If you have not revisited your early family research, I would urge every one to do so. There are so many new resources coming on-line all the time that it is hard to keep up with them all.
Of course you must take everything that you find on the Internet with a very high degree of suspicion and you must attempt to locate original records from the new clues and document, document, document!
One of my revolutionary war patriot ancestors was Aaron HULET (1755-1835) who was born in Plainfield, Windham Co., CT., and resided later in Shaftsbury, Bennington Co., VT., where he is buried in the "Little Rhodie Cemetery" (so named for the large amount of Rhode Islanders that resided in the area.)
Aaron was a pensioner and his surviving widow (2nd wife) Cynthia (HOPKINS) HULET (1775-1860) also received a widow's pension and in 1855 received land warrants.
Through modern resources I have been able to add many new details from early census, newspapers, various websites and data bases. All of these new sources help to put more meat on the bones and fill in gaps.
It is likely that Aaron had a brother Phineas who also served in the same Fourth Connecticut unit that Aaron did, and Phineas evidently resided later in Sussex Co., NJ., and died in 1826. He was also a pensioner. I would like to find anyone else working on him.
Ancestry and Heritage Quest have been adding hundreds of new data bases per year, as well as NewspaperARCHIVE.com and of course the LDS site familysearch.org. Rootsweb and the USGenWeb sites for each state and county are just filled with new data and more is being added daily. It is all very exciting!
I have posted several queries on the rootsweb message boards regarding the HOPKINS side of the family. We know for sure that Cynthia had at least two sisters, Bethia (HOPKINS) REYNOLDS and Sylvia (HOPKINS) PARKER. Both sisters signed an affidavit to support Cynthia's widows pension application. In the pension file the name of their father is given as Joseph HOPKINS and in the Shaftsbury town records the mother's given name is listed as Mary. There was a Capt. Joseph HOPKINS and Mary (AUSTIN) of Rhode Island that seem to be likely candidates but further research is needed.
One good way to get unstuck on a research problem is to post queries, chances are there are others interested in the same ancestors that you have and you just might get lucky. I would also encourage everyone to get a web based email address that will stay the same for many years. Since I have been posting queries on the Internet since the early 1980's I see that my email address has changed about a dozen times through various moves and various Internet service providers. I now use my gmail address exclusively and people will always be able to find me through my website, www.ny-genes.com
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