by 
John Crosby was my 13th Great Grandfather. He was born when the earth was still flat, in 1440. I recently overcame a “brick wall” in the Crosby branch of my family tree. Previously I was only able to trace back to my 4th Great Grandfather, Edward, but I recently discovered a detailed genealogy of Crosby descendants from 1400s England. The discovery of a 550-page PDF file, “Descendants of John Crosby”, caused my brick wall to crumble and fall completely away. Ironically, at the time of the discovery, I was researching incorrect information.
Most times a brick wall is overcome by finding the next piece of the puzzle. In this case I ended up finding a completed puzzle! It doesn’t get much better then that. Up until about a week ago I only had my Crosby line traced to Edward and Rebecca (Elwell) Crosby, my 4th Great Grandparents. “Yarmouth Nova Scotia Genealogies” published in 1898, listed Edward as my most distant ancestor in Nova Scotia. The entry in the Yarmouth book makes a special notation that Edward is mentioned nowhere else in the publication. At the time, I surmised the reason there was no further mention of Edward, was because he moved to Nova Scotia. This left me at a brick wall; I didn’t know from where Edward moved – whether he came from Europe or the American Colonies – and I knew nothing about his parents. The same was true for his wife Rebecca.
Incorrect Information on Ancestry.com Leads to Discovery
Ancestry.com contains a wealth of information. I think their latest TV commercial claims they have over 4 billion records on-line and I don’t doubt that claim. However, (did you notice the bold italics?) Ancestry.com has an overabundance of misinformation too. The great thing is that the system is constantly seeking new documents or clues relating to people in your tree. They call them “Hints”, but too many people treat the hints as being factual and merely accept the information and include the data in their tree. The system even alerts you of a hint when somebody else adds information about somebody in your tree. For those not familiar with Ancestry.com, hints are denoted by a green leaf next to a person’s name.
Because of the automated searches and the hints, I treat Ancestry.com as a tool. Often I add people to my online tree as a way of getting leads, or leaves. Entry into my off-line genealogy database (Legacy Family Tree) is much more stringent. For this reason my Legacy data is my master genealogy. (Ancestry.com should consider allowing users to mark people in their tree as “possible”, so others will know that the data isn’t verified.)
A little more than a week ago I went leaf hopping on my Ancestry.com account. Edward Crosby had a leaf and the hint was the presence of other Family Trees that he was included with. I accepted the information about his parents and then each of them appeared with a leaf; and I continued accepting the hints. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the first hint I accepted was wrong. Ten or so other trees incorrectly listed Edward’s parents as Thomas and Elizabeth (Hopkins) Crosby. (Goes to show that just because 10 people believe something, it isn’t necessarily true.)
The line of my alleged great grandmother, Elizabeth, interested me. Each step backwards put her closer, both in time and physical location, to Mayflower descendants. Being a couple days before Thanksgiving, and already having five Mayflower passengers in my line, I decided to examine Elizabeth’s line. With a little checking I found that Elizabeth is indeed a Mayflower descendant. I made a request to somebody who owns “First Five Generations of Mayflower Families, Vol. 6” to verify the accepted lineage for Elizabeth Hopkins. Well, it turned out that although Elizabeth (Hopkins) Crosby was a Mayflower descendant, she never had a son named Edward.
Epiphany: The wrong person leads to correct sources.
It was during my search on Google for Elizabeth Hopkins Crosby that I came across several Crosby resources. Up until the rejection of Elizabeth I was only looking backwards, trying to prove her line. So, I went back and re-searched the sources. I did a search in the “Descendants of John Crosby” PDF file for Rebecca Elwell, Edward’s wife, and found her. Edward was the last of his line listed in the file, but his wife’s name father’s-in-law name, birth and marriage dates were corroborated.
The file listed Edward’s line back to John, born 1440. Researching John provided several sources, but it was John’s 3rd great grandson, Simon, who was most written about. Simon emigrated to America in 1635 and is the source of many early New England Crosbys. Simon’s ancestors and descendents are written about in several history books and in some is mention of Edward.
The variety of sources and the documentation leaves no doubt in my mind that I have succeeded in breaking through the brick wall. In this instance I added dozens of names to my tree. Because of other research by other people, I know deeds and wills exist. Now comes the fun of securing the proofs.
Descendants of John Crosby (PDF file)
Simon Crosby the Emigrant: His English Ancestry and Some of His American Descendants (PDF 1914 Book)
I have been researching Edward and Experience (Rider) Crosby and their children. Their son Edward was born 27 Oct 1745 in Harwich, MA (VR 8). His sister Priscilla was born 17 Jul 1744 in Harwich (VR 8). Apparently Priscilla married Jonathan Baker 23 May 1764 perhaps in Beverly, MA and they ended up in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Edward apparently married Rebecca Elwell and they ended up in Nova Scotia as well. Edward and Experience (Rider) Crosby went from Harwich, MA to Mansfield, CT. Have you seen how the connection with Beverly, MA was made? It seems as though it would be more logical to have been children of Crosbys of the Beverly/Salem area.