Nye Family History

Hello again! Welcome back to my project on the Civil War diary of Albert B Nye. When we last left off, I noted how much the diary can tell us about Albert Nye’s life beyond the basic sketch we get from his gravestone. But the diary centers around his time during the war. Who was he? Did he have a family? What did he leave behind? In order to answer these questions and ground the diary in a life before the war, we must look beyond the diary itself. Albert B Nye’s story begins long before he began this diary. For my purposes, his story starts with Benjamin Nye, the first Nye to come to the United States from England. Benjamin arrived in Massachusetts on the “Abigail” in 1635. He was Albert B Nye’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather. From A Genealogy of the Nye Family, I was able to gather that the Nye family first came to Vermont with Albert B Nye’s Great-Grandfather, Daniel Nye, after he served in the Revolutionary War. Due to an injury during the war, Daniel was compelled to wear a bandage over his eye for the rest of his life. They lived in Orange County VT, presumably as farmers, until Albert B Nye’s father, Samuel, moved to Norwich. It is Albert B Nye’s entry in this very genealogy that gave me my first insight into his life and allowed me to start to answer my questions.

Albert Nye’s entry in A genealogy of the Nye family

Stay tuned. - Ella