Your e-mail regarding the IGI equating the Middlesex Co., NJ, John French with John b 1651, son of Thomas and Sarah of Nether Heyford, was forwarded to me by a fellow NJ French researcher. There is no proof connecting these 2 lines - in fact, evidence is to the contrary. As a long time NJ French family researcher and descendant of John French, brick mason of Woodbridge, I am on a campaign to keep separate the W. Jersey line of Thomas French of Nether Heyford from that of the E. Jersey line of John French who first appears in Woodbridge, Middlesex Co., on 20 August 1669 when the Woodbridge Town meeting granted him a 10 acre house lot and 5 acres of meadow, requiring that "he is bound here to live and to furnish the inhabitants bricks before strangers." The W. Jersey line (the "Nether Heyford" family) does not appear in New Jersey until 1680, when they came up the Delaware River to Burlington between Philadelphia and Trenton some 50 miles overland from Woodbridge (an unfriendly wilderness at that time). Woodbridge is much more distant by boat. The Nether Heyford family did have a son, John born 1651, who is listed by many as the same as John, brick mason, of Woodbridge. But, at age 17 or 18 in 1669, he was too young to have been granted land. I wish the connection would prove out because it would provide a great extension to my family line. But for the above reasons and more, I have to reject the connection. Barring solid yDNA matches (only mis-matches so far), those of us from the Woodbridge French line (John "Jr." and Richard - my line, the 2 sons of John, brick mason) will have to keep struggling with the origin of our family before Woodbridge. The early church records for the Woodbridge line are Presbyterian, none were Quaker. The next few generations of the Woodbridge lines mostly stayed in Middlesex, Essex/Union, and Morris Cos. of NJ or migrated to Steuben, Ontario/Yates, and Wyoming Cos. of NY. I have traced some 2000 descendants of a son of Richard and a fellow researcher a like number from a son of "John Jr." Jim Gunderson -----Original Message----- From: J. Michael Frost [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 2:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [FRENCH-L] John FRENCH, died in 1713 at Woodbridge, Middlesex County, NJ According to the IGI, the John FRENCH who was in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, NJ as early as 1670, and who died there in 1713, was the same person as the John FRENCH who was the son of Thomas and Sara FRENCH, and who was born in 1651 in Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire, England. Is the IGI correct? If so, what is the proof of this relationship?