[Sorry for the repeat. One typo and one omission caught too late.] At 10:38 PM 3/26/98 -0500, you wrote: >I am a descendant of Robert and Ann (---) Sanford of Hartford, CT. Robert > ... these include an amazing group of gentry in Cheshire, Shropshire >and Essex. I had never before seen any information on Robert's parentage, and Dave, Carlton Sanford had research done by Charles A. Hoppin (completed in Jan, 1910) on his ancestor Thomas Sanford, b. 1607/8 in Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex, England. The resulting 39 page article, "Medieval Origin of the Sanfords," serves as the cornerstone of his two volume work, "Thomas Sanford, The Emigrant to New England, etc." Among the things that are documented is the fact that Thomas, Andrew and Robert (at least) were brothers, and that the farthest one can follow their ancestors is to their Great Grandfather, Richard Sanford, d. 16 Nov 1591, Stanstead Mountfitchet, Essex, England. It sounds as though you have been exposed to a more elaborate lineage -- that is a myth. It had already been circulated when the research noted above was conducted, and is convincingly dismissed. The basic information from Carlton's work may be found at the site below. A more complete treatment will (eventually) be completed at my new site: <http://www.rootsweb.com/~softbear/>. (This is NOT an official announcement -- I don't have my surname links there yet. ;-) Be careful out there! Even with the best of intentions, errors are made. There are some issues with my 'old' site that I hope to have cleaned up before it is posted to the new one, but the cleanup and source entries are tedious: I'm sure I will have a whole new crop of errors to tackle by the time I get through it once. Feel free to browse, and don't hesitate to let me know what you think. Always good to meet another Cousin! Dave Dickman mailto:[email protected] http://www.netcom.com/~softbear/my_pages.html