Jones, Hills, Finster, Raplee.
Coligny, Westbrook, Weiss,
Thorne, Hayward, Genealogy

They say that everybody dies twice, the first when the body fails and the second time when memories of us held by others, fades. Perhaps my standing over my grandfather's grandfather's grave in upstate New York and cleaning the stone of his son Alonzo's civil war marker keeps them alive a little longer. Maybe I have helped a little. We are all indebted to those who preceeded us, not just for our lives, but for their sacrifices and struggles to carve this nation from a hostile wilderness. The history of this family is the history of America from Plymouth Rock through most of our wars. We have not served as military commanders, but as foot soldiers and humble pioneers and farmers.

The Jones family goes back at least two hundred years in New York with William B. Jones, born 1802, who married Abiah Raplee whose family goes back to 1624 in America, and at least 1509 in Chatillion France. George Finster came to Canada in 1835's from Bavaria. The Hayward family shows up in the Massachuesetts colony in the 1630s and the Whites came over on the Mayflower.

In addition, it now appears that Mary Jones who married into the Westbrook end of the family, is probably related to our earliest documented Jones, William B. Jones. It took several centuries to close the circle.

The Westbrooks came to New York (then New Amsterdam) in the 1640s. The Kimballs go back to the 16th century in England. The Hills spring from the Figgens (Figgins) and Bewseys. They came to Canada in the 1860s and are related to the Kemp and Ekkis families in England. Captain William Thorne b. 1743 was a pilot on the Great Lakes and may or may not be descended from nobility in England.

This collection of data would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by my cousin NOEL JONES. I have been at this project for over thirty years as has Noel. It is amazing how this project grows from both ends.

I have done the best to document and verify most of the information included here, although some of it might not meet a professional genealogist's standards. There have been several wrong turns and false starts but I believe that Noel and I have caught most of them. Leads that are not verifiable have been tossed out, although I may not be able to lay my hands on documentation of information gathered decades ago, I have faith that this is a fairly accurate representation of the family history.

I am also indebted to my cousin Allen Weiss for his work on the Finster and Westbrook line, without whose help I would not have found the Finster family home in Bavaria.

This is not written in stone, if you have better information that is well documented, I would be delighted to hear from you. If you are related and want to link your family tree to this or include a page here, I would be glad to accommodate you. If you are not related but have one of the family names, it might help other researchers if you link to this page also.

Once the files are cleaned up and corrected, I may make a run of CD's and including these HTML files, the GEDCOM and FTW files and make them available. I intend to distribute the CD's to various libraries and societies. I may not contribute the FTW files to the Mormon Church, as they claim copyright to all material donated.

Despite my intentions to the contrary, Broderbund (Mormon) Software has lifted a year 2000 version of my FTW files. You can pay for it by requesting:
[Broderbund Family Archive #314, Ed. 1, Census Index: U.S. Selected Counties, 1820, Date of Import: Apr 22, 2000, Internal Ref. #1.314.1.3224.158] or you can email me and in time I will get you a free copy with the latest version of the FTW and Web pages.

Thanks, Dale Chester Westbrook Jones.

---

HOW THE FAMILIES ARE RELATED


CLICK ON NAME ABOVE TO REACH FAMILY PAGE

For Further Information On Genealogical Research, Try Cyndis List

Diane Oslund - Professional Genealogy Research in Michigan and Ontario

Last Updated on May 28, 2006 by Dale C. Jones