I spent the past week on the Massachusetts North Shore, for reasons. On Wednesday I had some time, not really enough time to drive down to Plymouth and back, but I did anyway. I’d been there once as a small child, and near there a couple times in the early 1990s, but not since learning about my Plymouth roots.
I ended up with only an hour and a half or so in Plymouth, of which 52 minutes was spent sitting in a parking lot on the phone with my lawyer. Not much time to look around! That parking lot, though, was this one:
Maybe you recognize it from the Google Maps link in this post. This is Plymouth Plaza, a strip mall built on or quite close to the location of the “Reed Pond” referred to in the old Plymouth records. These include the first mention of John Holmes in Plymouth, in 1632, when he bought a house and six acres of land adjoining Reed Pond. In Stratton’s article on John Holmes he also writes: “On 7 August 1638 Mr. John Holmes asked to be granted 10 or 12 acres adjoining his lot, and also a small parcel of meadow at Reed Pond.” In 1667 John Holmes, presumably the son of the immigrant, was granted “A privilidge of grasse or sedge… att the Reed pond in case hee can make meddow of the whole pond or any pte therof it is to be his owne”.
A short walk away is Nelson Memorial Park, on the water, from which you can get a glimpse of the Mayflower II.
Further south on Court Street is the building addition on the location where John’s son Nathaniel built a house which may have been standing as recently as the 1990s.
North of that building is an old brick wall. I suspect it was once part of Nathaniel’s house, though not an original part.
And north of Plymouth Plaza, here’s Holmes Terrace, named for, well, someone named Holmes.
So much for Plymouth; I had to get back to Gloucester.
This morning I left for home, but with a diversion to the south:
That’s the Post Office in Montville, CT, if you can’t read it.
I don’t know where Samuel Holmes lived. About all I know is that he had property on the “Sawmill Brook”. From what I’ve read this seems likely to be what’s now called the Oxoboxo River or Oxoboxo Brook. It flows very near that post office, though “flows” isn’t really the word, at least in this dry summer: it looked more like a wet piece of ground than a stream: 
So Samuel might have lived close to that point, or not…
It was a somewhat longer drive than I’d expected to get to the neighboring town of Salem where, in the Wesley Brown Cemetery, Samuel’s wife Lucretia is buried. Daughter in law Lucy and (I think) grandson William share the gravestone with her:
So I’ve now been to the birthplaces of eleven consecutive generations of Holmeses: Newport News, VA (my son); Boston, MA (me); Schodack Center, NY (my father); Hamilton, NY (Clarence and Jerome); Montville, CT (Hiram and Nathan); and Plymouth, MA (Samuel, Elisha, Elisha, and Nathaniel). The ATM is planning on a trip to England in 2018, so maybe I can add Colchester (John, Thomas, and Thomas) and Ramsden Bellhouse (Thomas and perhaps John) to the list then.
Here’s the signature of Clarence E. Holmes (1875–1955):
Clarence’s father, Jerome Holmes (1834–1912):
Jerome’s father, Hiram Holmes (1804–1864):
Hiram’s father, Nathan Holmes (ca. 1766–1850), or his brother, Nathan Holmes (ca. 1811–1856):
Nathan’s father, Samuel Holmes (1722–1774), wrote a will, but I don’t have a copy, nor of any other documents with his signature.
Samuel’s father, Elisha Holmes (1698–1779):
Elisha’s father, Elisha Holmes (1670–ca. 1753), wrote a will but the original doesn’t seem to be in the Plymouth probate files, nor do I have any other documents with his signature. [Edited 11 August 2018 to add: Elisha apparently was illiterate, as he signed as witness to the will of Joseph and Hannah Silvester by a mark.]
Elisha’s father, Nathaniel Holmes (ca. 1643–1727):
There are no known signatures for Nathaniel’s father, John Holmes (1630–aft. 1651).
John’s father, Thomas Holmes (ca 1567–aft. 1637):
and that’s as far back as I have.
I spent last week with the American Travelling Morrice, doing morris dance performances in the area around Hillsdale, NY, from the Hudson to western Massachusetts. Thursday we were in the town of Chatham, starting at the Old Chatham Country Store & Café in Old Chatham. I met there some people who said they had ancestors from Chatham.
As do I: My mother was born in Chatham, on her grandfather Hanson’s farm. The Hansons (or Hansens) came over from Denmark around 1888, but on my maternal grandmother’s side there’s ancestry in that general area (mostly in Nassau, several miles north) back into the 18th century.
We compared some surnames but didn’t find any connections on my mother’s side. Turns out, though, they were on their way to Plymouth, MA to attend the Alden Kindred’s annual meeting on August 1. So we were related, but on my father’s side.
Next year the ATM will begin on the first weekend in August and will likely be somewhere in eastern Massachusetts. Maybe I’ll make a stop in Plymouth and meet some more Alden descendants.
But this year on August 1, I was dancing in Hillsdale, Copake, and Philmont. It would have been my mother’s 98th birthday.
So I’ve learned a good bit about George KING. He was born in Scituate, RI and lived there until the 1790s; he fought in the Revolution; he married and raised a family; he moved to Norwich, NY; he collected a pension; and he died in infancy. Wait, what?
