The Needham genealogy received its latest, long-overdue update on 31 December 2014. This latest incarnation of the database lists 3992 individuals belonging to 1755 families.

For now, only the actual data and GEDCOMs have been updated. I will be updating the home pages and adding new styling real soon now... The notes below refer to the 2007 update, and will remain for the moment:

• A full review was made of the Lowe-McKinney-Matthews-Strong lineage (all the ancestors of William Fletcher Lowe). Errors have been corrected, and the documentation strengthened.
• A short outline of the Needham family migration to Leavenworth County, Kansas has been added to the Documents & Resources page.
• Two new photo galleries have been added supporting the Legend of Cricket Still. One is of Harry Still's and John Jacobs' patents; the other has views of the Swan Harbor Farm in Maryland where Cricket and Leon Tubbs made their home.
• A gallery has been added for the Needhams of Oskaloosa, KS. These are the descendants of Charles Fitch Needham.
• Several new photos of individuals have been added and minor touch-ups of the individuals' pages have been made.
• NYC Mayor David Matthews and US Senator Pat Roberts have been added to the list of Notable Ancestors.
• A variety of other corrections and additions, too numerous to mention here.

My thanks to all the contributors who have made this possible. John Hartman and Bonnie Watts Cook have been especially helpful concerning the Tubbs family, while Robert Peale Needham has provided much material about the Charles Fitch Needham line.

The Needham family line and most of the maternal lines associated with it can now be traced back to the immigrant ancestor, if not further. For this line of Needhams, the American progenitor is John Needham, who emigrated to Massachusetts around 1660. Many of the entries herein have personal photos, images of grave sites, or other supporting hypermedia, and more will slowly make its way here as time permits.

As Sir Isaac Newton observed, if I have seen further it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants. A great many people have contributed to this work. My original inspiration for taking up genealogy was the work by my great-uncle, Hawley Vincent Needham (better known as "Vin") and his sister, my great-aunt Kathryn ("Kittie") Lowe Needham Shepherd. That work was originally undertaken to support Kittie's application to the Daughters of the American Revolution, and it is the foundation upon which everything since was built. I was also greatly helped by work of a cousin, Virginia Chism Nichols, who provided a huge amount of data concerning the family in recent times. Many others, too numerous to mention here, have contributed as well, to say nothing of the legions of anonymous researchers who have compiled so much information in both our ancient libraries and modern databases. I thank you all.

Those modern, online databases have provided the foundations for my studies of the various maternal lines. Generally speaking, I have explored those lines by finding the best-documented published genealogies available and then confirming and expanding them to my satisfaction. GEDCOM files for, and a listing of the various allied, maternal lines are available.

Perhaps more important than the expanded scope of this genealogy are the improvements in the source documentation. All entries in this work should have some sort of sources listed with them, and those source listings fall into two categories. The documentation appearing literally as "Sources", hyperlinked as footnotes in the text, are usually the notes from the imported GEDCOMs that form the skeletons of the maternal lines mentioned above. They represent the work of the original author of that particular line. Documentation that I have confirmed or added myself is listed in the "Notes" area of the text. Together these "sources" and "notes" should allow you to confirm any claim made herein.

Mistakes are inevitable, and there is always more to learn. If you should find an inaccuracy or if you have infomation to share, please contact me!