We are proud to announce that recently we published our 700th biography! Lucky number 700 was Private Francis Shepard of the First Company; he survived the Battle of Brooklyn and the rest of the 1776 campaign, reenlisted and served until 1781, eventually rising to the rank of captain!
Since, there were almost 1,000 Marylanders at the Battle of Brooklyn, and we know the names of about 850, we have just over 150 biographies remaining. It’s a lot of work to be sure, but we’re excited that the end is in sight!
It’s taken contributions from a lot of people to get to this point, and we wouldn’t be here without the hard work of Jeff Truitt, Daniel Blattau, Emily Huebner, Taira Sullivan, Sean Baker, Josh Rifkin, Nick Couto, Burkely Hermann, Taylor Blades, Natalie Miller, and Elizabeth Cassibry!
We are also very grateful to the Maryland SAR for their continued support, which has allowed us to keep this project running for so long–more than five years!
We have one other project announcement. Staff Researcher and Maryland SAR Research Fellow Natalie Miller will be leaving us soon. Natalie has made many wonderful and valuable contributions in her time with the project, including over 160 biographies–almost 25 percent of everything we’ve done! We will miss her, but wish her good luck as she moves on. We know that she will go on to great successes.
As always, if you would like to make a contribution to the project, you can do so through the Friends of the Maryland State Archives; list “Maryland 400” under Additional Comments. Thank you!
–Owen
Finding the Maryland 400 
I suspect that a number of those who have not been identified are members of Captain Veazy’s company made up of men from Cecil, Kent and upper Queen Anne’s County. As you know, his records are lost and we have only records of enough to make up a half of a company from earlier in 1776. Would it be worthwhile to search the probate records of those three counties for men of fighting age (if that can be established) whose estates were probated in the period 1776-1777. The age might be established from local Church records? I might be able to ;provide some assistace, but do not want to undertake the entire project solelyu.
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John,
Thank you for your comment, I appreciate your thoughts (and willingness to volunteer!).
Unfortunately, I think the effort would be hampered by two things. One is the scarcity of surviving birth and baptism records from that period. Many people simply didn’t have their births recorded, and there are gaps in the records that have survived.
The bigger problem is that we have found virtually no probate for soldiers who were killed during the Revolution, whether in 1776 or afterwards. That is probably because most soldiers were young, so they hadn’t accumulated much property (even the ones from wealthy families), and if they had no wife or children no legal proceedings were required–their property reverted to their parents.
Thanks for checking us out!
Owen
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