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The furthest back that we can trace our branch of the Root family is to Josiah Root, who was born in 1756 in, we believe, Tolland, CT. There were many Root family members in Connecticut in the 1700's, but thus far we have been unable to develop a direct link between Josiah through the Connecticut Roots to the oldest known Roote, Thomas Roote, who was born in Badby, Northamptonshire, England in 1555. That research is on-going.

From U.S. Census and church records, we know that Josiah moved to Springfield Township, Otsego County, NY, in the early-1790's, after he had married Experience Adkins in Pittstown, Rensselaer County, NY in 1784. Their family consisted of fifteen children, including their son, Ira R. Root.

Ira and his wife, Sarah Mallory, had a family of eleven children. One of Ira's sons, Thomas Arthur, is found in the census records in Crawford County, PA, in 1850, where he and his wife, Harriet Knapp, had their four children in the early 1850's. They then moved to Monroe County, WI, in 1854. One of Thomas' brothers, Ephraim, joined him in Wisconsin in the 1860's.

The Root family joined the Griggs family in 1908 when Eva Jane Root, a daughter of Thomas' son, Ira James, married Samuel Hiram Griggs. Sam's grandfather, Lucius S. Griggs, had moved to the Tomah area in 1866.