William was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a son of William Sedgwick and Miriam Webster and was a first cousin of Noah Webster, the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". [1]
William came from a large family. His father's first wife Elizabeth Brace had ten children, though four passed away in childhood before William was born. His father remarried to William's mother and they had five children, William being the oldest. His father committed suicide in 1771 when William was 9 years old by hanging himself in the family barn.
William served in the Revolutionary War. He enlisted in June 1778 at the age of 16 and served intermittently in different units of the 1st and 3rd Regiments of Connecticut Militia until Dec 1781, including Captain Bidwell's Company (1778), Captain Ward's Company of Col. Swift's Regiment (1779-1780), Col. Hamilton's Battalion (1780), and Lt. Col. Thomas Grosvenor's Company under Col. Samuel Wyllys (1780-1781). [2]
After the war at the age of 23, William married Lucy Merrill on 12 Jan 1785.[3] William Sedgwick and Lucy Merrill had four children together:
Lucy (?-?)
Sabra (1788-1851), m. 1810 William Elmer (1781-1860)
Delia (1790-1871), m. 1810 Simon Dow Jenness (1787-1841)
Rev. Avelyn (1794-1868), m. 1825 Lucy Whitman (1798-1831), m. 1831 Harriet F Thompson (1797-1887)
William passed away in Genesee County, New York in 1825 at the age of 63.[4]
↑ Ancestry.com. U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
↑ Ancestry.com. Early Connecticut Marriages [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data: Bailey, Frederic W. Early Connecticut Marriages as Found on Ancient Church Records Prior to 1800. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997.
↑ Ancestry.com. Connecticut, U.S., Hale Collection of Cemetery Inscriptions and Newspaper Notices, 1629-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: The Charles R. Hale Collection. Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions. Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut State Library.
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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with William by comparing test results with other carriers of his Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA.
However, there are no known yDNA or mtDNA test-takers in his direct paternal or maternal line.
It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with William: