"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
— Charles Babbage, inventor of the mechanical adding machine.
You've found this site's raison d'etre: annotated genealogies of the emigrant progenitors who founded the first Brooks families of New England. 13 of the men below came by 1660 — the end of the "Great Migration" era — while the remaining two arrived before 1700. With the exception of the three pair of brothers (Sib) and one pair of cousins (Cou) noted in the Rel(ated) column of the table, no wider or prior relationships are known. An alphanumeric ID suffix (i.e., Thomas/2c, Henry/8a9w) denotes the generation of descent (where /1 is always the emigrant progenitor) and line of each individual.
Data for the 15 individuals below is carried (more or less) through the 4th generation, as completely as I have been able to develop them to date. (Obscure lines, such as that of Thomas of Newport, RI, where the known population is miniscule, may be included in full, as I have them, regardless of generation.) One can always go farther with daughter line descendants and spousal ancestors — I do so as I find time — and there are additional illustrations and documents to scan and upload — but this phase is essentially complete.
See the FAQ below for more.
Brooks Founders of New England prior to 1700
| Settled | Founder | ID | Dates | Location(s) | Line Name | Rel | Issue | |
| Massachusetts | Thomas | A | 1595—1667 | Watertown & Concord | CONCORD | Cou | · | |
| Henry | W | c. 1592—1683 | Concord & Woburn | WOBURN | Cou | · | ||
| William | S | d. 1688 | Springfield & Deerfield | SPRINGFIELD | · | |||
| William | P | c. 1615—c. 1683 | Marshfield & Scituate | SCITUATE | Sib | · | ||
| Gilbert | P | c. 1621—1695 | Marshfield, Scituate & Rehoboth | SCITUATE | Sib | · | ||
| Connecticut | John | G | d. 1682 | Windsor & Simsbury | GLASTONBURY | · | ||
| Henry | C | d. 1713 | New Haven, Wallingford/Cheshire | CHESHIRE | Sib | · | ||
| John | C | d. aft. 1704 | New Haven, Wallingford/Cheshire | CHESHIRE | Sib | · | ||
| Thomas | H | d. 1668 | New London & Haddam | HADDAM | · | |||
| John | F | d. bef. Mar 1695 | Stratford (Fairfield County) | FAIRFIELD | · | |||
| Rhode Island | Thomas | R | Newport, Portsmouth/1644 | NEWPORT | · | |||
| Maine | John | K | d. bef. 1712 | Kittery | KITTERY | · | ||
| Other | Richard | E | c. 1611–1687 | Lynn/1635, East Hampton/1650 | EASTHAMPTON | Sib | · | |
| Thomas | E | b. c. 1617 | Lynn/1635, to Long Island? | EASTHAMPTON | Sib | ? | ||
| William | M | d. 1684 | Milford, CT | MILFORD | ? |