I have posted a major update to the Stedman Family Organization web site – www.johnlisle.us – where I publish the current results of my Stedman/Steadman/Steedman/etc. One Name Study. The update includes an update to the web site software (which has been one of the reasons for the delay…), but more interesting to all of you is an update to the tree for the Stedman Families of North America. (I expect the tree for UK Stedman Families to be ready in July.) I have probably added, since the last update, about 15,000 people and updated probably 5,000+.
This update has so many updates, both major re-workings of existing families and whole new families and family lines added, that I cannot begin to mention them all. Best to look for your own family and see what I have published.
I apologize in advance if any updates you have sent are not included in this update. I have received over 700 emails just this year. I know I still have a hundred or so to process and a backlog from last year. I wish there were more hours in the day … :-). But please keep them coming.
I have also added more allied families. These are families that connect in multiple ways into various Stedman lines.
An example is the Hoar family of colonial New England. Not only did they connect to several Stedmans but I had perpetuated an error about the spouse of John Hoar of Concord. Many trees show his wife as Alice Lisle, a daughter of Judge John Lisle, the Regicide. His brother Leonard did marry Bridget Lisle, and I have shown that Alice could not have been Bridget’s sister. As always, this study has focused on Hoar lines that eventually connected to various Stedman descendant lines. This Hoar study will be added to from time to time.
I have also done quite a bit of work on the Hyde/Hide families of New England. And, as always, am looking at connections that have Hall connections.
Further, I have begun researching the Gingrich family of central Pennsylvania. There are Stedman connections to that family. Early Pennsylvania Gingrich data is somewhat confused so it is hard to tell exactly which lines are connected. I have worked with several researchers to better document several lines. Of course, Speaker Gingrich was adopted so he is unlikely to have any blood or marriage connection to any Stedman, but I have included him in his family.
Lastly, I have begun a documentation of the Romney family. Gov. Mitt Romney is a direct descendant of one of the Hall families closely allied with several New England Stedman families, and many of his numerous cousins have married direct Stedman descendants, most notably, descendants of Isaac Stedman of Kent and Boston, through the Stowell family.
Lastly, to demonstrate that I am not working solely on non-Stedman lines, I recently did a lot more work on the Sullivan County, Tennessee, Steadman family. My focus on this family for the near term is to be to document the descendants. Although a lot of new records are available, this is still a family that is very difficult to work, but I have many descendants in my contact list. My colleague in the UK on the Stedman DNA project, Dave Stedman, and I have started to get DNA evidence that strongly suggests that this family are descendants of one of the Stedman families who came from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. Our challenge is to correctly link this family with one of the Harper’s Ferry ancestors and then figure out the lineage back to England where the DNA shows a not too ancient match to the DNA of one of the large Shropshire Stedman families.
–> Please remember that my study covers all variants of the spelling of the Stedman surname!
I still have maintenance work to do – mostly in preparing virtual cemeteries and creating thumbnail image for the media – but as a genealogy research site, I think you will find it quite useful.
My site does provide a wealth of information about over 100,000 Stedmans and allied families. However, most of the information is provided to be evidence to validate my assertions of the family framework. You should consider it your job to extract what I provide and create your own personal family history of your family with the confidence that I am trying to give you the best information I have of your ancestry.
That said, I am not perfect. I have corrected several lineages in this update, both because of DNA evidence and because of new information that I have found or that you (collectively) have provided. I do not think I will ever achieve my goal of fully documenting the 19th century and later Stedmans, but we are working on it every day.
As most of you have given me updates and such recently, please review the site for your own family to make sure that I have everything correct. As usual, I am not publishing details of living people so if you wish to review the data I have of living folks, you will need to ask.
AND, now that you see what I have, please feel free to give me more updates. Remember, I try to collect the following information about each Stedman descendant:
Full Name and any nicknames.
Birth date and place
and where appropriate:
death date and place
burial location
obituary
marriage(s) date and place
spouse(s) name and details (BMD dates and places, etc.)
Spouse parents names and their details
Children’s names and details.
–> I am especially interested in documenting 20th and 21st century families. As always, privacy of personal details is respected and I will completely hide living people at your request on information you provide. However, I would like to have the details for my confidential records as that may be the only way to keep the more complex families of today properly sorted out.
I also wish to announce that I have created a private Facebook Group for the Stedman Family Organization. Just search for the Group and ask to join. I think it could be a great forum for asking questions and providing stories and sharing photos and filling us all in on what is going on. In particular, I am looking for images that we can use for the cover picture for the page!
If you are on Facebook (and you should all be!), please Friend me – www.facebook.com/jlisle.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch by email, Facebook, etc.
Here is an unsolicited comment from someone who was in the first group being informed of this update…
“John, Thank you for all of the work you are doing and have done on the Stedman lineages. You have set a standard for others to emulate.”
Judith, a Steadman descendant on my maternal lineage
Yes, I hear this a lot. So, when I have folks question why I operate as I do, I remember all of the people who have written to me like this. This is what drives me to continue, knowing that what I do matters to other people.
Thank you for your participation!