Four Mumford families 

Mumford of Littlebury, Essex England., born circa 1680, died 1736 at Littlebury Essex.  Family of website owner. Due to limitations of Gedcom considerable information does not appear.  File also does not display any information on living people. A book on this family is now available.  Click here for information. 

Thomas Mumford of Ugley, born in Little Hallingbury, Essewx, England, died At Ugley in Essex England in 1711.  Family is not related to John of Littlebury.  Names of researchers available on request.

Thomas Mumford of Rhode Island, USA, born London circa 1625.  Probably the largest of the Mumford families in the USA.  Family is featured in James Gregory Mumford's book "Mumford Memoirs".  Also covered in Sheri Styx "Mumfords in America".  Further names of family members who emigrated to Canada as Planters in 1700 have been added .  This family may be descended from Hugh deMontfort III (nee deGand) whose descendants included the Barons of Beldesert in Warwickshire.   Hugh deMontfort II arrived in England with William in 1066.

John Mondeford, living circa 1300 in Norfolk, England.  The Mondeford family was listed as an "ancient family", living in Norfolk prior to the invasion. The name appears to be Saxon in origin.  By 1600 it has been corrupted to Mundeford, Mundford, Munford and Mumford.  Information obtained from various Rolls and linkages are open to question.

Contact the web site owner for further information.

Mumford DNA Project

This project is an attempt to establish a linkage or lack thereof amongst the various Mumford families.  To date it has established that the Mumford families in Ugley, Littlebury, and Rhode Island are not related style

The Littlebury line appears to be Danish (Haplogroup I1a).  Their proximity to the Mundefords in Norfolk suggests that the Mundefords may also be Danes and the forefathers of John Mumford of Littlebury.  

The line of Thomas Mumford of Ugley is Haplogroup R1b. This group is considered to be among the early settlers of England.   

The line of Thomas Mumford of Rhode Island is Haplogroup Q.  This group is not common in England.  J.G.Mumford reported in his book that a family member had heraldic evidence suggesting the family came from Yorkshire in England.  It is known that Edward I sent one of the Warwick deMontforts to Yorkshire. Since Hugh deGand, the progenitor of the Warwick line was not a Norman but from what is now Belgium it is possible that his line could be related to that of Thomas.   

Genealogical Software Report Card

The report card was originally intended to help researchers find a program that suited their needs.  To accomplish this the features of each program reviewed were assigned a value in specific categories. The intention was that the reader could then determine which program provided the best features in the areas in which they were interested.  Unfortunately those programs crammed with features obtained a higher overall score.  As a result those using the report card assumed the highest scoring program was the "best program"   This is not the case. The "best program" is the one that fulfills the user's needs. Today the large majority of researchers are not to interested in working to professional standards.  Their software requirements are not as extensive as those who are with the result that a more basic program is more than adequate.  At the more advanced level requirements are more demanding but again user requirements differ. The last group of researchers, the poor misguided family historians, need the most advanced softeware available and even then it will be inadequate for some.  They will find they require additional databases to record everything they unearth in the course of their research.   

The present version of the Report Card is devoted to what I feel are the basic needs for any genealogical program, data recording and analysis.  It lists all the features and fields that were to be found in those areas in most of the software from 1996 to 2005.  Genealogical programs have changed very little in how they record the basic information in the last ten years.  This can be blamed to some extent on the need to utilize GEDCOM as a file transfer agent. Developers have the freedom within the GEDCOM specs to modify the creation of a GEDCOM file to a limited extent.  Some of them have done this for a number of reasons related to the development of their programs.  The difficulty here for the researches is that other software can't read some of the data identified by these new tags.  

When this current Report Card was created the intention was that anyone starting their research could simply read the list and identify the features and fields they would require in a program. This is not as simple as it seems as it does require the individual to try a few programs, free and trial periods are available for most genealogical software.  Comparing the software they have tried against their list of requirements will help the reseacher make an informed decision on the compromises they will be required to make to find the "best program" for their use.  This should minimize the possibility of trying to change software at a future date with the likely loss of data should they have to use a GEDCOM file.  

There is the possibility however that the researcher will decide after being bitten by the "genealogy bug"  that they now want the shift from the casual researcher (Family Tree Climber) to a more advanced program.  Several programs provide this choice.  As a reviewer I found a program that met my data recording and analytical needs.  Unfortunately its reports and publishing features were not to my taste.  The result, when I started my family book I had to change software.  Because GEDCOM would transfer less than half of my data I had to use cut and paste to transfer that information to the reports created by my publishing program. It was not fun but it did allow me the opportunity to review and update some early assertions. 

I hope the current Report Card will be of some value to you.