| Welcome to DownsGenealogy.com! This web site is a place for me to share all of my research concerning my family. Here you will find information concerning the Downs Family of Eastham and Orleans, Massachusetts. You will also find here, my information on other branches of my family. For a complete list of Surnames. click here. I hope you find your visit here enlightening. To read more about the purpose of this site, click here. |
Genealogy
begins as an interest, |
Last Updated: 11 January, 2008
The Cable
Contract of Thomas Downs
When
Thomas Downs{#20} was employed by the French
Cable Company and sent to Cape Cod, he signed a contract. This document
sheds a lot of light on our ancestor. You can read excerpts from it, along
with my analysis of the whole document, here.
Thanks to Suzanne Thomas for sharing this valuable piece of Downs history
with us.
More on Thankful
Doane Smith
I have completed the
second installment in the newly found ancestry of Thankful Doane Smith{#27}.
She was the grandmother of Helen (Hopkins) Downs{#18},
wife of John Downs{#19}. You can read this
article here.
Coming Soon...
Ancestry of Frances Dorotha Hatch, Wife of Cyril Downs
I need
help with this one. I'm just about ready to start publishing this series,
but I don't really have that good of a picture of her. If anyone could
possibly scan one in and email it to me, it would be a great help and
I'd appreciate it. This series should begin with my next update. Thanks.
More on George
Hopkins, 2nd Husband of Ina (Anderson) Downs
In
2006 I wrote an article showing how George R.L. Hopkins{1445},
Aunt Ina's{#1444} second husband was related
to Helen (Hopkins) Downs{#18}, wife of John
Downs{#19}. I stumbled upon some more information
about him, which I pass on to you here.
Graves of
Giles and Eliza Hopkins Located in Harwich
My
decades search for these graves has finally come to an end. Giles{#89}
and Eliza (Stone) Hopkins{#90} were the great
grandparents of Helen (Hopkins) Downs{#18},
wife of John Downs{#19}. Their final resting
place is in the churchyard of the First Congregational Church in Harwich,
Massachusetts. If you click on the thumbnail to the right, it will take
you to their family group page and a larger copy of this image. Some interesting
new information about their son George has now come to light...
Civil War
Service of George Hopkins Found
I have been chronicling the ancestry of Thankful Doan Smith{#27}.
In my first installment (find it here)
on her, I mentioned that her husband, George Hopkins{#26}
(not the one who married Ina above) died in a veterans' home in Napa,
California in 1900. I hinted there that there must be some military service
yet to be discovered.
According to Massachusetts Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines in the Civil War1, George Hopkins enlisted as a Corporal and mustered on 16 September 1862 in Company E, 5th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. He is listed as a resident of Barnstable, age 34 and a carpenter. This corresponds to what we know about him perfectly. Further, he was given a disability discharge from Foster General Hospital in New Bern, North Carolina on 28 May 1863.
George was the son of Eliza and Giles, whose grave is shown above, and the grandfather of Helen (Hopkins) Downs{#19}. His family group sheet can be viewed here.
1. Massachusetts Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines in the Civil War; Compiled and Publised by the Adjunct General. (Norwood, Massachusetts: The Norwood Press, 1931.), I:315.
