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Ulster and Sullivan County, NY genealogy

Cross family genealogy

A New York State Genealogy

Noah Cross was a British soldier who deserted on Long Island, made his way to the Shawangunk Mountains of Ulster County, married Rachel Osterhout, a local girl of Dutch ancestry, and subsequently fought on the American side in the American Revolution. 

This page is about them and their children: Susanna Cross, Margreta Cross, Benjamin VanWagonen Cross, Lodewyck Cross, Charles Brodhead Cross, and Catrena Cross, and their descendants.

Around 35 years ago, the now-defunct Cross Family Association compiled a record of all of their known descendants and made it available to its members in typescript form called "Cross - New York State 1775 - 1975". 

This genealogy is now available from Between the Lakes Group.

Cross -- New York State 1775 - 1975

The original consisted of 166+ pages of genealogy, and it's been heavily annotated for the 35 years it's been in our possession.

The Cross Family Association, over the first few years subsequent to publication, issued a few supplementary pages of additions and corrections for insertion in the original, and these – or all of these that are in our possession – are inserted in what seems to be the proper location.  We indexed the typescript.

Unfortunately, further organized work on this family appears to have completely ceased in the 1980s, although  individual family members continued to compile their own lines.  We have been in touch with a number of descendants who are at various stages in this process, including some descended from lines that are not followed at all in this compilation.  We have attempted, using postal mail, telephone information, and the internet, to contact many of the people who were involved in preparing and updating the original compilation, as well as the Association itself.  Unfortunately, a pile of returned mail marked “Addressee unknown” bears mute testimony to the failure of our multiple efforts in that direction.  We have concluded with considerable regret that the Cross Family Association is entirely defunct.

Regardless, the work the Cross Family Association did in researching and preparing this compilation deserves to remain available to local historians and genealogists, particularly in Ulster, Orange, and Sullivan Counties in New York, and to descendants of this couple – a British deserter who married a Dutch girl in New York State’s Shawangunk Mountains at the beginning of the American Revolution.  It is primarily for that reason that we have added it to the publications catalog of Between the Lakes Group.

The annotated original of "Cross - New York State: 1775 - 1975" is now available for download.  166+ pages, PDF format, $7.50.

 Cross family genealogy

Between the Lakes Group is happy to serve as a point of contact for Cross family members, especially those who were  involved in the Cross Family Association during its lifespan.

Of course, we also continue to collect our own Cross family information as time permits. 

If you would like to be involved in researching this fascinating family, please click the "Contacting us" button in the left margin of this page and help us make sure your part of the family is correctly represented. (You'll find us on page 56 of the Cross family book).

WHERE WE ARE REGARDING A REVISION:  We are in the process of consolidating additional sources of information (mainly branches of the family omitted from the original), confirming data already in the compilation where possible, adding photographs and newspaper clippings where we have been able to locate them for more recent generations, and formalizing it as a genealogy, with each family member assigned a number indicating generation and line of descent.  We're also planning on indexing it completely (interestingly, this typescript was our introduction to indexing back 30 years ago, and we've learned a lot about the craft since then). And we're going to take advantage of the major improvements in technology that the past few decades have brought to include lots of pictures!  An appendix already underway traces Rachel Osterhout's ancestry -- back to the boat and before.  That's another possible future download! QUESTION:  Will there be future Cross family publications?  A CD-ROM? 

ANSWER:  Perhaps.  A download of photos, newspaper clippings and other documents is likely -- or at least possible. Much depends on the contributions of other family members, of course.

 

Please join our mailing list.  We'll let you know when additional Cross family information is available -- and, if you can help with Cross family information, we'll recruit you as well!



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Contacting us:

Between the Lakes Group is located at 372 Between the Lakes Road, in Salisbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut.  More specifically, we're in Taconic -- a hamlet  in the Twin Lakes area of the Town of Salisbury.  Questions about us or about our products?  Go to our Frequently Asked Questions page.  

Telephone:
(860)824-0640
Postal address:
Post Office Box 13
          Taconic, CT  06079-0013
Electronic mail:
Please Contact us to contact us via e-mail