One of the sources of information about my ancestors who were among the first settlers of Hampton, New Hampshire is a reference titled, The Hampton Browns by Asa Warren Brown. According to my mother’s documentation, he was a descendant of our progenitor, John Brown (~1595-1686). However, he is not on our family tree, which only includes our patrilinial line.

I became curious about who this Asa Brown was when I found among my grandfather’s papers a copy of an article he’d authored in the October 27, 1851 edition of the Exeter News Letter. In the last paragraph of the article, he passes judgment on a particular branch of the Brown family with a degree of snark I wouldn’t normally associate with a historian.  (I’ll share it with readers of this blog in due time.)

Being a long-time connoisseur of snark myself, I hit Google Books to find out more. The first search result came back with a chapter Asa had authored in The New England Historical and Genecalogical [Sic] Register, entitled “The Hampton Brown Family.” To my dismay, I found more early descendants of John Brown. And now that I’ve found them, I feel obligated to add them to our family tree. (Didn’t I say something previously about not caring about The Begats?)

After doing a little more digging to see if I could put my hands on a copy of The Hampton Browns, I learned that it’s manuscript, rather than a book. In any event, I’m still on the hunt for Asa.