The New England Ball Project is a modified "one-name" study that attempts to identify as many "Ball" surname persons resident in New England at some time between circa 1630 and the present and to link them to all of their descendants. The intent is to document the sources for all names, relationships, dates, places, and events that that make up the database in the Project and to publish the families in a way that all have access to the results without cost. While the Project includes tracking descendants of other surnames, the focus of the Project will be on the Ball surname and additions to the trees beyond the Ball surname will be done on an ad-hoc basis (generally because someone else has contributed the material).
Is your Ball line incomplete or missing here? I welcome information on your branch of the family including photos. Click the "add & correct" tab for instructions.
NAVIGATING THE WEBSITE
All of the people on the Master Index pages are listed in alphabetical order by surname, then by given name(s), and then by birth date. Click on the "master index" tab and scan down for the range of names that potentially includes the person you are searching for; click on that line and on the new page scroll down to your target name. Click on the target name to go to that person's page. If you are only interested in people at a specific location, click on the tab that says "place index", scroll down and click on an underlined place to go to a list of all people that reference that place. Similarly, click on any photo in the "photo gallery" to go to that person's page.
Pedigrees: If the person you are looking at has "Pedigree to ..." under their name you can click on that link to get the lineage from the person being viewed back to the Ball branch head they descend from. Once at the pedigree chart the person's name you just came from will have a light gray box around it. Click on any "+" sign and the pedigree will expand that family and you can navigate to more distant relatives. At the moment the largest charts are limited to six to eight generations of descendants from the immigrant Ball. Any name highlighted in orange is duplicated elsewhere in that chart.
OTHER TOPICS
I need more Ball-surname candidates for yDNA testing; see details on the DNA tab to see if you qualify for a FREE test. While you are there check out my recent article on DNA study side-effects.
There are several famous people in the "photo gallery", including a US President, a British Prime Minister, a sculptor, several movie stars and several sports stars.
BIBLE RECORDS AND BIBLE AVAILABLE
Are you a descendant of Marshall Cotton Ball and Wealthy Ann Schenck of Massachusetts and New York? I have their family Bible waiting for a relative to claim. I also have high quality scans of the family pages that I can email to anyone interested.
Are you a relation of Myra E. Ball and Ammon Lee of Michigan (who had no children)? I have their family Bible waiting for a relative to claim and high quality scans of the family pages that I can email to anyone else interested.
Are you a descendant of William Henry Ball and Mary Fremoyle Sweetser of New Hampshire? I have high quality scans of the family pages that I can email to anyone interested.
Do you have a family Bible that includes people on this website? Scans of the publication page and the family pages would be appreciated. Send to the email link below.
INDEX OF THE HEADS OF BALL LINES IN THE PROJECT
