John
Wood
Born in Lyme, New London, Connecticut
Ancestors 
Son of Thomas Wood
and Abigail (Hartshorn) Wood
Brother of
Mary Wood, Abigail (Wood) Tinker, Ruth (Wood) Anderson, Mehitable (Wood) Fuller, Martha (Wood) Hayward, Ephraim Wood, Dinah (Wood) Parish, Nehemiah Wood and Jonathan Wood
Husband of
Lydia (Mack) Wood
— married
8 Feb 1737 in Lyme, New London, Connecticut
Descendants 
Died [date unknown]
[location unknown]
Profile last modified
| Created 20 Mar 2016
This page has been accessed 453 times.
Contents |
Biography
Birth
- 4 April 1715 Lyme, New London, Connecticut
Death
- Unknown. The memorial at Danbury (Find A Grave: Memorial #42591234) belongs to a different John Wood (see below).
Disambiguation
There is a good set of records at Lyme, New London County, Connecticut for the marriage of this John Wood and Lydia Mack in "1737", for the births of four children between 1738 and 1743 (Simeon, Rachal, Lydia, William) and for the marriage of Simeon to Elizabeth Tubbs in 1760.[1] No records of this John Wood after 1743 have been produced here, nor are any readily seen in public trees on ancestry.com; perhaps he moved away, or, perhaps, he died there around that time.
There is another John Wood (abt.1714-1775) who died at Danbury in 1775, leaving a will naming his wife Abigail and sons John (eldest), Elijah 2d, David 3d, Benjamin 4th, Preserve 5th, daughters Abigail (eldest) Sarah 2nd.[2]
The lack of earlier records for the man at Danbury seems to invite "linking" him to records of some other John Wood from a different place. But this is illusory. Danbury's early records were destroyed in 1777 when the British burned much of the town. Still, the distribution of John Wood's estate at Danbury showed that he held extensive property scattered all around Danbury, typical of an heir of founding families, and entirely inconsistent with the possibility that he had moved there a few years earlier from the far side of the Colony. And Captain John Wood of Danbury has been recognized as such, as the grandson of Danbury's first physician Dr. Samuel Wood, and described as such since at least the late 1800s (see e.g. Bailey's History of Danbury).
It is surely frustrating that the later life of John Wood of Lyme is unknown. Perhaps more can be gleaned from land records there. But commingling records of the John Wood of Danbury, or his children, with John Wood of Lyme is unsupported, and to merge them would be to corrupt the tree.
Sources
- ↑ Ancestry.com, Connecticut, Town Marriage Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), Lyme Vital Records. Record for John Wood, et al. at ancestry.com.
- ↑ Connecticut Probate Records, 1744-1916; Danbury District. Fairfield, Connecticut. Probate Records, Will of Capt. John Wood of Danbury, Vol. 3, pp. 269-75 at ancestry.com
- "Connecticut Births and Christenings, 1649-1906," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F74B-4Q1 : accessed 20 March 2016), John Wood, 04 Apr 1715; citing ; FHL microfilm unknown.
- "Connecticut Births and Christenings, 1649-1906," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F74B-WHW : 3 December 2014), John Wood in entry for William Wood, 25 Mar 1743; citing ; FHL microfilm unknown.
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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with John:
It may be possible to confirm family relationships. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with John:
-
~0.39%
Donna (Liles) Heim
:
23andMe, GEDmatch M695057 [compare]
+
Family Tree DNA Family Finder, GEDmatch M695057 [compare], FTDNA kit #B20847
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And surely Captain John Wood d. at Danbury 1775 [see https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42591234/john-wood].
BUT, these facts DO NOT go together.
John Wood of Danbury left a Will written in 1775; it was recorded and is available on Family Search [film 4024 / 7627321; https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/358963 (catalog), https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-892K-TFNH?i=544&cat=358963 (the will as recorded, vol 3, page 269)] or on on ancestry.com [1].
The distribution of the property of John Wood of Danbury according to the terms of that will was filed and is available on ancestry.com [2] and should be on Family Search ; Danbury District, 1775, No. 5403 but those films are restricted.
In that 1775 will John Wood of Danbury named his heirs: wife Abigail, eldest son John, 2nd son Elijah, 3rd son David, 4th son Benjamin, 5th son Preserve, eldest daughter Abigail, second daughter Sarah. His extensive property was distributed to the same persons.
They look like two different men of the same name and about the same age. There is no correlation between the families of the John Wood in Lyme and the John Wood in Danbury. Wife's name: different. Children's names: all different. Places of record: over 70 miles apart (by road) and separated by multiple rivers. It is clear that these were indeed two different men named John Wood. This is not surprising. The name is common.
The Wood family was prominent in Danbury from its founding: Dr. Samuel Wood, Danbury's first physician, was the brother in law of two of the first settlers and joined them about 1686, presumably coming from Norwalk, just 2 years after the town was founded. Captain John Wood of Danbury was his grandson.
There is no birth or marriage record for Captain John Wood at Danbury; so, I suppose, it appears on first glance that he 'came from nowhere' (i.e., somewhere else) and his burial might seem to be a suitable end-of-life for the John Wood of Lyme, for whom no record later than the 1740s pops out easily; it seems as if perhaps he went somewhere, why not Danbury? But that chain requires one to ignore the history of Danbury. The town and its early records were burned by the British in 1777. All the property and vital records, back to the settlement in 1684, were destroyed. Danbury's earliest extant volume of vital records dates to after that loss. There are many dates in those records earlier than 1777; it is apparent that the town's citizens who were alive after that had the town clerk enter their families' information in the new book. Captain John Wood died two years earlier: his family is not listed, as such, in the book (he is named as the father of some of his children, including Benjamin, where they are listed in their own family groups). See e.g. Bailey's History of Danbury [3].
So, NO. The lack of an earlier record for Captain John Wood in Danbury does not need an outside explanation; the supposition that he came from Lyme is unjustified.
This profile of John Wood [Wood-17122 on Wikitree; LCRH-PRG on FamilySearch One Tree] as it stands now [4 Feb 2022] is a chimera. It mixes up facts and relationships of two different men. I hesitate to start on fixing it, both because of the complexity and because of the apparent investment of several others in its current state. I hope some of the contributors who have worked on this profile will review the information I've given here and acknowledge the work that is needed to separate the records and relationships of the two different men named John Wood.