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Follow Every Genealogy Clue: It Might Surprise You!

Illustration: a drawing of detective Sherlock Holmes

When you have a genealogy record in front of you, track down every clue and see where it takes you.

For example: I found the announcement of my cousin’s wedding in 1767 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), 28 August 1767, page 3

Are there more clues here?
Let’s see where they take us.

The groom is identified as: “the Honorable Martin Howard, Esq; Chief Judge of North-Carolina.”

OK, he was the Chief Judge of North Carolina. Probably I can find more information about him in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives. Let’s see.

Here’s an article.

Newport Mercury (Newport, Rhode Island), 1 October 1764, page 3

So, prior to his marriage to Miss Abigail Greenleaf in 1767, Martin Howard was married to Anne – who died Wednesday, 26 September 1764.

I’ll add her to my family tree and look for more information on her.

What else can I find about Chief Judge Martin Howard’s life and family?
I also found this article.

New-York Mercury (New York, New York), 9 September 1765, page 2

What’s this?
A mob destroying his home?

They were so angry that after they left, they returned and ransacked his home a second time.

The article ends by saying:

The ship Friendship, capt. Lindsey, sailed for England yesterday. Doctor Thomas Maffat, and Martin Howard, jun. Esq; of this town went [as] passengers.

New-York Mercury (New York, New York), 9 September 1765, page 2

What was this all about?
We learn more in this next article I found.

Cincinnati Daily Gazette (Cincinnati, Ohio), 30 July 1869, page 3

So – Martin Howard was supporting the hated Stamp Act during Colonial times; his home was ransacked and he was forced to flee to England.

By the next year he was appointed by the King as the new Chief Judge of North Carolina.

The Dictionary of North Carolina Biography quotes him as saying:

I shall have no argument with the Sons of Liberty of Newport; it was they who made me Chief Justice of North Carolina, with a thousand pounds sterling a year.

Digging deeper I found his portrait.

Painting: Judge Martin Howard, by John Singleton Copley, 1767. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

This was no small-time judge. He sat for this Copley portrait at the same time he married my cousin Abigail Greenleaf.

Extraordinary.
I was not expecting to find this.

Later, Howard was forced to flee the Colonies permanently, and he lived the rest of his life in obscurity in England.

If I hadn’t found his marriage notice in GenealogyBank he would not have made it into our family tree.

When I searched FamilySearch and Ancestry, he wasn’t recorded on the family tree in either site – so I remedied that and added him to our family tree on both sites.

I love it when the old newspapers in GenealogyBank help me to discover new members of the family. I find more every day.

It’s a great day for genealogy!

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