I have prepared these web pages to communicate genealogical information about the Braley Family extending beyond that which is generally found. The book Braley Genealogy, The Descendants of ROGER BRALEY, 1696--1913 (See link in header/footer.), compiled by George Randall, New Bedford, Massachusetts and published in 1913, is the starting point for many researchers of Braley family lines. This site contains additional information extending the book's Braley Family line back to England in the Sixteenth Century (See Ancestors of Roger Brailey), and loosely back to the time of the Crusades and Battle of Hastings in 1066. Read about that in the Braleys in Olde England.

I have no solid documentation for this information, because it was sent unsolicited to my father, Alson Emmons Braley, by a Harold E. Brailey, Jr. in 1943. At that time, he was a genealogy buff who was a Chemistry student at Columbia University in New York City where my father was a Professor and Medical Doctor. He sent the material in a handwritten manuscript and I now have the original documents. Click on his transmittal note thumbnail on the left to see the full size copy. Apparently Harold had done some research prior to discovering my father's name, and attached my father's line, from Braley Genealogy, to that research. It contains the same errors that we know to be in the book.

In October 2001 I was contacted by a first cousin of Harold E. Brailey, Jr. He told me that Harold Edwin Brailey, Jr. died in the 1960's and that Harold had distributed his research to his family as well as to my father. Their Brailey line descends from Solomon Braley, son of Roger Braley (1724-1779) and his wife, the second Deborah Wing. Harold Jr. was the son of Harold Edwin Brailey, born April 16, 1894, whose birth is shown in Part 1, #3653 of Braley Genealogy. Harold Sr. resided in Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey and died in June 1972 according to the Social Security Death Index. According to his nephew, he had been a vice president of Stone & Webster Engineering Co. Harold E. Brailey, Jr. is not shown in the SSDI, but a Roger Brailey, born on the same day as Harold Jr., who died Oct. 1968 is shown with a SSN of 157-05-5501. I wrote the Social Security Administration and got a copy of his original application for a SSN. In 1937 Harold Edwin Brailey, Jr. applied for a SSN and was assigned 157-05-5501. Harold Jr. died Oct. 1968 using the name Roger Brailey. He may have actually changed his name to that of our ancestor. Harold Jr.'s research must have been done before 1943, and much of it may have been done in England prior to World War II and the destruction of many records. He may have been a student in England when he did his research.

According to Harold E. Brailey's research, the Roger Braley (Brailey) who leads the Braley Genealogy book, was probably the son of a James Brayley, born about 1645, and the grandson of a Roger Brayley, born about 1610 in Devon England. It was this Roger Brayley who immigrated with his wife, Hanna ____, to Massachusetts in 1640. See the details in Ancestors of Roger Brailey. With so many Braleys in England it seems unlikely that this single immigrant would have spawned all of the Braley lines here -- there must have been others who immigrated to North America.

In any case, many early Braleys seem to have settled in the Southeastern part of Massachusetts, near Portsmouth Rhode Island, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. In fact, there are many Braleys still living there. It is most interesting to me, that there is a Braley Road, a Braley Hill Road, a Dr. Braley Road, and a Braley Cemetery all located in Western Plymouth County, near the town of Rochester, Massachusetts, and in Bristol County, in and around Acushnet, Massachusetts. The map on the right is a "thumbnail" of a section of a larger map of this area. It is a section of the 1969 map R-Z1 of the Town of Rochester, Massachusetts. Click on the thumbnail to see the full size section. This Braley Cemetery is on private, not Braley, property on Featherbed Lane, near the center of the map. A few years ago, my wife and I visited this cemetery and took some photographs of gravestones there. I've posted those photos and if you like, you can take a brief  Tour of the Braley Cemetery in Rochester. From recent e-mail exchanges with Wayne Braley, a current resident of this area, and a descendant of Ambrose Braley, I have learned that there are two additional old cemeteries with Braley burials located in what is now Bristol County. (Click Here to see a modern map that locates all three Braley Cemeteries from Interstate 195 and today's roads.)

