American Acorns

Ex glande quercus magna crescit: from the acorn the mighty oak grows.

This is a history of the Oak family and some of the families joined to it. It begins with Nathaniel Oak(e), who first appears in the records at Marlborough, Massachusetts, in 1686, and with the story his descendants told about how he got there: a cabin boy, a shipwreck, and a wildcat killed with a pine knot.

Families remember some things well and some things wrong. So every statement here carries a label, from Documented to Tradition, and the sources are listed for anyone who wants to check.

• The cabin boy who never went back on the waterA shipwrecked cabin boy, a catamount and a few sheep: the family's oldest story, and what the records can and cannot confirm.
• Eliza, who was really Emma LucyA Liverpool name that led nowhere, until two church registers showed who she really was.
• Family treeThe Oak line generation by generation, with the evidence for each link.
• Sources and evidence keyWhat Documented, Probable, Possible and Tradition mean here.