a genealogist's sketchbook

This has been a busy spring with little time for posting here. But one non-genealogical component of our family life has recently taken on a genealogical and historical dimension.

We have just bought a new house — new to us, but built in the 1780s by a Revolutionary officer, Lieut. Col. (later Brig. Gen’l.) Thomas Allin (1742-1800), at Annawomscutt, or West Barrington, Rhode Island, possibly incorporating an earlier core built a generation previously by his father or grandfather. We are in the process of planning renovations and marvelling at this magnificent historical treasure. We expect to move in during the summer.

And it turns out that General Allin is our children’s fourth cousin, ten times removed; their common ancestor being Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. My children’s descent from Warren is sketched here. Thomas Allin almost fits into the well-known five-generation Mayflower studies, as he is Thomas Allin⁶ (Ruth Stockbridge⁵, Abigail Tilden⁴, Hannah Little³, Anna Warren², Richard Warren¹). Of course, we already know it is (and was) a small world!

I hope to post regularly here on the house, and our ongoing discovery of its rich archaeology and history. Today’s tidbit: the central chimney complex includes a two-story smoking chamber, ringed with ranks of cut nails for hanging meats. The debris at the bottom still includes dozens of 200-year-old corncobs (prime fuel for making smoke). I don’t have a photo that does this justice, yet.