News:
Now in the library; "Genealogy of the Cooke and Cook family". New under the Moments in Time section: my "I Love Me Wall". (purely self-indulgent, I know.)
Description: The book "The History of the Brigham Family A Record of Several Thousand Descendants of Thomas Brigham the Emigrant, 1603-1653" was published in 1907. Today the living descendants of Thomas Brigham probably number in the tens of thousands. Family histories are not considered primary sources or proof of lineage however those who's genealogy ties into this line are blessed to have such a fine piece of work.
The book and it's companion second volume were written in a time when it was very popular to tie ones family history to a "Coat of Arms" or a royal lineage. Men such as Gustave Anjou (1863-1942) found these families ripe for the picking. He would charge around $9,000. Adjusted for inflation he was making about $270,000 for his so called "genealogical work", which not surprisingly always found the royal connections these wealthy families were looking for. His fraudulent work survives today polluting much of the work that can be found on the internet today.
The Brighams chose to do this work themselves. When volume two came out in 1927 they succeeded in tracing the lineage into 15th century England however instead of finding a fraudulent connection to a knight or a king they celebrated their forefathers who were of "yoeman" class. Sort of the upper middle class of their day. Following these books can be at best tricky and sometimes frustrating. As my mother's maiden name was Brigham I've spent a fair amount of time studying these books. Like any work done by man they are not perfect. In fact volume two was as much about corrections as it was additions. In order to help with these studies I have incorporated them into this site. While not every name in these books is included here, every numbered name and the names closest to them are. As new information becomes available for these people they are updated.
The Brigham Family Crest.
If you would like to view these books they are available here as black & white OCR searchable PDF files.
These are large files, for best results right click and save.
