The Descendants of John Ramsdell: Fifth Generation

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116. Abijah⁵ Ramsdell (Jonathon⁴, Isaac³, Isaac², John¹) was born about 1695.

He married an unknown person. Abijah is very likely the son of Jonathan Ramsdell and Sarah Hathorn of Lynn, MA. He was probably raised in Lynn, proved by the abundance of secondary source information. This, coupled with the fact that Abijah named his youngest child after his mother and his eldest child after his father, has led me to place Abijah in the current line of ancestry. I am aware that many biographies written in the late 1800's have a reference that sounds something like this: "Abijah is of scotch descent and came from England in 1695...." I have been unable to find any reference showing any Ramsdell who came to this country between 1632 and 1800. John and Joseph Ramsdell were already here before 1632 and the record showing additional immigrants is simply is dry. Also, if Abijah did immigrate in 1695, why would he come to Lynn? It was an established community at that time and he certainly would have been warned out of town at least once if he had attempted to settle there (with recorded evidence showing the same). It would have been much more likely that he would have spent some time in Boston before moving out to a "frontier" town in western Massachusetts with others who had recently immigrated. So, my theory is that the biographers ran into a dead end in their research, and, instead of telling their clients that they could not find any information about the family, they just told them that "they were of scotch descent and they came from England". No source material required! If you have information which could help me to either prove or disprove this relationship, please let me know. I am presenting this evidence to provoke discussion, not to offend anyone, so please feel free to write and join in the fun!

Abijah Ramsdell had the following children:

child 196 i. Jonathan⁶ Ramsdell was born about 1737.