTONs. In my studies, name changes in records were quite common up into the late 1900s. For that matter, how many times does your own name get misspelled? This was an especially common occurrence before the literacy rate improved. Here is what I know: Source: "The Winthrop Fleet of 1630" - Male Passengers on flyleaf of Winthrop's journal include a "Mr. Dutton". "Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts", Vol. I, by William Richard Cutter, Page 250, states: "The names of Dunton and Dutton have the same origin, and in the same families the two spellings were used even as late as the Revolution. It is presumes therefore that the Dutton and Dunton pioneers at Reading, Massachusetts, may have been sons of John Dutton, viz. 1. Thomas, born 1621. 2. Josiah, lived in Reading, near the Great Pond. 3. Robert, of Reading, came from Lynn; was Selectman of Reading, 1647-49. 4. Samuel, of Reading, born about 1620: descendants spelled the name Dunton; has sons, Thomas, John, Samuel, Nathaniel; died November 7, 1683." "Directory of Ancestral Heads of New England Families, 1620-1700", Frank R. Holmes, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1964, Appendix A, p. 1xxiii states: "DUTTON Place name from a village in Cheshire, England, has several derivations. Dut-ton, Dutch-town. Duton from Du, Cornish British, side and ton, the same as dun, a hill, Dhu-ton, Gaelic and Welsh, the black hill. Hodard was the progenitor of the family in the reign of William the Conqueror. John b. Eng., came to N.E. 1630, became identified with Reading, Massachusetts." [Mike Dunton notes that this must be the source of the statement that James Edwin Dunton made in the first page of his unpublished genealogy. See next note.] According to "The Genealogy of James Edwin Dunton" by the same, he found a reference in "the Portland, Maine library" that led him to state the "Hodard" was the progenitor of the Dunton family during the reign of William the Conqueror in the 11th Century. He went on to state that the New England Historical Society Library coexisted in this library and that he found a village in Cheshire, England called "Duntune" (now Dutton). James Edwin also hypothesized that the name was Dutton prior to being spelled Dunton and that it was "originally spoken in the language of Ancient Gaul". ====================== I hope that you will take the opportunity to send along your "brick wall" to the list, and to actively looks through your notes and see if you might have a clue to any of the requests. This could get busy so please, when replying to messages, do not include a whole copy of the original, and use the SUBJECT line efficiently. For example, if you are replying to this message with information about Samuel Dunton or John Dutton, I would suggest a SUBJECT of something like, "Mike Dunton - re:Samuel Dunton / John Dutton".