Roger D. Joslyn (born 1948) is originally from Sacramento and earned a ba in political science at the University of California at Davis, where he spent nearly all his time in the music department. He worked as a musical director in theatre for a few years and went to Boston for further study at Berklee College of Music, but began to spend too many hours at The New England Historic Genealogical Society, expanding work on his personal family history he had started seriously at age twelve. He took clients full-time beginning in 1978, became a Certified Genealogist in 1981, and the next year was elected a Fellow of the ASG. He has served as secretary, vice president, and president of ASG and in 1989–1991 was president of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Most of his professional work is now forensic. His website is genealogicalforensics.com.

Selected Bibliography

Books

Four Ancestral Lines and Descendants of Erastus Beethoven Badger and Fanny Babcock (Campbell) Badger [ghost-written for Alice W. Badger] (Hampton, N.H.: Peter E. Randall, 1982)

Families of…Little, Smith, Peck, Hinkelman, Hollingsworth, Ackerman and Formon (Deep River, Conn.: William S. Little, 1991)

The Vital Records of Charlestown Massachusetts, 2 vols. in 3 (Boston: NEHGS, 1984, 1995)

[with Sharon DeBartolo Carmack], American Lives and Lines (privately published, 1999)

Mid-Atlantic state chapters (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland) in Red Book[:] American State, County, and Town Sources (ed. Alice Eichholz), 3d ed. (Provo, Utah: Ancestry, 2004)

Personal family accounts [in progress] on Joslyn, Cotton, Cain, Toolan/Toolen/Toolin, Hiatt, Eltzroth, Waldau/Senffleben, McLeish, Jones, etc., for distribution mostly among family members at this time.

Articles

“The Descendants of John Stockbridge,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 133(1979):93–101, 187–93, 286–93, 134(1980):70–73, 135–47, 228–36, 291–98, 135(1981):36–44, 121–32

“The English Origins of John Stockbridge and His First Wife Ann,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 74(1986):111–18

“The English Ancestry of the Newburgh Badgers,” The American Genealogist 58(1982):1–11, 91–98

“The Family of Abraham and Mary (Soule) Josselyn,” The Genealogist 2(1981):55–64

[with Nancy B. Fratt and Frederic W. Shaen] “Three Generations of the Eltzroth/Elseroad Family,” The Genealogist 5(1984):73–128

[with Merlin S. Eltzroth and Nancy B. Fratt], “The German Origins of the Pennsylvania Eltzroth Brothers,” The Genealogist 11(1997):73–83

“The Benchley-Bensley Family,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 142 (1988):3–15, 177–95, 281–97, 371–85, 143(1989):52–69, 152–65

“Rebecca, Wife of Thomas¹ Josselyn of Hingham and Lancaster, Massachusetts,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 158(2004):330–40

“Indentures of the Poor Children of Orange County, 1829–1847, 1871, 1884, 1885,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 137(2006):294–303, 138(2007):144–50, 227–31

“Gertrude Barber, Minnie Cowen, and Ray Sawyer: The Sisters Who Indexed New York,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 142(2011):5–20, 131–42, 277–87, 143(2012): 49–64, 133–45, 226–34

“Was Andrew Byrd of Greene County, Ohio, a Son of Col. Abraham Byrd of Shenandoah County, Virginia, and Fayette County, Kentucky?,” The American Genealogist 74(1999):131–46

“Abigail⁴ (Wells) (Wetmore) Seward of Durham, Connecticut, Wife of Jabez Wetmore and Ephraim Seward,” The American Genealogist 72(1997):81–88

“The Wife or Wives of Samuel² Butler of Wethersfield CT,” The American Genealogist 60 (1984):27–32

“Enigmas #23: Was Capt. Rufus Gardner of New London, Connecticut, a Son of Capt. Christopher Gardner of South Kingston, Rhode Island?,” The American Genealogist 82(2007): 49–62, 130–41

“Hannah Bumstead (1639/40–1703) of Boston, Wife of Thomas Sherrer, George Nicholson, and Samuel Ruck,” The American Genealogist 85(2011):92–104; see also 86(2012):53

“Sarah⁵ (Josselyn) Rickard of Hanover, Pembroke, and Middleborough, Massachusetts, Was Not an Indian,” The American Genealogist 84(2010):297–99

“The ‘Short Form’ 1880 and 1890 Federal Censuses,” The American Genealogist 69(1994):231–33

“Coffins by Bela Joslyn of Alexander, N.Y.,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 116(1985):10

“The Will of Samuel Holly of Goshen, Orange County,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 129(1998):32–33, 261

“Connecting Alvin Joslyn of Buffalo, Erie County, to His 1860 Census Entry, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 139(2008):203–4

“Joris Rapalye of Flower Hill, Long Island: A Correction, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 119(1988):143–45

“Records of Charles Titus, J.P., of New Baltimore, Greene County, 1808–1817, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 139(2008):68–72

“The 1795 Census of Brothertown Indians, Oneida County,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 141(2010):213–18

“Town of Ramapo Births in 1847, The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 132 (2001):168–70

“Second-Chance Census,” New York Archives [magazine], 13(2014):32–33.

“Smith Bible Links Mayflower Descendants,” The Mayflower Descendant, 35(1985):59–62, 175.

“Nameless Deaths and Marriages in the 1855 New York State Census,” The NYG&B Newsletter, 12(2001):41–42.

“Josselyn to Joslyn in One Generation,” Josselin Journal, 54(2014):15–22.

(with Thomas H. Roderick, Elving Anderson, Robert Charles Anderson, and Wayne T. Morris, “The Records of the Eugenics Record Office, A Resource for Genealogists,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 82(1994):97–113.

“The Lowly Capital F,” The American Genealogist, 74(1999):31.

“Timothy and Melvin Shaw of Wales, Erie County, New York: Brothers from Massachusetts?,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 170(2016):101–20.

(with John Bradley Arthaud), “Abraham and Hannah (Millington) Collins of Coventry, Connecticut, and Dorset, Vermont, Reunited,” Vermont Genealogy, 23(2018):99–134.

Job Seward sketch in Western Massachusetts Families in 1790 Volume 4, ed. Helen Schatvet Ullmann (Boston: The New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2019), 400–11

“Vermont Families in 1771: Jabez Josselyn of Poultney, Vermont, and His Children and Grandchildren,” Vermont Genealogy, 25(2020):3–34

“Children of Thomas Joslyn, Grocer of Chemsford, Essex, England, and His Wife, Margaret,” Josselin Journal, 70(2023):5