Squire Research Project 2012

For the past several years my siblings and myself have pooled our resources to pay for a genealogist to verify and research our family lines to give as a gift to my parents.  This year my parents joined in on their own gift.  We were able to verify the correct mother for my 5th great-grandfather, Ezekiel Squire.  We knew his father was Thomas Squire, but there have been questions as to his mother either being Elizabeth Cooke or Grace Price.  We now know that Elizabeth Cooke is the correct mother.  The Squire line was extended four additional generations to the 1400s with a possible extension to the 1300s. The report that follows includes the details of the researcher's findings.

Universal Genealogy Center Research Report

By William Peterson

As per your request this session began in an effort to document Ezekiel Squire (2:8) and his ancestry, as well as to possibly extend this ancestry.  This was accomplished and included a possible extension back to the 1300s.

We then spent the remaining time searching for descendants on your Squire line who were in need of temple ordinances.  This was a challenging endeavor but after some effort we found some families that have not been submitted.  The following report outlines our findings.

Ezekiel Squire (2:8)

In our effort to document the birth of Ezekiel Squire we began our search in the Barbour Collection of Connecticut vital records, which can be found on Ancestry.com.  We found no documentation in this source.

Our next search was to document the 1744 marriage of Ezekiel Squire in Ludlow, Hampton, Massachusetts.  The Massachusetts marriages which are in several collections on Ancestry.com failed to document this marriage.

The internet collection of vital records of Woodstock was next searched, where we found our first documented record on your Squire ancestry.  The 4 February 1720 marriage of Thomas Squire and Elizabeth Cooke, both of Woodstock, was listed (Doc 1).  This 1720 Marriage revealed that Ezekiel Squire who was born 1724 to 1729 would have been a son of this marriage.

These Woodstock records also contained the family listing for Thomas Squire and Elizabeth Cooke, including the 21 February 1729/30 birth of your ancestor, Ezekiel, as well as Ruth, Martha, John, and Stephen.  Another son, Daniel, was apparently born in Woodstock since he was listed in the yearly vital records listings on 1 February 1732/33.  Another son, Benjamin, was listed on 23 January 1734/35, and a daughter, Mary, on 5 April 1737.  Another son, Benjamin, was born 5 August 1739, suggesting that the first Benjamin died as an infant (Doc 1).

In New England it was very common for a family when they moved to a new town, to register their entire family in the vital records with the town clerk.  This appears to be the case for Thomas Squire and Elizabeth since the births of their children are not listed year by year in the vital records listings.  They were probably not originally from Woodstock.

Our next discovery was the 19 October 1755 birth of Ezekiel, the son of Ezekiel and Mary Squire, in Ashford, Windham, Connecticut (Doc 2).  This was the only child of Ezekiel and Mary Squire found.  The date of 19 October matches the information on your records for Ezekiel Squire, Jr., but the year of 1745 is not correct.  It is documented now as 1755.  There were many Squire listings in Ashford, but only this one for Ezekiel.

The Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts 31 October 1694 birth of Thomas Squire, the son of Phillip and Mary Squire, was next documented, in the vital records (Doc 5).

The ancestry back from Thomas and Elizabeth back to William Squire appears to be good.

We found an internet listing for this ancestry under Squire families, 1490-1944 (Doc 3).  This ancestry lists William Squire, your earliest ancestor who was in Yorkshire, the son of Andrew Squire of Somersetshire, who was in turn the son of Reverend William Squire of Charleton Somerset, and his wife, Margaret Marr (Doc 3).  The ancestry extends back from William to his father, Thomas Squire, but Thomas was probably older than this record indicates and these extensions will need more documentation.

We also copied the descendants of your direct line ancestors for use in our search for names that were in need of temple work.

In an effort to document the Yorkshire to Somerset connection of the Squire Ancestry of William, we found another internet Squire listing beginning with Rev. William Squire.  This provided a more complete family group record of William Squire but showed his wife, Alice Skarlett, instead of Margaret Marr.  It named his son, Andrew, but did not follow the descendants of Andrew.  Thus, no link was established here (Doc 4).  This ancestry does show more acceptable dates as well as adds spouses and extends the line to Scipio L’Esquire in the late 1300s.

