I am hoping that someone on the list might be able to provide me with some information. I have Carl Boyer's book 'How To Publish and Market Your Genealogy' in front of me. In this book he mentions a will of a Thomas Bowen. He writes that Obadiah Bowen was the executorwith the following ( MD, 16:128). Additionally, after Obadiah's name there are found the following (MD, 18:204-209) The MD stands for Mayflower Descendant but am unsure of the other. I assume that they are vol. and a page numbers. My question is....would any one have knowledge of a Bowen being included as a Mayflower descendant? Obadiah Bowen married (per Boyer) Mary Clifton or Chilton or Titus...he is not specific as to which. I believe that I read elsewhere that Obadiah married an Elizabeth Clifton. Perhaps this was from a Clifton genealogy. Thomas Bowen, brother to Obadiah, married Elizabeth, last name unknown, who then remarried to Rev. Samuel Fuller. It is unclear to me how either of these two brothers connect to a Mayflower line. Any thoughts would be most appreciated. Susan

Hi there, Susan. Have no idea about Obadiah Bowen and Elizabeth Clifton, but one of my Brewster lines does includes Cliftons. I have my membership thru another Brewster line but this one is proven/used by a cousin. Anyway, if you worked down from Savory Clifton (sometimes written Claften, Clasen, Clafen) you might find thru his son Benjamin where there is an Elizabeth Clifton. Savory Clifton (c1655-aft 1730) and Dorothy Burge/Burgess (1670-c1725-7) had 12 children: Benjamin (1690-1730 Rochester MA) m. Sarah Davis 1693/4-aft1731), had 4 children. The rest of Savory and Dorothy's children were all girls, including my ancestor Jane Clifton. One other son, Savory, had no further information on, so isn't shown with a marriage and children like all the others in the family. They were quite well documented, so who knows where he went or if he died after leaving home. They were Quakers and if he'd died young, it should be recorded along with all the other family dates. Maybe someone else has more on the Clifton family, I haven't worked on it except for my direct line. Good luck! Patti Bowerman Jobe William Brewster/Mary ? Patience Brewster/Thomas Prence Rebecca Prence/Edmund Freeman Patience Freeman/Joseph Burge Dorothy Burge/Savory Clifton Jane Clifton/Thomas Bowerman etc....down to me. I am hoping that someone on the list might be able to provide me with some information. I have Carl Boyer's book 'How To Publish and Market Your Genealogy' in front of me. In this book he mentions a will of a Thomas Bowen. He writes that Obadiah Bowen was the executorwith the following ( MD, 16:128). Additionally, after Obadiah's name there are found the following (MD, 18:204-209) The MD stands for Mayflower Descendant but am unsure of the other. I assume that they are vol. and a page numbers. My question is....would any one have knowledge of a Bowen being included as a Mayflower descendant? Obadiah Bowen married (per Boyer) Mary Clifton or Chilton or Titus...he is not specific as to which. I believe that I read elsewhere that Obadiah married an Elizabeth Clifton. Perhaps this was from a Clifton genealogy. Thomas Bowen, brother to Obadiah, married Elizabeth, last name unknown, who then remarried to Rev. Samuel Fuller. It is unclear to me how either of these two brothers connect to a Mayflower line. Any thoughts would be most appreciated. Susan

At 08:00 PM 9/28/2006, Susan Slater wrote: >He writes that Obadiah >Bowen was the executorwith the following ( MD, 16:128). > >Additionally, after Obadiah's name there are found the following (MD, >18:204-209) > >The MD stands for Mayflower Descendant but am unsure of the other. I >assume that they are vol. and a page numbers. They are. >My question is....would any one have knowledge of a Bowen being >included as a Mayflower descendant? Just because information about a person is found in Mayflower Descendant that does not mean that the person is a Mayflower Descendant. Throughout its history one of MDs most valued contributions to genealogical research has been its publication of transcriptions of, and abstracts from, a variety of contemporary records. Many of the people named in those records, perhaps most of them, are not Mayflower descendants. Many of those records have never been published elsewhere. Others were published by MD in a format which is preferable to other publications of those same records. Vital records from Massachusetts town record books are published in MD as literal transcriptions, rather than the alphabetized abstracts published in the Tan Books (a.k.a the "Official Series"). Town Clerks often recorded an entire family as one unit, reserving space in the Town Book for that family when the first child was born, and successively adding later children. In a literal transcription one may find the entire family recorded together, including the deaths of children who died young, and perhaps even the deaths of the parents. For an example of such a record see: http://www.rootsweb.com/~mabridge/md/03142.html and the following page, which contain the births of the ten children of Joseph and Hannah (Dunham) Alden of Bridgewater, the early deaths of three of those children, and the deaths of both parents. Literal transcriptions are generally preferred by the most experienced researchers, which is why one finds, say, the citation of a vital record in a scholarly journal referring to MD, rather than that same record as published in a Tan Book. MD, 16:128 contains the 1663 will of Thomas Bowen of New London, but then living in Rehoboth, abstracted but with essential passages quoted in full. It was published as part of the journal's series of transcriptions and abstracts of Plymouth Colony wills and inventories. MD, 18:204-209 contains the abstracted 1708+ probate file of Obadiah Bowen of Swansea, including will, inventory, and all other documents in the file. The 1730+ probate file of Thomas Bowen of Swansea follows immediately, on pages 210-211. Copies of those pages are coming to you off-list. Dale H. Cook; Member, NEHGS and MA Society of Mayflower Descendants; Plymouth Co. MA Coordinator for the USGenWeb Project http://members.cox.net/plymouthcolony/index.shtml