Sometime in the early 1780's, my 4th great-grandfather, John Braley (son of Roger Braley and the first Deborah Wing) and his wife Mary Streeter, moved from the Southeastern Massachusetts area to Chesterfield, New Hampshire. There is no record of them buying land there, but there were many of Mary's relatives living in Chesterfield, according to the census of 1790. I think that when her father died, prior to 1760, she inherited land there. In 1779, John's younger half brother, Lemuel Braley, had bought land from an Elijah King in Saltash Township of Cumberland County, which covered the eastern half of the area that would become Vermont. That area, then known as the New Hampshire Grants, was claimed by New York and New Hampshire, and would be part of Vermont when it became a state in 1791. Saltash Township became a part of Windsor County, Vermont and was renamed Plymouth. Lemuel apparently did not live on that land, but he did live and raise a family in what is now Wardsboro, Windham County, Vermont. The two brother's families lived less than 20 miles apart during this time. In 1795 John and Mary Streeter sold a tract of land along the Connecticut River, in what is now West Chesterfield, New Hampshire. Apparently, they remained in Chesterfield for a few more years. Sometime after 1800, John and Mary moved their family north to the Hartford, Vermont, area where he died in 1819, and she in 1830.

Joseph Braley, Kellogg, Iowa

My 3rd great-grandfather, Joseph Braley, was born in Chesterfield in 1793 and and was living in Hartford, Vermont, when he married Julina Graves, in Corinth, Vermont, on February 12, 1816. My 2nd great-grandfather, Carlton, was born in Hartford, Vermont, in 1820. Joseph and Julina moved to Northfield, Vermont, where several of their children were born, then around 1829, Joseph moved his family further north to Wolcott, Vermont, and Carlton's younger brother Joseph, was born in Wolcott in 1830. By 1840 Joseph had moved his family back to Northfield. Young Joseph was the first of my relatives to move west to Iowa. The young Joseph was living in Iowa about 1848, probably working as a farm hand, when another brother, George Washington (b. 1832 in Wolcott), walked to Iowa to visit him. George W. returned to Vermont and then permanently moved to Iowa in 1850. In 1859 he married Eliza Jane Mendenhall and started his family in Iowa.¹ (There is a privately printed Braley Book No. 2 that identifies their descendants.)

(Note: Joseph (Jr.) and George lived and worked in the Jasper City area in 1848-1850's and Joseph was shown in the 1850 census of Jasper County as 20 year old single, laborer. George was reported to be returning to Iowa from Vermont during 1850 and was probably missed.)

In the 1850's, Joseph's sons Joseph and George W. were probably encouraging their father and others to come to Iowa. At least one of the married children of Joseph and Julina Graves, Julina Braley and husband Joseph Gould Jr., did go to Iowa between 1853 and 1856. They had a child born in Jasper County on May 9, 1856.² Joseph Jr. apparently lived with Julina and her husband's family for a while. In 1855 Joseph Jr. bought a farm and built a log cabin near Jasper City, Jasper County, Iowa. Jasper City would later be renamed Kellogg. He married Elmira Whitcomb in 1858 and in 1859 they took in an Orphan Train child, Hugh Thorpe, who was 5 years old then. Joseph and Elmira (Mira) would have 10 more children. About 1882, Joseph and Elmira moved to town and Hugh Thorpe and his wife Mary bought Joseph's house and farm, and their descendants still owned the farm in the 1980's.

Carlton Braley

Back in Northfield, Vermont, in February 1846 Julina Graves died leaving Joseph with several young children. In November of 1846, Joseph remarried Roxanna Loveland Andrews, the widow of a Mr. Andrews. She became the stepmother of Julina's children. Carlton had married Eliza Ann Royce, who was from Northfield, in 1845, and their first child, Alson Henry, my great-grandfather and namesake, was born in Northfield in 1846. In 1854, Carlton moved his family from Northfield to Montpelier/Berlin, Vermont. In 1864, Alson Henry (then 18), enlisted in the Union Army, Company C, 9th Vermont, Volunteer Infantry. In 1866 after returning from service in the Civil War, Alson H. moved to Iowa. Also during 1866, Carlton and his family went to Iowa (probably with Alson or shortly after) and they also settled near Kellogg, Iowa, and were neighbors to Joseph's farm.³ Joseph Sr., then 73, left his wife, and his children by her, in Vermont, and went with them to Iowa. There, he lived alternately with Carlton's and Joseph's families. The Braley Genealogy listing for Carlton and Eliza's son, Frank Titus Braley, who was born in 1861 (Part I, #923), indicates that he and later children were born in Kellogg, Iowa. That is incorrect. According to handwritten entries in the book, History of the Graves and Fletcher Families (See link in header/footer.) and the 1870 census of Kellogg, Edgar Rice Braley, born 1867, was the first of Carlton's children who were born in Kellogg. Also, Carton's flowery obituary from September 1884 reported that he moved to Jasper County, Iowa, in 1866. The obituary confirms the entries in the Graves book.

Alson Henry Braley

Alson Henry Braley told his grandson and my father, Alson E. Braley, that he had first come to Iowa in 1863, when he was 17. In 1863, Alson Henry could have traveled by train and wagon to Jasper County, Iowa, where his uncles, Joseph and George W., were living. His aunt Julina and her husband Joseph Gould were living in nearby Grinnell at the time. This is when he probably arranged to buy land in Iowa, then owned by his grandparents, Titus and Louisa (Jones) Royce.⁴ Apparently during the spring or early summer of 1864, he returned to Vermont and enlisted in the Union Army on August 15. The deed for purchase of this land was recorded after he had joined the Army. (Jasper County, Iowa Deed Book 26, page 164, 26 August 1864.)

My father was taking a creative writing class after he retired and got carried away with the idea that Alson Henry met Dell Ann Jackson on this trip through Ohio to Iowa. For a while I believed this story, but it is fiction. On a 2001 trip to Ohio and Iowa, we found an 1850 Federal Census record of the family of William Jackson, wagonmaker, with four children, in Kenton, Ohio and a grantee deed recorded in Hardin County, Ohio, for the sale of property in Kenton by William and Rachel Jackson of Columbia County, Wisconsin, for $600 on 30 Jan. 1854. The Jacksons were represented by an attorney at the signing of the deed. Since then we have found the family in the 1860 Federal Census living on a farm in Waterloo Township of Black Hawk County, Iowa. In this census the family has two more children, one born 1852 in Ohio and a second born 1854 in Wisconsin. William Jackson and Rachel apparently moved their family from Kenton, Hardin County, Ohio, to Columbia County, Wisconsin, between 1852 and January 1854, and then to Iowa by 1860. Mary E. Jackson, Dell Ann's older sister, was probably the Mary Elizabeth Jackson who married Samuel M. Benight September 1860 in Black Hawk County, Iowa. The family probably had moved from Wisconsin to Waterloo Township of Black Hawk County in 1856, as reported in Dell Ann Jackson's obituary.

Dell Ann (Jackson) Braley

In the 1870 Federal Census the family is found living in the 1^st Ward of the City of Waterloo where William Jackson has returned to his old trade of wagonmaking. His two oldest children, John and Mary, have left home and Idella is now called Della. He had 3 carpenters, who apparently worked for him, also living in his household.

After the Civil War, 1866, Alson H. went to Iowa, possibly with his father, to farm the land he bought from his grandparents. I do not know how he and Dell Ann met, but I suspect that he may have worked as a farm hand for established farmers in Iowa during his first few years there. He may have worked for a while at the Jackson farm near Waterloo or as a carpenter for him in the Waterloo wagonmaking business. In 1872, Alson H. and Dell Ann Jackson were married in Waterloo and then returned to his farm near Kellogg. On the right is a photograph of Dell Ann taken at Kellogg, I do not know the date. But later my father told me that she had to shave her upper lip or it scratched him when she kissed him. Alson H. was very active in the Masonic Lodge in Kellogg. He held several offices and was the Worshipful Master there for 1891-1893. I have a large portrait of him (too large for my scanner) that came from the Kellogg Lodge when they re-decorated, and gave it to my father.

