The genealogy of the descendants of Richard Haven, of Lynn ...

PREFACE.
The public, generally, can take but little interest in the following pages.
They are intended principally for the use of the descendants of RICH-
ARD HAVEN of Lynn, Mass., who came from England, about two hun-
dred years ago. To them they are respectfully offered, as containing
some account of their ancestry, and collateral kindred, which may be inter-
esting to most of them, and which they might not otherwise have obtained.
The town and church records of Lynn, Framingharn, Hopkinton, Holliston
and Sherburne, and the Registries of Probate, and of Deeds, at Cambridge,
have been principally relied on. And much assistance has been
derived by comparing these with the recollections of aged persons, and
by examining ancient papers, and the inscriptions on tomb-stones. For
the full account of the Portsmouth branch, the reader is indebted to the
kindness of Mr. Horace A. Haven, a distinguished graduate, at Cambridge,
in the class of 1842, whose recent death has extinguised the fond and just
hopes of his numerous friends.
The research has been extended much beyond what was, at first, con-
templated, or was deemed practicable. And, after all, there are several
branches, that have not been traced, and others but imperfectly. This has
been owing sometimes to the impossibility, and sometimes to the
difficulty
and trouble of pursuing the inquiry ; and sometimes also to the indiffer-
ence, procrastination, and neglect of persons at a distance, to whom letters
have been addressed, asking for information.*
The Author began with little knowledge of his ancestors beyond his
grand parents. The first inducement to look further was a statement, in
*To give a specimen, I wrote to an elderly gentleman, asking some account of
his branch. He answered promptly that a worse source of information could not
have been sought ; that he never knew before that he had any ancestors beyond
his grand parents but that he ;
distinctly remembered his uncle John's girls, and, to
speak poetically, they were Oily, and Anna, and Polly, and Fanny ;
that he had
asked his brother John about the matter, who said he had a letter from me, some
two years before, asking the same information ; and that he supposed John would
answer, when he should have had a reasonable time to think of it.