Hi everyone, Is anyone working on the Willards? Reuben Willard married Abigail Nelson, the daughter of Samuel Nelson and his wife Abigail Tasker in or around Barnstead, NH in 1806. He is in Barnstead in the 1810 census. Presumably he died around 1818/19, when Abigail moved lst to Wheelock and then to Sheffield, where she had family, and her youngest child is reported as being born about 1818. Among their children were sons Samuel (b.1808), Paul and Richard. (I'm descended from Samuel who married Margaret Gray (dau. of Henry--and that's another story.) For years I'd assumed that Reuben was the son of another Reuben Willard(I) of the Lancaster, MA area and his wife Catherine Parkhurst. Now it appears that their son Reuben (II) is someone else entirely, and MY Reuben appears to have just magically appeared, married, fathered 6 children and disappeared in the margin of less than 15 years! How he got to Barnstead to meet Abigail is unknown, since there are no Willard families in the general area of Barnstead according to the 1790 & 1810 Census records. I made a trip from California to VT for a family reunion in July, but due to family illnesses got ONLY 1 HOUR of genealogy in, and that in the Cobleigh Library where I saw the Mathewson papers on the Willards. He hadn't been able to trace/place Reuben either. Thanks in advance for any suggestions, comments or ideas. Deborah Deborah J. Hutchins Main Library-Current Periodicals/Microforms University of California, Irvine (949) 824-7056 - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ------------------ attributed to Edmund Burke