When Stephen Conklin was born on 25 May 1791, in Guilford, New Haven, Connecticut, United States, his father, Usher Conklin, was 26 and his mother, Lucretia Meigs, was 20. He married Betsey Scranton on 12 June 1817. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 3 daughters. He lived in Madison, New Haven, Connecticut, United States for about 30 years and Connecticut, United States in 1870. He died on 5 August 1878, in Guilford, New Haven, Connecticut, United States, at the age of 87, and was buried in West Cemetery, Meriden, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.
English (of French origin): Anglicized form of Conquelin, a Norman form of French Conchelin. This is a double diminutive, not found as a surname in France, of Conche, a habitational name from one of the several French places named with Latin concha ‘sea shell’, usually with reference to a shell-shaped valley. The probable source in this instance is Conches-en-Ouches in the département of Eure (Normandy), which was a centre of 16th-century glass-making. The town and its castle were named for Conques (Aveyron) and its celebrated abbey. The name Conklin is very rare in Britain.
History: The Conklins trace their origin to two glass blowers of French Protestant extraction, Ananias and John, who ran glass-making businesses in Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Nottinghamshire in the early 1600s. They may have been sons of Franc Concklyn, who was active in Old Swinford (Worcestershire) c. 1613. John lived in Nuthall (Nottinghamshire), four miles north of Nottingham, where he and Ananias married their wives, but Ananias brought up his children in Old Swinford (until 1637). They belonged to one of several Norman families who had been given royal encouragement to bring their glass-making skills to England in the mid to-late 16th century. For another glass-making family from Eure see Bungard . In 1637 or 1638 the brothers migrated to America to set up glass-making in Salem, MA. By 1650 they had moved to Southold, Long Island, NY. Other members of the family remained in England (Worcestershire and also Gloucestershire, where the surname appears in 1696 as Conchlin), and some of them possibly migrated to Ireland to set up glass-making there.
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