Scranton family genealogy (Connecticut)

Question

The Erastus Scranton book about descendants of John Scranton of Guilford, Connecticut has been added to Sources-Family Genealogies (thanks Rick!)

You can find it directly at:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:A_genealogical_register_of_the_descendants_of_John_Scranton_of_Guilford%2C_Conn.%2C_who_died_in_the_year_1671

or navigate from:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-Family_Genealogies

Sorry, I haven't been able to get the link correctly added to this question.

Comments

Wondering if the Scranton brothers of what became Scranton, PA are related to the CT Scranton's. 

"In 1840, the Scranton brothers arrived and found only five houses in the village. The Scrantons built a forge that later became the nucleus of the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company. A new name was given to the settlement in 1845: Harrison, in honor of the president. Finally, in 1851, the name was changed to Scranton."

 

 

 

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I wouldn't be surprised that the Scranton, Pa folks came from Connecticut. It would take some research into their ancestors. My (half first) cousin has another book on the Scranton family, which she said seems to follow and build on Erastus' book. She bought it in Guilford, but it's not free, although it is on Ancestry. I haven't traced Pennsylvania since I'll be working back from a great grandfather who left Connecticut, married in Illinois, then settled (briefly) in Iowa before moving on to Kansas. I know that the city of Scranton (and the town of Scranton, Iowa) has been a nemesis for me when searching Scranton ancestors.

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Wikipedia has a brief article on Scranton, Iowa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scranton,_Iowa

"Scranton is a city in Greene County, Iowa, United States. The population was 557 at the 2010 census. It was also named after Scranton, Pennsylvania."

""Scranton was platted in 1869, shortly after the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River Railroad was built through that territory.^[4]It was named for Joseph H. Scranton from Scranton, Pennsylvania.^[5] Scranton was incorporated in 1880."

Maybe this information will be of some use. 

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That's interesting. So far I've looked at my grandfather and his siblings scattered in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. Once I start looking at his father Edmund, its possible that I'll find a relation to Joseph. Edmund, and possibly some of his siblings, moved from Conn to Ohio, then Iowa. Back in the 60s we were at a family reunion in Plainview, Nebraska -- a town full of Scranton -- supposedly one of the cousins had done genealogy that did link us with Scranton, Pa. I've got a lot of research and records to go through first. Cedar Rapids is fairly close to where Edmund first settled in Iowa, and families did tend to move to areas together.

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I'm unable to paste the link, but there's a really interesting article on CT.org - it's titled "From the State Historian: The Map That Wasn't a Map" - referring to the Charter of 1662.

There's also another article, "The Legend of the Charter Oak" - and being a born and bred Nutmegger, the story I always heard was the Charter was hidden in a giant oak tree and so we have the Charter Oak.

Isn't this why genealogy is much more interesting than sitting in a history class?! All the tid-bit information we get curious about...

Answer 1

Found this on Scranton by doing a search of      surname origin scranton

https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=scranton

 Scranton Family Origin

• Ireland (10)
• England (3)
• Irish Free State (1)
• Scotland (1)

from the New York Passengers List

Comments

The highest concentration of Scranton's in ENGLAND & WALES looks to be in London & Derbyshire followed by Northumberland and Durham. Too bad they don't show Ireland where more ships came from there to New York than from any other country.

The highest concentration of Scranton's in the UNITED STATES seems to be in CT, followed by IL and NY.

https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=scranton

Answer 2

Just an update on this old thread...

The genealogy is here Genealogical Record of the Descendants of John Scranton. This has lots of early Guilford, Connecticut families.

The author, Erastus Scranton, now has a profile. So if you are using this resource, you can use the Connection Finder to see how closely related he was to the subject. He does cite wills for some of the older ancestors, and the information about his nuclear family is probably correct.

If he had lived in a different time, Erastus could have been a WikiGenealogist! In his introduction, said that he collaborated with family, he cares about accuracy, and mistakes are inevitable. It looks like he hit on most of the Honor Code.