Reflections

For most of us, as we grow older we nurture an appreciation of family. This can result in an interest in discovering more about our ancestors. A personal connection to the past manifests by looking back on preceding generations.

Researching family history can be easy, difficult, or seemingly impossible. Over time, facts can become elusive memories, fragmented and distorted. The goal of this ongoing research project is to present, in an accurate manner, the identities and relationships in the Sergeant family lineage.

The information presented throughout this website can be verified with documents and research. There are other family trees that list generations prior to Samuel Sergeant (abt. 1744-unknown) and Bethany Smalledge (abt. 1744-after 1779), but we have not been able to verify that data.

Most of the family accounts documented by Professor Adolphus Sage suggest that Sally (abt. 1766 to unknown), Samuel (abt. 1768 to 1841), and Thomas (abt. 1771 to 1835) lived in and around Boston, Massachusetts. Did these families reside solely in Boston for several generations, or did some come from surrounding areas, or perhaps England? We just don’t definitively know yet. Our research continues as we try to determine the first of our Sergeant ancestors who arrived in America.

Whenever possible, vital records of life events such as birth certificates, marriage licenses (or marriage certificates), death certificates, military records, and deed or property ownership records are used to substantiate family connections. As research is conducted back in time, vital records are scarce or non-existent, making it difficult to link family members of one generation to family members of the previous generation.

Over the years, many records that could have been helpful were destroyed by fires or other disastrous events. For example, major fires plagued Boston repeatedly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The British used fire as a war tactic during the Revolutionary War, destroying hundreds of buildings in and around Boston. Many invaluable historical records were destroyed in those fires.

However, billions of records have been preserved. Several genealogy companies have made those records available online, while working continuously to digitize more. Some records may only be available in physical locations such as county courthouses, churches, or local genealogical societies. So, it is possible that, someday, we will be able to prove the next line back in our family, and the next, and so on. As we discover new records and information and are able to verify more data in our family lineage, we will update this website accordingly.

We hope to inspire others to continue and build on our research, and to look into other branches of their own family, and to record their findings in order to pass that information down to their descendants.