The Leonard Series
Editor’s note: Brad (Charles Bradford Leonard), the author of these books, died in 2023. His original 2 volume book on James Leonard, Ironworker of Taunton and his website covering much of the material in this series were published in 2013. Since 2013 he spent many hours accumulating and documenting more data from other Leonards, libraries, historic sites, trips to various Leonard related locations, and large amounts of data from the web. He and I, his wife, planned to republish the original works with the updated data, to add new books on the other Leonard lines in the US, and to add a book, the Leonard Origins, that helps ground the Leonards back in England. We also planned to make the material available on an updated website and in e-book format. This series is the result of those plans as I continued to use his data and writings to complete the production.
As with any published genealogy, this is a work that had to stop somewhere in the research, and certainly contains the best efforts to keep it accurate. It will never be complete, will contain errors of omission or commission. For those I apologize in advance, but hope it can be a good resource for the reader to learn and advance their own work on their genealogy. (SMF, editor)
The main focus of this series of books is the Leonards in the United States. There are many lines, some related, some separate as determined by dna and genealogical research. It is a common surname and the data can get complex quickly. The author’s ancestor was James Leonard, an ironworker, who arrived from Englnd/Wales early in the European migration and settlement of New England.
The current book, the first in the series, begins where the Leonards began, over in the “old world.” This gives an opportunity to try to distinguish the various lines and to provide an understanding of the history of these families.
The “named” volumes cover James of Taunton, Henry his brother, John his cousin, and Solomon, an unrelated line of Leonards. There are also subsections on some Leonards who cannot be directly tied into the “named” Leonard lines by genealogical research, but whose descendants match closely in the newer dna analyses.
The books in the Leonard Genealogy Series cover:
Vol 1: Leonard Origins
Vols 2&3: James Leonard, 1620-91, Ironworker of Taunton, Massachusetts
Vol 4: Henry Leonard, 1618-78, Ironworker of Taunton, Massachusetts
Vol 5: John Leonard of Springfield, 1615-76, of Springfield Massachusetts
Vol 6: Solomon Leonard, 1610-71, Of Duxbury, Massachusetts