Isaac Humphrey and his descendants in The Genealogist

More than ten years ago I heard a cliche come to life. On my first genealogical road trip (to Licking County, Ohio) I overheard a library visitor ask a genealogy society volunteer where the book of her family was kept.

A week ago the cliche came to life again, but in a much better way. The new Fall 2014 issue of The Genealogist arrived in our mailbox, and it included the first installment of a full account of the ancestors and relatives of my mother-in-law's great-grandmother Sarah Mehitabel Humphrey Coleman Bliss, researched and chronicled by William T. Ruddock of Michigan.

TG is published twice a year by the honorary scholarly American Society of Genealogists. Among other things it specializes in family accounts that are too long for any other magazine to consider. The descendants of Isaac Humphrey (1748-1829) are numerous and obscure and include multiple generations of men named Isaac. They gave my daughter and me multiple migraines when we struggled with the family back when we had fewer internet resources and less expertise.

Isaac's daughter Sarah married John Russell (4 children) and stayed around Stephentown, Rensselaer County, New York (a crossroads village for several lines of ancestors). Daughter Asenath married William Dixon (6 children) and went west to Lorain County, Ohio. Son Lemuel married Sarah Allen (6 children) and went north to Warren County, New York. Some of Lemuel and Sarah's children went to Wisconsin.

The article covers female lines to the grandchildren and male lines to the great-grandchildren. If the numbers of descendants in this first installment are typical, it may be a year before I get to see the whole "book" of this family, but it will be worth the wait.




William T. Ruddock, "Isaac6 Humphrey of Stephentown, New York, and His Descendants" [part 1], The Genealogist 28 (Fall 2014): 202-222.

Harold Henderson, "Isaac Humphrey and his descendants in The Genealogist," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 6 October 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]