Driggs family genealogical research papers

1870-1939

The Driggs family was believed to be descended from Joseph (Josiah) Driggs, who in turn was believed to be a descendant of Josiah De Raet of Amsterdam. The family was prominent in Saybrook and Middletown, Connecticut; and Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island, New York. The name was alternately spelled Dreegs, Drake, and De Rijks The papers consist primarily of correspondence between members of the Driggs family, notably Laurence L. Driggs and Dr. James M. Cooper, concerning the history of the Driggs family. The collection also contains genealogical charts and photographs including a campaign postcard for Laurence L. Driggs, who ran as a Republican candidate for the eleventh congressional district in New York. Other items of note include a copy of a genealogy prepared in 1856 by Seth Driggs, a Spiritualist, which purports to trace the family for "a term of one thousand years or twenty-eight generations;" and autobiographical material from Parley Pratt, a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement murdered in Utah in 1857, who was related through Benjamin Woodbury Driggs