In May Autumn Haag gave a short talk to the Rochester Genealogical Society She is from the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation at the Rush Rhees Library of the University of Rochester. I really wanted to talk to her about something I had on my ‘to-do” list but she had to leave quickly after her talk. I eventually sent her an email.

I wanted to have the Department scan the birth records that they have of Dr. Ambrose Jones. The Department would end up sending me a PDF with 62 pages of records. I estimate that there are about 1,100 births that he attended between 1834 and 1879 on this web page of birth records.

Doctor Ambrose Jones

Dr. Jones was for many years a physician in Charlotte which in the 1800s was in the Town of Greece. It was annexed by the City of Rochester in 1916.

Dr. Jones lived in a few places before ending up in Charlotte in May 1840. He would spent the rest of his life in Charlotte and is buried in the Charlotte Cemetery.

Dr. Jones kept some pretty good records except for his last few years. One important things that he didn’t record was the mother’s name but you should be able to figure those out. There are also only a few records with the name of the child listed. I think those were added at a later time.

He was a terrible speller. He spelled names as he heard them. For instance, he spelled “Ryan” as “Rian” and “Rynn.” He also misspelled medical terms. I transcribed the records just as he spelled them. There was only a couple of places that what he wrote was completely illegible.