Calling All Descendants: Let’s Gather the Family

🎺 Are you one of us?! 🎺

If the names Chagum, Chaugham, Barber, or Mossuck make your ears perk up — if your grandmother told stories about the Lighthouse, or you’ve got a mysterious old photo of kinfolk in Barkhamsted you can’t quite place — then YES, I’m talking to YOU!

It all started with two rebels in love…

Around 1740, Molly Barber did the unthinkable — she walked away from her wealthy family and married James Chaugham, a Narragansett Indian from Block Island. They headed for the wild hills of Barkhamsted and built a life together. And around them grew the most extraordinary village: Native Americans, poor whites, and African Americans, all living side by side, sharing everything. The stagecoach drivers called it the LIGHTHOUSE — because the cabin lights twinkling through the cracks told travelers they were almost home.

That light? It’s US. And it’s still burning! 🔥

I’m Coni Dubois — James and Molly’s descendant — and I’ve spent 30+ years tracing our people (2,354 families and counting!). But a book is about the ones who came before. I want something for the ones who are HERE. Right now. Living, laughing, raising babies, growing gardens, telling stories.

I’m gathering the LIVING — and YOU are invited! 🎉

Here’s the deal: this is NOT some stuffy organization. No bylaws. No dues. No officers, no meetings, no agendas — none of that! 😄

It’s a KINSHIP CIRCLE — family finding family:

• 🎂 Birthdays, babies, graduations, milestones — we celebrate TOGETHER
• 📸 Photo swaps — your kids next to their 1700s cousins (how cool is THAT?!)
• 📖 Stories — the funny ones, the wild ones, the ones grandma only told at the kitchen table
• 🎪 Reunions and gatherings where the kids finally meet their cousins
• 🔥 Keeping our history alive by LIVING it — together!

So what are you waiting for?! 👇

Fill out my quick sign-up form — tell me who you are, which of James & Molly’s kids you come down from, and where life has you now. There’s a big ol’ box for your story — tell me EVERYTHING:

Calling All Descendants — Join the Barkhamsted Lighthouse Circle

No test. No proof required. No genealogy degree needed! Just say hello — we’ll figure out the lines together, like family does. 💛

P.S. — There’s MORE coming! 👀

I’m updating the Descendants Book RIGHT NOW — four years of new research going in, 2,354 families and growing. When the new edition drops, it’ll be available for a fee — and circle members hear about it FIRST.

Plus: the newspapers book is getting stuffed with new articles — and every descendant who signs up gets added to the BLVD Roll Call, our living sheet of Barkhamsted Lighthouse descendants. Our story keeps growing — come grow with it!

The people of the Barkhamsted Light House Village are gone now, their lives a whisper in the wind. But if you walk in those hills today and listen closely, you can still hear the echo of their laughter. You can still feel the warmth of their light. It is a light that never goes out.

We’ve been scattered long enough, family. Come home to the circle! 🏠💛

With love,
Coni

Ever Widening Circle Research by Coni Dubois — We are the storytellers.