Book Description

A 420 page chronicle of the compilers' first six generations of Dayton ancestors in America. The compilation begins in 1617 with Ralph in Ashford, Kent and follows him to America, descending through Samuel, Abraham, Henry, David and David, spanning the years 1639 to 1807.The compilers sought primary reference and consultation, and in the effort to gather fragments of Dayton history, the work accumulated nearly 500 citations and 14 pages of works cited. The book is fully indexed and contains almost fifty images of original documents, autographs, illustrations, maps and photographs. Contextual or background information is also provided, particularly in the first few chapters, to aid understanding.The compilers' motivation for publishing many years of research is to provide family and researchers a collection of material with which to begin their own discovery. With the advantage of modern availability to information, early scholarship and family legends are confronted in the effort to expose real people. In doing so, differing interpretations are offered so the reader can draw their own conclusions and advance the dialog.