Fred Hart (b. 1937) is a native of Norwalk, Connecticut and a graduate of Dartmouth College (AB, 1958) and the Thayer School of Engineering (MSEE, 1960). His engineering career was with the Connecticut Light and Power Company and its successor Northeast Utilities (now part of Eversource Energy), where he held a progression of engineering, supervision and management positions until his retirement in 1995.  He is a member in several genealogical organizations including Connecticut Ancestry Society where he has held the position of genealogist since 1996, and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society where he serves on the Editorial Board of its journal, and where he was elected a Fellow of that Society in October, 2015.

Selected Publications:

Books:

The Family of Johann & Maria Hertz: Johann Peter Hertz & Maria Katherina Margarethe (Bruhn) (Qualmann) Hertz of Oberhof, Parish of Kluetz, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany (Baltimore, 1988).

Ancestry of William Weed of Stamford and Darien, Connecticut (Broomfield, Co., 2009). (A reprint of a series of six individual articles covering nineteen surname lines that were published from August 2007 to November 2008 in Connecticut Ancestry.)

Selected articles, by decade:

1980s

“Three Mary Lockwoods,” Connecticut Ancestry 32 (1989), 53–57. (This was my first published article, separating out one of my ancestors from others of the same name.)

1990s

“Martha⁴ Smith, Wife of John³ Reed of Norwalk, Connecticut,” The American Genealogist 67 (1992), 246–48. (The first of my articles to be published in a major journal.)

“Keepers of the Matinicus Light: Isaac H. and Abbie E. (Burgess) Grant and Their Families,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 150 (1996), 391–416. (Lead article for the Register‘s 150th anniversary issue.)

“Keeping Up With the Stamford Joneses, Part 1: Merchants and Mariners—The Benjamin Jones Family,” Connecticut Ancestry 41 (1998), 95–103. (This was the first of a five-part series of articles that separated out persons of this common surname in the early Stamford records.)

2000s

“James Smith of Newtown, Long Island, His Descendants in Huntington, and His Brother John Smith of Hempstead,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 134 (2003), 163–74, 134 (2003), 289–99. (Another excursion into the complications of a common surname, and it benefited from the comments and suggestions of several good friends and colleagues along the way.)

“Introduction,” and “Fairfield County Town Patents and Patentees,” Connecticut Ancestry, Anniversary Issue #2, 47(2) (December 2004) vii-viii, 151-58. (I also served as editor for this entire special issue in honor of the Society’s 50th anniversary.)

with Anita A. Lustenberger, CG, “DNA Testing Results Settle a Long-Standing Question in the Seeley Family,” New England Ancestors, 6(2) (Spring 2005), 46-47, 51. Also reprinted in Seeley Genealogical Society Newsletter 2005(02) (May 2005), 1,3, 10. (I had earlier done a substantial amount of research on this “long-standing question” for the Seeley Genealogical Society, but it was the DNA evidence that finally settled the matter.)

“Long Island Sound as a Genealogical Region,” New England Ancestors 10(1) (Winter 2009), 26-29. (This was a requested article based upon a lecture that I had presented at the 2000 combined Conference of the NGS and the NERGC in Providence, RI.)

2010s

“Early Austins of Greenwich and Stamford, Connecticut,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 168 (2014), 85–100. (Writing this article involved a very productive collaboration with a member of the Austin Family Association of America, and the resulting article provided useful new information to members of that organization.)

“Pressing Rewind: Reconsidering John Ogden of Rye,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 146 (2015), 31–40. (This article was selected to be a part of a special issue in honor of Harry Macy, FASG, former editor of that journal and a good friend.)

“Elizabeth Davenport’s Elusive Identity,” The Genealogist 29 (2015), 14-25; and “A Constable Update,” The Genealogist 29 (2015), 26-30 (Two companion articles included in the American Society of Genealogists 75th Anniversary Volume.)

“Weed Ancestry of Pioneer American Photographer Charles Leander Weed 1824-1903),” National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 106:2 (June, 2018): 103-10. (A distant relative on the Weed side.)

(with William Lynch Fuller) “James Fuller of Ashford and Union, Connecticut: Cluster Genealogy Meets Y-DNA,” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 172 (Summer, 2018), 197-218.

2020s

“The Genealogical Contributions of Stamford Educator and Historian Rev. Elijah Baldwin Huntington (1816-1877),” Connecticut Ancestry, 63:2, (November 2020):54-59. (Huntington had compiled major genealogies of his own Huntington (1863) and Lathrop/Lothrop (posthumously, 1884) families, neither of which were associated with Stamford, and therefore almost completely unknown there.)

(With Lois Gee Lacy) “Genetics & Genealogy: A Proposed New Line from Alexander¹ Baker of Boston,” American Ancestors Magazine, 23:3 (Fall 2022): 51-53.