If the early settlers of New York and New Jersey had not been far more careful and conscientious than we of the present time in the preserving of records of births, baptisms, marriages, civil contracts, wills, conveyances, etc., it would have been impossible to obtain much of the data upon which most of the earlier items of this sketch are based. Their family records were kept religiously in thd family bibles as well as in the church and town rec or s.