The Sill family has been traced back to John Sill, who emigrated to America from Lyme, England around 1637. He lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and died before 1653. He and his wife, whose name is unknown to me, had 2 children, Elizabeth and Joseph.

The latter of the two, Captain Joseph Sill, had eight children altogether, six with his first wife, Joanna Belcher, and two with his second, Sarah Marvin. (I have also seen Sarah's surname listed as Clark. One is her maiden name; the other is that of her first husband.) My line is decsended from Joseph and Sarah's first child, Joseph Sill, Jr. (Their other son, Zachariah, married Elizabeth Mather, marking the first appearance of that surname in my tree.)

Joseph Sill, Jr. and his wife, Phoebe Lord, had 12 children total. Their fifth son, Jabez Sill, was born in Lyme, Connecticut on August 4, 1722. By this time, a large number of Sills has settled in the Lyme area. I would suspect that Lyme owes its name to the fact that John Sill was a native of Lyme, England.

Jabez and his wife Elizabeth Noyes had ten children, the seventh of which was Jabez Sill 2nd. Jabez 2nd's second son, Sedley, a crusty and proper looking man (his photograph hangs in our kitchen). Sedley and his first wife, Abigail Barber had seven children, including Cyrus Denison Sill and Allen Noyes Sill. Cyrus is my great-great-grandfather; Allen's letters home from the Civil War, where he was serving in the 107th New York Infantry are also available on this site.