Excerpt from The Howard Genealogy: Descendants of John Howard of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, From 1643 to 1903 The following pages, which are now given to the public, are the result of an attempt of the author, more than ten years ago, to gather some information about his own family connections, and to trace' his ancestry. Then, and for some years later, the work was only a private matter, with no thought that it would ever be given to the public and to future generations. He would not then have ventured upon the task of tracing all of the descendants of such a prolific family as was John Howard's. Material has been gathered from time to time as opportunity permitted, until the author feels that all of the descendants of John Howard should have the benefit of it. The sources of in formation have been many - such as town and city records, pro bate court records, inscriptions on tombstones, histories, genealogies, compilations from the State archives, verbal statements, and re spouses from letters. Many dates and statements have been verified from different sources. No attempt has been made to give extended biographical sketches of the many people of whom much might be said; a few historical facts have been concisely stated about each, if they could be obtained, especially facts relat ing to public service. In many cases little is learned except dates of birth, marriage and death, and in some cases not all of these. The plan adopted for the arrangement of the family records is simply and comprehensive. To trace the ancestry of a person, find the record of the person's family referred to, by the index, oh serve the number given to the family in the centre of the page, turn back and find the corresponding number on the left hand margin of the page, continue in like manner as far as desired to trace the descendants of a person, observe the number opposite the name in the margin, find the corresponding number in the the centre of the page. No separate record of the families of the daughters has been made; all of the information that has been obtained about them is given in the record of the father's family. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.