Books  
Family Trees  
Games  
Heraldry  
Periodicals  
Towns  

A Merrill Memorial  
Part II  
Introduction  
First Generation  

Home  

    Samuel Merrill, 1928, reprint 1983

Introduction

Numerical Strength

   NATHANIEL¹ MERRILL’s descendants, now living in the United States and bearing in some form the family name, according to my estimate number about 24,000. This estimate is based on the ratio of Merrills (Merrells, etc.) to persons bearing other names in recent directories of Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, San Francisco and New Orleans. Assuming that the same ratio is maintained throughout the United States an estimate of the number of Merrills in the entire country is easily made.

   A wide correspondence with Merrills everywhere whose addresses have been gathered from very miscellaneous sources leads me to assume that ninety-three percent of the American Merrills are of the Newbury stock. Subtracting, therefore, seven percent from the total number of Merrills in the country, the approximate number of living Merrills (Merrells, etc.) descended from Nathaniel¹ is ascertained. This result is of course inexact, but it would be difficult to make a more precise computation. (*)

Scope of the Present Work

   In the following pages I have aimed to bring the record of Nathaniel Merrill’s descendants in the male line down to about 1820. In many lines the data in hand are very incomplete---in many they are entirely lacking: nevertheless the records here given will in many cases solve the problems of those whose knowledge of their ancestors ends with a few facts about a grandfather or great-grandfather.

   The biographical sketches in these pages of Merrills who have been active and prominent in recent years are extremely brief, and for many purposes are inadequate. The correspondent who “condensed” for my use a biographical sketch of a certain Merrill of his acquaintance into about five hundred words, will be surprised, and perhaps offended, to see that I have reduced his “condensed” sketch to thirty-five words. These sketches aim to do little more than to identify the individuals in question, and to give the connecting links by which their relationship to Nathaniel1 of Newbury is shown.

System of tabulation

   The arrangement in the following pages is what is known as the “Register system,” a system adopted many years ago for use in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. In enumerating the children in each family group as far as the sixth generation the name of each son who is known to have left descendants is preceded by a serial number above and below which is a horizontal line (e.g. 721). Each of these serial numbers refers forward to a corresponding number in the middle of the line where the individual appears as the head of a family. Similarly a serial number at the head of a family group refers back to a corresponding number at the left in the record of the previous generation.

   In all cases where superior figures are used to denote generation numbers, the first generation is understood to be represented by Nathaniel¹ Merrill of Newbury. Thus, Daniel⁵ Merrill (John⁴, Nathan³, Abel²) signifies that this Daniel Merrill was descended from Nathaniel1 Merrill through his son Abel², his grandson Nathan³, etc.

   In the case of double dates, such as “7 Feb. 1682/3”, the reader should bear in mind that the later of the two years conforms to present-day usage. These dates are all prior to 1752, and double dating applied only to days between Jan. 1 and March 25 in each year. (**)

   Errors in dates cannot in some cases be avoided. Such errors in the earlier years are due occasionally to the practice of double dating; in other cases dates of birth and baptism are confounded; in still others dates of publishment and marriage lead to confusion.

Spelling of Names

   In the Newbury records Merrill is spelled in ten or a dozen different ways: in “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War” the family name appears under twenty-two different forms. Enoch⁴ Merrill (Joseph³, Abel²) signed his name Merril in 1750 and Merriel in 1786 (see page 282). What other modes of spelling he may have followed at other times I cannot say. It would obviously be futile to attempt in a work of this kind to write the family name in each case as it was spelled by the individual himself: accordingly I have spelled the name Merrill in all cases in these pages, except when, in the later generations, there is known to have been a definite and uniform practice of spelling it otherwise.

   In spelling christian names I have endeavored to conform to individual usage, even when Eleazar has been spelled “Eleazer,” Barzillai “Barzilla” or “Barzille” and Ernest “Earnest.” Christian names of women offer greater difficulty. A girl may be Elizabeth at her baptism, Betty at her marriage, and Betsey in the record of her death. Similarly Mary may appear as Molly or Polly, Sarah as Sally, Susanna as Susan, Hannah as Anna or Nancy, Margaret as Peggy, Martha as Patty, etc.

Five Branches of the Family

   Five sons of Nathaniel¹ Merrill gave the family a vigorous start in the second generation; twenty-four young men in the third generation, all leaving descendants, added impetus and multiplied the branches of the family tree. In the fourth generation eighty-four heads of families are known to have left children, and thus the Merrill name has increased numerically and spread to all parts of the country.

   Abraham², the only one of Nathaniel¹ Merrill’s sons who lived to be an octogenarian, had more children than any of his brothers, but he is represented today by much the smallest number of Merrill descendants. Abel², on the other hand, died at the age of forty-five—a younger man than any of the others at the time of death—but his known descendants are much more numerous than those of either of the other sons of the pioneer.

   Wide disparity in the number of present-day descendants in the five branches of the family, as indicated by the number of heads of families in the sixth generation, is shown below:

   The short line in the case of the Abraham² branch is believed to represent fairly the relative number of descendants, for this section of the family has produced its full proportion of interested students of the family history, and they have freely contributed material for the present work.

   The number of descendants of Nathaniel¹ Merrill in the seventh generation, male and female, who bore the Merrill name and whose names are given in these pages, is 2414. It is to be understood, however, that my record of the seventh generation is by no means complete. These are divided among the five branches of the family as follows:

Seventh Generation

   An excess of males over females among the children born to Merrill fathers in the second, third and fourth generations is quite noticeable.

   In the fifth generation the predominance of males over females among the births is very little in excess of the proportion prevailing at the present day throughout the United States. In the third and fourth generations, however, the excess of males above the present normal ratio is about twenty-seven percent. This fact is reflected in the strong numerical foothold which the family early gained in New England.

*   The "Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans," published in 1904, contains sketches of thirteen Merrills and one Merrell. Data contained in this Memorial show that these fourteen men all trace their ancestry to the Newbury pioneer. Descendants of other emigrant ancestors bearing the same family name, it is true, are active in American affairs today, and some have attained distinction, but they are in a small minority.

**  If the reader wishes to pursue further the subject of Old Style and New Style dating he will find it discussed at length in "The Mayflower Descendant," vol. 1, pages 17-23.

FIRST GENERATION

   If you have further information on the book, "A Merrill Memorial" and would like to share it with others, please contact me.