The visitations of Somersetshire and Yorkshire were searched online for documentation of your Squire ancestry as found in internet sources, but we still have no documentation for your William back to Andrew Squire.

The New.FamilySearch.org site was searched, where we found a family group sheet for Andrew Squire, but William was not listed as his son on this record.  However, the dates fit for William to be a son in this family (Doc 6).  The ancestry of Andrew Squire was also noted (Doc 7).

We next began gathering the family group sheets of your Squire descendants beginning with William Squire in Yorkshire about 1576.  Many sheets were gathered and descendants traced forward but we found that almost all of the Squire families had completed ordinance work.  We did not attempt to trace the families of the daughters.  We did note several sons that had marriages, but no families were listed.  Again, most of these were eventually found in New.FamilySearch.org, but had not been linked to their parents (Doc 8).

As the above searches were conducted we noted several of these sons for which their families could not be found.  Therefore, we began searching for documentation in preparation for temple submissions.

The first of these found was Josiah Squire, the son of Phillip Squire and Elizabeth Yeomans, descendants of Philip Squire (18:2) and his wife, Mary Smith (18:3).  Josiah Squire was not found in LDS sources but we located his family and marriage in Ancestry.com family trees, including descendants for two generations.  The descendants were Josiah Squire and his wife, the parents of Solomon Squire who married Betsy Whitney, who in turn was the father of Josiah Squire that married twice (Doc 10).

This last Josiah Squire was found on the 1850 Census of New Haven City, New Haven, Connecticut (Doc 11).  This family can be submitted from this source.

We also noted that Solomon Squire was the son of Josiah Squire as documented by the death of Solomon, recorded in FamilySearch.org on 9 May 1865 in Washington, Berkshire, Massachusetts (Doc 12).

A nephew of Josiah Squire was Ethan Squire who married Rhulynus Belcher on 29 January 1807 (Doc 13).  We conducted a search of the Ancestry.com online census records and found that Ethan Squire and his family lived in Orleans County and Onondaga County, New York from 1810 to 1840.  He was not found on the 1850 census.  Thus, we were not able to identify the names of any of his six children (Doc 14).  The county level records of Orleans and Onondaga, New York will need to be searched to determine if we can learn the names of the children of Ethan Squire.  This may be done in a future session.

In our final efforts of the project we copied the ancestry of Jane Jackson as recorded on New.FamilySearch.org for future research and documentation (Doc 15).

Conclusion

During this session documentation has been found for Ezekiel Squire, Jr. and Sr., and for Thomas and Phillip Squire.  However, we have not been able to locate the documentation of the marriage of Ezekiel Squire and Jane Jackson.  Since their son, Ezekiel, was not born until 1755, this desired marriage could be later than previously thought.  However, it was not found in Connecticut Vital Records at this point.

We were also able to find several Squire families in need of temple work and located an extended Squire ancestry that still needs some additional documentation in the records of England.

Future research should include a search in Connecticut records for the marriage of Ezekiel Squire and Jane Jackson, and then in the records of England for a link from William Squire to his proposed father, Andrew Squire.

The Jackson ancestry also needs further documentation in the records of England.

We have appreciated the opportunity of assisting you further on your Squire ancestry.

Bill Peterson

Genealogist

c/o Universal Genealogy Center

Document 1: Vital Records of Woodstock, Connecticut

Document 2: U.S. GenWeb Vital Records of Ashford, Windham, Connecticut in Barbour Collection

Document 3: Squire Families, 1480-1944, FreePages Genealogy, RootsWeb, Ancestry.com

Document 4: WikiTree.com

Document 5: Vital Records of Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts

Documents 6-9: New.FamilySearch.org

Document 10: Ancestry.com Family Trees

Document 11: 1850 US Federal Census of New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut

Documents 12-13: Family Search.org & New.FamilySearch.org (Josiah Squire Descendants)

Document 14: 1810-1840 U.S. Censuses Orleans and Onondaga Counties, New York

Document 15: New.FamilySearch.org (Jackson Ancestry)