(Note: While rummaging through my father's old photograph collection, I found a photograph taken in Waterloo, Iowa, of a Mabel Jackson who, I have recently discovered, is a niece of Dell Ann Jackson. See her picture and read about how I solved my mystery at Mabel Jackson Mystery.)

Alson H. and Dell had two sons born in Kellogg, Ernest Edward, born April 14, 1876, and my grandfather, Harry Jackson, born on March 30, 1880. Both of their sons graduated from College, Ernest, from Chicago Dental College, Chicago, Illinois, May 1900 (Uncle Doc to my dad) and Harry from Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, as a Pharmacist in 1899. As far as I know they were the first Braleys in my line to attend any college or university.

After his graduation, my grandfather worked in several pharmacies in Iowa, one was in Lake Mills. There he met Sara Evelina "Evelyn" Emmons. Evelyn was working at millinery shop next door to the drug store. Evelyn was from Emmons, Minnesota, which is about 7 miles northeast of Lake Mills. Emmons is a tiny town on the Iowa-Minnesota border named after her Norwegian family who had carved the community out of the wilderness in the 1850's. (I did not know her as Sara, that came from genealogical research, she was always Evelyn, occasionally Evelina.) They were married, June 20, 1905. My father, Alson Emmons Braley, was their first child and was born January 9, 1906, in Lake Mills, Iowa. In Braley Genealogy, his birth date is March 9, 1906, because Evelyn filled out Mr. Randall's questionnaire and did not want his real date of birth published in the book, so she moved it from January to March. About 1910 my grandfather purchased the drug store and ice cream parlor in Wesley, Iowa, that he owned and operated until October 1945 when he sold the store. As a young boy my father sometimes helped out in the store. He graduated with an MD from the State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, May 31, 1931. In June of 1931, he married Hazel Leona Deming of Iowa City, in Iowa City. I was their first child and was born December 11, 1936, in Iowa City.

(Note: About 1999 I began working on my mother's genealogy and during the past few years, I have collected a lot of information about her Deming ancestors and her Cole, Hitchcock and Robinson ancestors as well. All of these individuals, and some of their stories, are now included in the GEDCOM file that is available by request.)

My father served his internship and residency at SUI, and was a prominent Ophthalmologist in Detroit, Michigan, New York City and New Jersey. He was commissioned as a doctor in the Navy during World War II, and was discharged with the rank of Lt. Commander. In 1950 he moved back to Iowa City, as Head of the Ophthalmology Department at University of Iowa Hospitals, from 1950 to 1967. After 1967, he was in private practice in Iowa City until his retirement in 1976. He made major contributions to development of cornea transplant surgery and the creation of the national Eye Bank Network.

I attended the State University of Iowa, College of Engineering, beginning in fall 1954, served a tour of duty with the US Army from February 1957 to February 1959, and returned to SUI to graduate as BSME in 1961. While in the Army, on August 16, 1958, I married Frances Louise Weber, from Muscatine, Iowa, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. After graduation I was employed by Illinois Bell Telephone Company. We have two children, Dawn Marie, born December 10, 1962 in Springfield, Illinois, and Randall James, born March 6, 1969, in Evanston, Illinois, whom we adopted in 1969. I worked 33 years for Illinois Bell, AT&T and Bell Communications Research, retiring in 1994. We first lived in a house built in the mid 1780's in the Webatuck Hamlet of Dover, New York, which is served by the Wingdale Post Office. In 2004/5 we build a new house on 10 acres of land across the street that was purchased with that old house. Our new address is 22 Webatuck Road, Wingdale, NY 12594

That's my line. . .

- Alson³ D. Braley, <abraley@optonline.net>