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This website is designed as an auxiliary site for the Rockwell Family Foundation website. On this site I will post findings from ongoing research by a group of mostly RFF-affiliated researchers. We're basically doing general Rockwell research as a hobby, a labor of love. For several years now, a handful of us have been corresponding by e-mail, exchanging findings and ideas about various lines. In the process, we have made some significant breakthroughs connecting certain family branches to their ancestral roots in colonial Connecticut. Some of us regularly monitor queries that are posted on the RFF website and other sites such as GenForum and the Rootsweb Rockwell mailing list, to see if we can answer them. We don't have all the answers, nor can we field every query that comes our way, but when we have some data in our files that might help, we like to share it.
One of our means of sharing has been through the Rockwell Family Foundation Newsletter, which has been publishing genealogical findings on various Rockwell lines since 1992. Here is an Outline of its contents.
Among our circle of researchers are:
Mark Rockwell: A William-line descendant with access to the wealth of
resources in the Washington D.C. area, he has large files on both William and John
descendants, whose various branches he's spent much time untangling. E-mail: rockwell@ioip.com
Lyle Rockwell: His particular interest is the settlement of northern Pennsylvania. Members of the different lines settled in the area long claimed by Connecticut, and Lyle (descendant of a Josiah-line settler) has helped to sort them out. E-mail: lylerock@clarityconnect.com
Weeden R. Nichols: Compiler of a large file of John-line descendants, both male and female. If you trace back to the Fairfield County branch, he'd like to hear from you. E-mail: nichols1@ruraltel.net
Gaylord Rockwell: John-line descendant living in Connecticut.
Gail Howell: Researcher on Simmons Rockwell, a native of Fairfield Co., CT, who lived at Roxbury and Mina, NY. She also has considerable information on the Wilton Rockwells, the branch of the John line into which Simmons was adopted. She can be reached at Joyinbooks@aol.com
John W. Rockwell: Another Simmons descendant, who works closely with Gail Howell. E-mail: jwrockwell1934@yahoo.com
...and I'm Ken Rockwell [e-mail: kwrockwell@yahoo.com]. I reside in Salt Lake City, Utah, with easy access to the LDS Family History Library. My interests include sorting out the various Rockwell lines up to 1800 and studying Rockwell migrations out of Connecticut, particularly through New York to the Midwest. My current project is abstracting Rockwell data from records in New York State, esp. the real estate deeds and probate records. I've already recorded Rockwell references in the vital records of most of Connecticut's towns. If you want me to check a given locality for a given individual, just ask.
Given my geographic bent (I'm a map librarian at the University of Utah), I've started a Gazetteer: a list of places where Rockwells have resided. This will take awhile to grow, but I'll start with important colonial towns and branch out from there; eventually it will include details on where resident Rockwells came from or migrated to. If you have a locality of interest in your ancestry that you'd like to see included before I get around to it on my own time, e-mail me the details.
I've been gradually loading into this site a brief listing for all Rockwells born by 1800. This will take a while, so again, ask if you want me to check for a certain individual.
I've also started a file of various untraced Rockwells. Here I spotlight some Rockwells of known ancestry thought to have had descendants due to documentary evidence (for example, early census listings), but whose lines haven't been traced in published sources such as Boughton's Rockwell-Keeler genealogy. Some of these may be the families from which came some of those families that migrated early to the Midwest. This file also includes some older (born by 1800) Rockwells from isolated references, such as a single Census listing, whose origins are unknown, as well as some "classical" queries on older Rockwells whose descendants are still looking for a tie-in to the older lines.
A current project sponsored by RFF is a DNA analysis of various Rockwell descendants to determine connections between the different Rockwell lines and to establish genetic "fingerprints" that may help other descendants connect with the right family.