I recommend anyone with early Quaker ancestry search the Digital Quaker Collection at www.Earlham.edu. DQC is a digital library containing full text and page images of over 500 individual Quaker works from the 17th and 18th centuries. The link is http://esr.earlham.edu/dqc/ but I find the fastest way to find it again is to search on the term "digital quaker" in Google.com. Also, for me today the searchs are slow and timing out. Sending this email will probably compound that problem if it is due to a busy server or limited number of sessions allowed, so try later if you have problems accessing this. The search engine also gets confusing results from full names unless you use quotes, so a search on John Rumford may find every reference to a John in the book. I recommend using surnames only then skimming the results and refining your searches. Also look for common variations on spelling and search on those too. For more on searching and using the collection see: http://esr.earlham.edu/dqc/instruct.html. It's a treasure chest of reference books. Searching the Digital Quaker for Rumford references finds a citation in the book "Collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers (Volume 1)" There are two volumes of detailed accounts of harrasment of Quakers, by region, in the 1600s. It's an incredible resource. The way the site works you can't directly link to a book or page from one. It can be difficult to match up the names in this book to ancestral immigrants conclusively, but it's still a great source of info on possible leads to where families migrated from. It also covers early New England and Quaker stories just about anywhere they were found or known to be harrassed. The accounts of suffering, imprisonment and deaths are quite amazing in putting a perspective on why our Quaker ancestors sought refuge in Pennsylvania. They show the scope, quantity and details of these sufferings in a way no other history book I've seen has covered - women imprisoned with children, stonings, deaths in prison, and much more. Months in prison for putting a church bell on a building. To say the Quakers were treated harshly is an understatement. Also there are many accounts of families surnames being sent off to Jamaica and Barbadoes. On the same page as a John Rumford's imprisonment (below) are accounts in the 1660s such as "...Thomas Yoole and Roger Hudson were sentenced to be transported to Barbadoes." "...Edward Lampson of Bishops-Aukland, William Heavyside, Anthony Hodgson, and Emanuel Grice, were sentenced for Transportation to Barbadoes. "...Richard Errington and John Ushaw received Sentence of Banishment to Barbadoes, and to continue in the House of Correction till an Opportunity of shipping them. During their close Confinement Richard Errington was taken sick, and his Friends were denied the Favour of removing him, so that the poor Man, after about two and twenty Months close Restraint, died a Prisoner for worshipping God according to his Conscience. John Ushaw was detained in Prison about three Years, probably till the Expiration of that Act." The John Rumford search finds this: CHAP. XIII. DURHAM and NORTHUMBERLAND. "On the 3d of November, Ellinor Grainger, Elizabeth Wilson, Anne Card, William Hewett, William Heron, John Rumford, Henry Middleton, and William Hodgson, taken at a Meeting the Day before, were by the Justices, Bassire and Jenkins, committed to the House of Correction in Durham to be kept to hard Labour, and were detained there about ten Weeks, till the Sessions, at which they were dismist with Threats, and charged to come at no more Conventicles. George Swallow was also imprisoned about the same Time. There were also about that Time in Prison, Lionel Johnson, Isaac Robinson, Samuel Freeman, Robert Askew, and Philip Simson." There is also a Thomas Rumford referenced in some accounts there too.

<blush> Whoops, posted that to the wrong list, though the family does have some interesting Chester ties. The recommendations on The Digital Quaker Collection are probably worth sharing anyway, even though I think I have suggested this before.