I've been researching my family for about 25 years now. Just found this site today. For a long time the Hopkins line has been a major brickwall for me. In the last year or so I've uncovered quite a few of them. They lived only a few miles up the road from where I am. They moved though from Chester County to Lancaster County to Delaware County Pennsylvania in a 20 year time frame.

Samuel Alexander Hopkins b 1813 m. Esther Ann Abernathy b 1819. These are my 3 times great grandparents. They were in Lancaster County Pennsylvania in the 1850 census with their children. In the 1860 census Esther and the children are in Chester city Pennsylvania. No mention of Samuel with the family.

On the Brinsfield's I have a lot of information dating back to the early 1700's in Maryland. I have no definite proof on where the family name came from. We suspect England.