Preface to The Referenced History of the Putnam Family in England and America, Volume 1

Over 10 years ago, we (Matthew H. Putnam of Whitman, MA and Rand M. Putnam of El Segundo, CA), embarked on this rewrite of Eben Putnam’s widely distributed work, A History of the Putnam Family in England and America, here after referred to as the History. Our goal was create a “revision” that Eben would be proud of and yet preserve the flavor of some of the 19^th century biographies, which we have often retained, word for word. We wanted to enhance Eben’s original work with extensive references to primary sources, as opposed to the History, that contains very few citations. In fact, this is where the present work obtains it title, The Referenced History of the Putnam Family in England and America.

We sought to eliminate old errors, add missing or new events, and include missing families. This book also provides researchers a fresh digital replacement fo

r antiquated copies of the 113 year old document. This Referenced History is “mission accomplished” up to the sixth generation of descendents of John Putnam of Salem.

Figure 1 Eben Putnam

To understand the scope of this book, it is important to describe in detail the publications made by Eben Putnam a century ago. Eben Putnam’s History consists of two volumes. The first volume covers the first six generations of John Putnam, who immigrated from Aston Abbotts, England to Salem, Massachusetts in about 1637, as well as John’s possible ancestors who resided in England since the Norman Invasion. This ancestry contains a collection of Putnam and Puttenham surnames from various Shires, not all of them closely related. In fact Eben included as much information as he could obtain on any person with name Putnam or Puttenham, with hope that future research would connect them. Volume 1 of the History was published in 1891.

Figure 2 Matthew H. Putnam of Whitman, MA

The second volume, published in 1908, is a continuation of the first volume, extending John Putnam’s descendents two additional generations. It also contains 16 pages on the Dutch Putman family, who started with Johannes Putman of Schenectady, New York. Seven pages contain a short overview of an another branch of English Putnam family who immigrated from Gloucester, England to Connecticut before 1788. Eben Putnam originally identified this group as being from Yorkshire, England but subsequent research has found this incorrect. The final entry in volume 2 is an incorrect attempt to show that John Putnam of Salem was a descendent of King Louis IV of France (died 954).

Figure 3 Heather and Rand Putnam of El Segundo, CA

Eben Putnam also published the Putnam Leaflets, volumes 1-4, between July 1895 and January of 1908, as described in Table 1. The Putnam Leaflets contain a record of current events in the Putnam and Putman families, corrections to volume one of the History, queries from patrons, and other bits of historical and genealogical information.

Table 1. Putnam Leaflets publication dates

Eben also published The Putnam Lineage in 1907. It is very similar to volume one of the History except that it only covers five generations of John Putnam’s descendents, has some additional biographical sketches, contains the Dutch Putman and the Gloucester (again, Eben incorrectly identified them as being from Yorkshire, as mentioned on the last page) Putnam pages from volume two, includes some additional pictures, and contains a list of persons entered on Massachusetts Revolutionary rolls under the names of Putnam, Putman, Putnum, etc.

Finally, there is a large box of manuscript collections at the New England Historical Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston that belonged to Eben Putnam. This collection was donated to the NEHGS by Eben’s daughter, Adelaide Margaret Putnam between 1980 and 1988. These manuscripts contain Eben’s notes from his genealogical research, including additional families for the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th generations, and beyond.

Volume one of our work is very similar to volume 1 of the History, except for the following:

1. Information, corrections, and additions from all of Eben’s publications and notes are now included in one volume.
2. Most events are referenced to the most primary source available, as can be seen from the thousands of footnotes. In comparison, Eben’s publications contain very few references.
3. References to the History are indicated by an asterisk (*) for events occurring after John Putnam’s immigration to America. This was instituted to reduce the large number of footnotes, making the text more readable.
4. Census information is now included for some Canadian and all available U.S. records. This includes over 16,500 census events for all generations. This information is completely missing in Eben’s publications and notes.
5. Military events have been greatly enhanced for the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.
6. Many land records have been included.
7. Thousands of additional birth, baptism, marriage, death, wills, obituaries, and other events have been added.
8. First hand research in various U.S. town record offices has revealed valuable information. This has uncovered new descendents or reassigned existing ones. For this reason, Eben Putnam’s descendent numbers do not match the numbers in our work.
9. Eben included famous Putnam descendents and some others even though they had a non-Putnam surname (i.e., descendents of Putnam daughters which did not marry a Putnam son). To keep the work to a manageable size, we have omitted such people, focusing primarily on the paternal line. This is a second reason that our descendent numbers do not match Eben’s number.
10. Several meaningless photographs have been omitted. For example, Eben included some photographs of fields in England that have no unique identifier (i.e., they look like any other field). Some photographs that were of extremely poor quality were also excluded. For example, there is a grave marker of Dr. Ebenezer Putnam that was completely unreadable.[1] Many photographs not contained in Eben’s works have been added.
11. The English ancestral lineage of John Putnam of Salem has been significantly updated from research that has occurred since Eben Putnam’s death. The line is now traced back 20 generations from John Putnam or to 1040 AD. Each person is presently numbered for easy reference, similar to the American descendents. See the English Putnam/Puttenham Family section of this text for additional details.
12. Eben included a spouse’s parents where available. This makes it easier to trace the spouse’s line. We have greatly expanded this effort to include many more parents of spouses.
13. Eben used bold faced descendent numbers to indicate a child had progeny and would have a listing as a parent in the next generation. This book uses a “+” sign to the left of the descendent number instead. The information under their listing as a child is limited to their birth or baptismal date and is listed in parentheses. For example, “John PUTNAM was born on 4 Jul 1776 in Danvers, Essex Co., MA” versus “John Putnam (born on 4 Jul 1776).” The remainder of the child’s information is contained under his listing as a parent in the next generation.
    2. In 2005, we published Volume 2, which contains the seventh and eighth generations of John Putnam’s descendants. The volume is over 510 pages long.
    3. 1. [1] Eben Putnam, The History of the Putnam Family in England and America, Vol. 1, p. 226.