Another Remarkable Crossing of Family Paths in Colonial Connecticut

The ancestors of Janelle’s maternal grandfather Arthur Wright, have been in New England since the early 17th century, circulating between Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. A summary of what we can figure out about Janelle’s New England roots New England is shown below. (As a reminder, there is no known connection between these Wrights and our Wright ancestors from Prince Edward Island.)

Two branches stand out, both with origins in early colonial Connecticut. We have already discussed the first branch, that of Thomas Wright of early Wethersfield, Connecticut.

A second branch, leading to John Warner of Connecticut, raises alarm bells. Recall that the Sandford brothers Thomas, Robert, and Andrew originally came to Connecticut around 1635 from Hertfordshire England with their Uncle Andrew Warner, the brother of their mother Rose Warner.

But concerns about the possibility of being very distant cousins are soon eased with a visit to the Founders of Hartford website. John Warner and Andrew Warner came to America at about the same time, but from separate origins with no known connection between the two.

The genealogy of John Warner traces the descendants of John Warner down to Naomi Warner of Waterbury Connecticut, Janelle’s 4th great grandmother. She married Samuel Webb and their son Jonah Webb migrated to the Berkshires of Massachussets which became the new homeland of the Wright family. Naomi’s granddaughter, Melinda Webb, would marry Johnathan Norton Wright in the mid 19th century.

Hartford co-founders Andrew Warner and John Warner lived on opposite sides of the new Hartford colony, Andrew less than a half mile south of the central Meeting House Yard, and John about the same distance to the north. (Andrew’s nephew Robert Sandford was not yet a Hartford landowner, but is also recognized as a founder of Hartford.)

On the present day monument to the founding land owners of Hartford, the two founders sharing the same last name, whose descendants would come together three and a half centuries later, are listed an inch apart.