About Us

The Linnell Family Association is devoted to fellowship among all Linnell descendants in North America, and to the preservation of historical and genealogical information about the Linnell family. Most known Linnells in North America are descendants of Robert Linnell and his first wife Susan, who came to Scituate, Massachusetts, with his children, and his second wife Penniah Howse, in 1638. They came seeking religious freedom, to rejoin their pastor, Rev. John Lothrop. One year later, Robert and his family moved to found the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod, along with their minister and other members of the congregation. Almost 400 years later the Linnells have spread to Canada and to every State of the Union with newly discovered Linnell families from England and Sweden.

For many generations, the Robert Linnell descendants stayed on Cape Cod and prospered, until many Linnell families migrated to Maine, upstate New York, the Midwest, and ultimately all of America. Other Linnell lines also settled here during that time, and we are happy to be able to include them in our genealogical research.

We invite all Linnell descendants to join the Linnell Family Association, which holds reunions every three years, in different parts of the country, returning to the ancestral home of Robert Linnell on Cape Cod for every third reunion. The last reunion was held in  Salem, OR, in June of 2018. The next triennial reunion will be on Cape Cod, tentatively scheduled for June, 2022. Please check out our Reunion page for more information. The Linnell Family Association also publishes a newsletter at least three times a year, with interesting articles on the activities of today’s Linnells, as well as articles of family historical interest. The Association also sponsors a scholarship fund, and a Linnell gravestone restoration project.  (We currently are looking for a chair person to help with our efforts to rehabilitate the oldest of our stones throughout New England.)

One of the treasures of the Linnell family is a truly excellent genealogy, The Descendants of Robert Linnell, by Rachel Linnell Wynn, published in 1994, and which brings the known lines of the Linnell family well into the latter 20th century. Rachel’s research materials are now held in the archives of the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, MA. The Descendants of Robert Linnell may be purchased from the LFA treasurer for $35 postage paid. You can now order The Descendants of Robert Linnell, by Rachel Linnell Wynn online!

We invite you to explore our web site, to become a member of the Linnell Family Association and to join us at the next family reunion. We also invite you to submit your genealogy line so we can continue our research of Linnells in North America and to their beginnings before immigration.

Linnell Family Association Bylaws