The Amazing FamilySearch

If you love family history, I hope you will all sign up for an absolutely free, no strings attached FamilySearch account (see link below). This is an amazing collection of billions of names and it would be rare not to find at least one line of your family there (in fact, I can promise you that William and Rebecca (Bradford) Miller are there!), but of course you can look up all your lines, not just them.

It's pretty user-friendly and there is lots of help available when you click on "Get Help" (top right). If you sign up for an account and can't get your questions answered and have any trouble navigating the site, also please feel free to email me at the address to the right and I would be happy to help you.

Just last week in under an hour, I helped a friend find all of her great-grandparents, and we extended a couple of her lines back several generations in colonial Virginia!

It's lots of fun and I can't encourage you enough to sign up. Again, it's completely free, no one will contact you, and your name and information isn't shared with any other organization.  

Wishing you a wonderful summer and lots of fun learning more about your family history!

Sincerely,
donna

LINK:  https://familysearch.org/

The Search For Red Lion Sam Continues

Samuel Bradford, (known as Red Lion Sam in this blog) was born around 1690 and died in 1767.  He was the maternal grandfather of our Rebecca Bradford Miller. This far we have been unable to find out anything about his parents or where he came from. We only have his New Castle County, Delaware will and some land records (see previous posts).

Research into his son, William Bradford, has not provided many clues to his father's life, other than William attended a Presbyterian Church (possibly indicating the family was Scots or Scots-Irish).  William's will below does not extend our information about his father Samuel, but it does seem to indicate that William and his wife, Elinor (spelling unsure; later spellings included Eleanor) Bradford were able to sign this document in their own handwriting, and not just make a mark. To me this indicates that they both had received some degree of education, and that their respective parents must have been of a class that could afford such education.

Was Red Lion Sam a well-to-do tobacco farmer, or a merchant, or both? How did his daughter, Sarah, come to know the other Samuel Bradford in her life, her future husband, who definitely was Scots-Irish?

For more information about Red Lion Sam's land holdings, use the search box to the right and put in "Dragon Swamp."  Interesting...but again not containing any clues as to his parentage or place of origin.

I hope can all join me in finding the origins of our elusive Red Lion Sam!