The Chapin Family - Colonial Americans

Catherine Chapin was the wife of Nathaniel Bliss and mother of Mary Bliss. She was born is Pomeroy, Devin, England in 1622. Catherine was the third of 10 or 11 children of Samuel Chapin (b.1598? d.1675) and Cicely Penny (b.1602, d.1682).

John Chapin

The Chapin family is believed to have come to America about 1638, landed at Boston and settled in Roxbury. Samuel Chapin was born in Paignton, Devon, England and was baptized on October 8, 1598 at Saint John the Baptist Church. He was the fourth of five children of John Chapin (b.1566? d.1600) and Phillipa Easton (b.1569? d.1615) both of Paignton. There other children were: Joane, Phillipe, Thomas and Margaret. Phillipa Easton was the daughter of Henry Easton and Joan Clieffe. 


Saint John the Baptist Church, Paignton, Devon, England

The Bliss Family - Colonial Americans

Mary Bliss was the wife of Nathaniel Holcombe. She was born is Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651. Mary was the third of four children of Nathaniel Bliss (b.1622, d.1654) and Catharine Chapin (b.1630, d.1711).

Old First Church of Springfield - 1645

Six Years of Blogging about Genealogy

“My Other Blog - Family History and Genealogy" celebrated its 6th anniversary yesterday, September 30, 2016. On that same day in 2010, the very first post, just under 400 words and titled “Yet Another Blog” was published.

Farms at Hafslo, Sogn og Fjorde, Norway.
Home of my ancestors - connection
found, thanks in part to this blog.

Well, six years is technically correct but it is also true that I did not publish a post for almost three years between November 2013 and September 2016. After working diligently for the first three years I began to slow down in 2013 and only delivered five posts that year. Then I stopped. Was I burned out or maybe just needed a break? Not sure but I was running out of big ideas for new posts. This site has strived to write solid history "stories" about my family lines and individual family members, most of whom are not well know in the genealogy world on the web. In addition, I would also write a short, non-specific and non-family, post every once-and-a-while. These posts let me talk about the process or something of interest that happened during the search (or something wonderful that just fell in lap). Toward the end, I was publishing the five part Holcombe story, and with that, was already deviating from writing about ancestors unknown to the word - as that family (especially the colonial generations) are very well know to the internet and genealogists. My needed break turned into a long slumber but I did get an occasional comment to answer and sometimes another family connection was made and new information gathered. So it was not totally dormant!

Colonial Families - An Overview

Since first discovering that my grandmother, Grace Holcomb could be traced back to Thomas Holcombe, an early settler to New England, I have spent considerable energy researching the Holcomb(e) name with, perhaps, some neglect of the many other colonial families that I am also connected to. It took some time to make the Holcombe connection complete and it was only after the fact that I started to look at the spouses and their ancestry. I also found myself getting more interested in the stories of the more recent "immigrants" from the 19th Century and so, once again as the focus shifted, the allied colonial families remained on the back burner. Still, I do have a some good information on those colonial families, some of which is already on this website. My goal with this post, is to try and regroup and put forward even more information about those other families.

Map of New England by John Sellers from about 1670.