Hello, When I was looking for which town Thomas DITSON died in ~1800 a few years ago, I wrote to the Ashby Historical Society. A volunteer wrote back and said they had never seen the DITSON name. She also said that they are a very small town and Society with not very many records. She said that the Town of Ashburnham kept much better records than they did, so I should write to them. (I don't think I ever did.) This morning I was trying to find the "Simon CROSBY of Billerica" book on-line, and, instead, I found the "history of Ashburnham" at Google / Books. And I see it has a Genealogy section, and it mentions Simon CROSBY. I've never seen this book, so I'll have to browse the on-line version of it. http://books.google.com/books?id=JQs1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA657&lpg=PA657&dq='Simon+Crosby+of+Billerica%22&source=bl&ots=0h0MYHDbbK&sig=QhRHXFEUbdvctG0JehRrl97m4hU&hl=en&ei=sjnsSYT_Bs2ktwflr8iRBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashburnham,_Massachusetts http://www.ashburnham-ma.gov/Pages/index http://www.ashburnhamhs.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashby,_Massachusetts http://www.ci.ashby.ma.us/ http://nashobavalleyartsandculture.pbwiki.com/Ashby-Historical-Society FYI: The "Simon CROSBY" book is available on-line at HeritageQuest. I didn't see it at Google/Books, but I did find another book about descendants of Simon of Billerica - who went to Maine. Just an FYI for you. Betty (near Lowell, MA) FYI: In another month or so it will be a good time to visit "Ashby State Park." It's official name is: "Willard Brook State Forest" which sits in both Ashby and Townsend, MA. Nice place to while away an afternoon ! http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/northeast/wilb.htm (I found out recently that, if you put a page from a Google/Book into "plain text," you can highlight it and copy it.)