The English ancestry of Reinold and Matthew Marvin of Hartford, Ct ...

20 The English Ancestry of
their servants, and even the references to household effects
which are contained in these old documents, give a better
idea of the men and women who executed them, and of their
homes and occupations, than anything else which can now
be obtained. We shall find, so far as these reveal char-
acter, that their makers were charitable, devout, liberal and
public spirited ; their gifts to the repair of the Ramsey-
Bridge, and their donations to their Parish Churches, both of
which acts were regarded as "pious duties" at that period,
as well as their legacies to the poor, show something of
these qualities.
All but one of the Churches in which they worshiped four
centuries and more ago, so far as we know their homes, are
standing to-day, with only such changes as the hand of time
has made, and from their Parish Registers, when preserved,
we have obtained the records of the later generations ; for
the earlier ones we turn again to the Wills for information,
and in arranging the names of the children, when the order
of birth is unknown, we follow the order in which they are
named therein. From the Wills, also, certain inferences
as to possible dates of birth have occasionally been drawn,
but such are invariably noted.
The reasons for the conclusions stated will usually need
no special explanation. If a father dies leaving a son of the
proper age to be the executor of his Will, we cannot be far
astray in believing that father to have been at least forty-five
or fifty years old at his death, and in assigning a correspond-
ing date as the approximate time of his birth.