Leonard Genealogy Overview

Here are several of my genealogical research projects. Please note that they are "works in progress," may contain errors, and most certainly are going to change. Corrections and additions welcome! Please send them to brad.lnrd at gmail.com.

The goals of these projects are:
*To make it easy to find your Leonard ancestors
*To make the unpublished work of Elisha Clarke Leonard, 1819-1894, George Marston Leonard 1880-1959, and others readily available
*To encourage the correction of errors in Leonard family reearch.

One major project relates to sorting out the Leonard families who arrived in New England in the 1600's. They all lived in Massachusetts; they used the same given names; and their descendants are sometimes confused with one another.

Descendants of James Leonard, 1620-1691, Ironworker, of Taunton, Massachusetts.

Descendants of Henry Leonard, 1618-78, Ironmonger, of Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Descendants of John Leonard, 1615-76, of Springfield, Massachusetts.

Descendants of Solomon Leonard, 1610-71, of Duxbury and Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

Descendants of William Leonard abt 1685 and Sarah Bolton. We don't know if William is related to James Leonard or other Leonard families of early New England.

Some "Loyalist" Leonards returned to England or removed to Canada during and after the Revolutionary War.

There were many German Leonards who immigrated in the 1700's, and Irish and English Leonards who immigrated in the 1700's and 1800's. There were a number of different Leonard families in England. It's clear that not all Leonards stem from a common ancestor, even in England.

We're hoping that gene testing will help us determine which of the Leonards on this web site were related and, perhaps, who the common ancestors were. Those of us in the James Leonard line of descendants test nearly identically in the J2 haplogroup, which is rather rare in the British Isles and much more prevalent in the Middle East and on Mediterranean shores. Most English and Irish Leonards seem to be from the R1b Haplogroup If you're a direct linear descendant of a Leonard, a y-dna test of at least 37 markers would be of interest to those of us who have been tested and would contribute to better knowledge of Leonard ancestral origins and relationships. See the Leonard Y-DNA pages for more information.

Please send any additions or corrections to me at brad.lnrd at gmail.com.. Correcting and adding to genealogical information is a never-ending process, and assistance is definitely welcome!

James Leonard's Descendants

I've constructed a data base of about 10,000+ descendants of James Leonard, 1620-1691, one of the founders of the iron industry in America. He was the son of Thomas Leonard and Elizabeth White. He learned iron refining in England and emigrated to America from Pontypool, Monmouthshire, in the 1640's. He appears first in Providence, R.I., in 1645, later moved to Lynn/Saugus, Massachusetts, about 1651, and further removed to Taunton, MA, about 1655. Elisha Clark Leonard (1819-1894), genealogist at the Old Colony Historical Society at Taunton, MA, gathered a large amount of information about the first seven generations descended from James Leonard in the late 1800's. His grandson, George Marston Leonard (1880-1959), continued and extended his work until his death in 1959. I've entered the data from their manuscripts and charts, added references to sources, collected information from other Leonard descendants, and added more descendants from further research, but the credit should go to Elisha Clark Leonard and George Marston Leonard for their amazing efforts in the days before searchable data bases and the Internet.

Some of you might enjoy viewing a document from the early 1700's signed by James' son Thomas and grandsons Samuel and Elkanah.

Henry Leonard's Descendants

I've included the descendants of Henry Leonard in a separate html file. Henry is James' brother. Much of the basic research here has been done by Bill Barton, although I've added some from Elisha Clark Leonard and George Marston Leonard.

John Leonard's Descendants

John Leonard arrived on one of the later ships of the Winthrop fleet in the 1630's, settling briefly in Boston and soon moving out to the Springfield area of Massachusetts. He has a lot of descendants, initially in western Massachusetts, but then settling in New York and points west. The basic source for this material is John Adams Vinton's book, "The Giles Memorial," Boston: Dutton & Sons, 1864, pp. 279-310, supplemented by more recent sources.

Solomon Leonard's Descendants

Solomon Leonard arrived in America about 1637, initially settling in Duxbury and soon removing to Bridgewater. His descendants initially moved to the Worcester area of Massachusetts and around Preston, Connecticut, before scattering to western Massachusetts and then west. The basic source for this material is Manning Leonard's "Memorial: Genealogical, Historical, and Biographical, of Solomon Leonard, 1637, of Duxbury and Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and Some of His Descendants," Auburn, NY: Knapp, Peck & Thomson, 1896, to which you should refer for more information.

William Leonard's Descendants

A separate file, Descendants of William Leonard and Sarah Bolton, covers their descendants. William may or may not have been related to James -- we await the discovery of the missing link! In particular, it appears his son Seth was not his son, but a son of William, Uriah, or Seth in the James Leonard line, but this, too, remains to be proven. It is a most vexing tangle, with several members of the Leonard clan doing their best to find answers. If you can't find your Leonards in the James Leonard file, you might try this one too.

Origins of James (and perhaps other) Leonards

There is some confusion about the origins of the James Leonard family. Current theory is that this branch of the Leonards descended from Leonard families with a tradition of iron working from Picardy, France, brought to England in the early 1500's to apply a new technology to the transformation of iron ore into pig iron and steel. Another theory is that this branch descended from John Lennard, a barrister in the early 1400's who became wealthy and whose descendants married into the D'Acre family, English minor nobility. Read some of the following materials and decide for yourself!

Origins of the Massachusetts Leonards

Letter written by Sir Henry Barrett-Lennard to Elisha Clark Leonard.

Preface to the typescript 7 generations of descendants of James Leonard written by George Marston Leonard.

"Orphan" Leonards in England in the 1500's and 1600's. There were a lot of other Leonards in England about the time James, Henry, John, Rice, and Solomon left. Were any of them also our ancestors and/or cousins?

Leonards and the Refining of Iron