RootsChat.Com

A message has been put on the Armed Forces board, with an early photo of a soldier.  Any help with enhancing the uniform details would be great:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,637886.0.html

Thank you!

Hello all,

I am trying to find out more about Joel ARPIN who is known to have operated as a hatter in Philadelphia prior to the revolutionary war.  I have found the following information online, from a publication called "American Migrations 1765-1799":

Arpin, Joel of Philadelphia, hatter.  Memorial Southwark 1784.  He had a successful business in Philadelphia before the war.  He assisted Lieut. William Chew of NJ to escape and in 1776 was arrested on the suspicion that he was in communication with Lieut. Molesworth who was executed for procuring pilots for the British Navy.  The claimant was imprisoned and made to sleep on the bare floor during a severe winter but later released on the petition of Mr. Israel Pemberton: his property was plundered and his wife and children ejected.  When the Army evacuated Philadelphia, he came to England but has been unable to earn a living because of poor health.  Claim for hatmaking equipment.  Supporting affidavits sworn London 1784 by Thomas Badge, Hugh Stewart and Thomas Welbank who have known the claimant for many years.

The article then gives several references to National Archives (UK) documents, which I hope to have a cousin look at in a few weeks' time.

I am hoping to link this Joel Arpin with my husband's ancestor, also named Joel Arpin and a hatter, who settled in Southwark/Bermondsey in what was then Surrey (now London).  "Our" Joel had children baptised in London in 1765, 1775 and 1779, so there isn't a great window of opportunity for him to have taken the family out to America after the May 1775 one and get back again by July 1779, but the coincidences of these two Joels' lives encourage me to try to find out the truth.

Any assistance would be appreciated!

Prue

Hello,
Hoping for help from knowledgeable Bedfordshire locals

I have a document dated 1651 that describes a piece of land owned by the CURFEY/CURVEY family, as follows, and I would like to try to locate it on a map if possible.  I can find one landmark (Beckerings Park) easily on a modern map, but the other placenames elude me.  Does anyone know where they are, or were?

"... Twoe acres and
a halfe of earable lande with thappurtenances (be the more or lesse) lyinge togeather in Litlington aforesaid
in a certen feilde there neare to Beckaringes Parke upon a furlonge there called Gallowe Hill furlonge
betwene the lande of William Bedcotte on the sowthe parte and the land of Thomas Coale on the Northe parte
buttinge west into Lampitts highe waye that leadeth to Beckaringes Parke..."

Any help appreciated!

Prue

Hi US friends

I recently bought an old photo album which has the name and address "Mary Roe, Wilkins Run, O" stamped in the front, and which is full of cartes-de-visite (almost all taken in Newark, Ohio) and tintypes dating from the 1860s to possibly the 1880s (I haven't fully analysed them yet).  None of the photos are named except for one, which is of a small child named George Roe.

I would love to be able to send scans of the photos (and maybe the originals) to interested family members, but would like some help trying to track down the right historical family.  Is anyone able to help with finding the ROEs in, for example, the census returns? 

I would really appreciate your help

Thank you!
Prue