Page 37 - La Généalogie retrouver ses ancêtres

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The Ontario Regis ter
32
Loyalists of Sussex County, New Jer sey 33
tory as the term is used
· of the war. a •
l
At the conc uslon . h he had always lived or, if he state to an extreme degree. In New J ersey this penalty was al-
f
t ard expansion of the t1me, e
here. was ree to remum w er e . h
d t . ·n in the wes w most entirely reserved for those who had joined "the Army of
was incline 0 JOl t to to Kentucky or the Ohio Valley as the King of Great Britain" , that is, one of the loyalist regiments.
0
could just as well elec ~ d"d go to Upper Canada, thereby If the defendant did not appear to traverse the inquisition, as he
to Upper Canada. Tho:e ;at~itolusly the epithet "Loyalist"' left certainly would not if he were in a loyalist regiment, his first
earning for them selve g 1" behind them in their former place default, or non-appearance, was recorded in the minutes of the
little or no record of loya lSID d dants
t b h nted out by future escen . court. At the next term of the court, the defendant was again
of residence 0 e. u . logy is perhaps slight so far as the called, and, on his failure to appear, his second defaul t was
The difference m termmo
f that time is concerned, but for present recorded. It was at this point that he was attainted of treason
1 0
attitudes of the peop e .
f the two terms for the Revolutwnary and that the commissioners of forfeited estates were enabled to
day researchers th e use o . take title to his property both r eal and persona!.
"11 help to sorne extent to indicate the kmds of rec-
War years Wl . 1 I would like to express my thanks to Mr . David C. Munn and
ords and sources that one might expect to fmd, or' converse ~·
to Mrs. Rebecca Colesar, both of whom are members of the
to explain the absence of r ecor ds regarding an ancestor. It.1s
staff of the New Jersey State Archives at Trenton. Mr. l\funn
f this reason that the present day researcher is urged to clanfy
brought to my attention the existence of the transcripts of the
i~~is ownmind the probable role played by a "loyalist" ancestor
rosters of the New Jersey Volunteers in the New J ersey Archives
at the time of the American Revolutionary War. Record of the
and he was most helpful in giving aid with the rather cumbersome
active loyalist is very frequently preserved in the printed sources
index system to the files of the New Jersey Supreme Coun which
relating to the state in question while one should not expect to
are also in the Archives. Original rasters of the Kew Jersey
find mention in those same sources of a person who was less Volunteers 1777-1783 are in the Public Archives of Canada as

active. part of the "C" series. (See: Public Archives of Canada. Manu-
There are, of course, instances of active Loyalists not being script Division. Preliminary Inventory: Record Group~· British
mentioned in records one would normally expect to contain such Military and Naval Records [1954], page 20. This inventai)' is

mention as instances in this article bear witness to. The re- available from the PAC at a cost of one dollar.)
searcher then must turn to a variety of manuscript sources.

Sorne such sources for New Jersey were used in the preparation Abbreviations:
of this article, and, although the men mentioned here were from
Sussex County (including pres ent day Warren County), the sources GMNJ Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey . (The publication

cited are equally applicable to other areas of that State. of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey)
In regard to sources, a note of clarification regarding sorne Jones E. Alfred Jones. The Loyalists of New Jerse~ (Xewark.

terminology used in the ar ticle should be made here. The phrases 1927) Published as volume 10 of the New Jers e~- Hist-
"first default" or "second default" used in connection with the orical Society Collections.
minutes of the county court refer to the process by which a per- NE "Newspaper Extracts" being Documents rel a ting- to the

san was attainted of treason and his property confiscated. The Revolutionary his tory of the State of New Jerse~- . 5v.
fir st step in the process was the presentment by one of the judges (Trenton, 1901 -1917) These volumes are familiarly

of an inquisition against an individual. The person named, who referred to as "New Jersey Archives. Second Series."
pres~mably had beengiven notice, could traverse the inquisition NJA Documents relating to the Colonial his ton of the State of
settlmg the matter then and there. For cases in which the ex- New Jersey. ("New Jersey Archi\·es")

treme penalt~ of confiscation was involved, the inquisition would NJSC New Jersey Supreme Court. The manuscript record books
have had to fmd that the person had contravened the laws of the and files are now at the New Jersey State Archives.