New STERRY Family Tree

It is with much pleasure that I have added a new family tree to the collection of STERRY Family Trees on STERRY WORLDWIDE. Called the Tennessee, USA line, it details the descendants of William Williston Sterry.

I first made contact with one of the principal researchers of this line, Anne Sterry Henges, way back in 1995. More recently I have been working with Anne's sister Carolyn Magruder, also a keen researcher, in an attempt to find where William Williston Sterry came from.

All we know about the origins of William is that his family moved from Albany to Syracuse in New York State in 1825 and that he was the middle of three children. [William later moved to Sycamore in Tennessee about 1843 and probably married there in 1848. He was a cabinet maker and farmer and died there in 1894.] Unfortunately New York birth records for this period have generally not survived.

Anne and Carolyn's research brought them inevitably into contact with Walter Smith, the author of the book "The Sterry Family of America" [1973] with whom they corresponded over several years.

Carolyn introduced me to a third researcher of the Tennessee line, Tracy Robb, who was interested in trying out DNA testing as a means of hopefully establishing where William Williston Sterry may have come from. Tracy encouraged James William "Bubba" Sterry to join the STERRY DNA Project. When James' results came in they matched the DNA signature of the main Connecticut Sterry line or the line of Roger Sterry [1640-1681]. DNA evidence had proved a connection where years of traditional research had failed because of lack of surviving documentation.

Needless to say everyone was very excited.

So it seemed timely to assemble all the research over many, many years into an online version of the Tennessee, USA STERRY line. This work has now been completed and the Tennessee tree has taken its due place as the sixteenth Sterry Family Tree. It can be viewed on STERRY WORLDWIDE. With much thanks in particular to Anne, Carolyn and Tracy for sharing all their years of research and making it freely available on Sterry WorldWide. We are hopeful that this may prove of interest not only to members of the Tennessee, USA Sterry tree but also to those following Sterry family history research generally. We invite contributions and corrections and in particular encourage others to contact us who may have access to any records that may shed further light on the origins of William Williston Sterry.