Land records tell us:
- George King was alive as late as October 1823
- His wife’s name was Henrietta
- Some likely relatives were Charles KING (born 1785–95, wife: Sally), Elhanan W. KING (wife: Lydia), William R. KING, and Anthony KING — probably sons or grandsons.
- He was part of a group that included John COOK — and Charles KING, Arthur BURLINGAME, Jonathan JOHNSON, AND Jesse GREENE — that bought some land in April 1819, then sold it again the next month. (I may be misunderstanding something, but it looks like they bought it for $700 and sold it for $400. I’m probably misunderstanding something.)
Another deed, dated 1817, tells us something about the COOKs; the parties of the first part are all, or nearly all, the then living children of Gideon and Jane, and their spouses, which is always a nice find. They are: John COOK and wife Barbara, Nathan ALDRICH and wife Hannah, George COOK and wife Salanis, Joshua WINSOR and wife Amey, Richard COOK and wife Sally, Charles KING and wife Susannah, Sylvanus COOK and wife Mary, Daniel COOK and wife Waite, and Stephen WINSOR and wife Nancy, all of Norwich, selling land that had belonged to their recently deceased brother Elijah COOK. (No mention of Elizabeth ALDRICH, or Jane who by then had died). This mostly just confirms what I’d already put together, except that I didn’t have a first name for Susannah KING’s husband and wasn’t sure she was in Norwich.
And that’s a bit of a monkey wrench in everything, because there seems to have been only one Charles KING in Norwich. At least I can’t find evidence of more than one. I found online the names of the children of John and George H. KING (the ones from Massachusetts, and who were, as it turns out, brothers) and there was no Charles between them. There’s only one who turns up as head of household in the census, in 1820, 1830, and 1840. But in the one other deed I’ve seen where Charles’s wife is named, she’s Sally.
Sally is normally a nickname for Sarah, not Susannah. Still, maybe Susannah was known as Sally anyway. Or… the mention of Sally is on a deed dated 1823. It’s possible Susannah died and Charles remarried between 1817 and 1823. (I need to look at other deeds Charles was a party to, to see if his wife is named elsewhere, but at the moment familysearch.org is having connectivity problems.)
Or despite all appearances, there really were two Charles KINGs.
It’d be nice to see what Charles’s will says. If there were one. There isn’t, at least not in the Chenango County wills index. In fact I find no probate records for Charles (or George), and no grave markers either. George doesn’t appear as a head of household in 1830 but Charles has a male age 70–79 in his household; then in 1840 that older male is no longer living with Charles. As we’ll see, George apparently died around 1839. Then in 1850 Charles doesn’t appear in Norwich, nor indeed anywhere in Chenango County as far as I can tell. His last land transaction apparently was in 1844. Then, poof, gone.
But I’d have to see more evidence before I start believing in the two Charles theory. I lean in favor of Sally being Susannah, with Sally as second wife after Susannah a not too distant second — just by gut feeling. Either way, I’m pretty confident George was Susannah COOK’s father in law.
But was he John COOK’s? No real evidence either way. If I had proof Barbara’s birth name was KING then I’d be confident George was her father, but as of now, I’m merely rooting for him. (As for Henrietta being her mother, well, it was almost 30 years between Barbara’s birth and Henrietta’s first mention in the deed records. There’s a good chance she was her mother, but on the other hand George could have been widowed — widowered? — and remarried two or three times pretty easily in that period.)
Suppose George is Barbara’s father, though; then of course we want to know where he came from and who his parents were. The land records say he was from Glocester, RI. The state and federal censuses say a George KING headed a household in Scituate, RI from 1777 to 1790. And the 1832 pension roll says George fought in the RI line.
It also says he was 78 (in, I think it means, the year he was awarded a pension — 1824). But that, I’m now pretty sure, is wrong. As I said, Charles KING had a man in his 70s living with him in 1830. In the 1800 census George was 45 or over. If the man in Charles’s household was George, then, combining the two censuses, he must have been born in or very near the first half of the 1750s.
And then I found George’s pension application online — along with a record that his final pension payment was in 1839. The application says he was living in Norwich: check. Says his wife is Henrietta: check. (Says he has a 19 year old daughter, Silana, living with him, who has a 2 year old baby and has never been married. Oh.)
And it quite clearly says he was, in 1824, 68 years old. I’d say the 78 in the pension roll was a typo. But that’s very interesting, because it implies a birth year of about 1755 or 1756.
But there’s a record of a George KING, son of Isaac KING, born in Scituate, RI on 25 Nov 1755! One of a set of triplets, in fact. Looks like a slam dunk.
Except…
On findagrave.com it says that in the KING family burial ground in Scituate, where Isaac is buried, there’s a gravestone for George, and it says he died in 1756 — in infancy.
Hmm.
Now, it also says “Note: Stone illegible and/or partially buried” which leaves me wondering whether it really says George KING and 1755–1756 on it. Or more generally, what’s actually written on the stone, and who transcribed it, when? I’ve found no reliable information on the death of George son of Isaac anywhere else, or indeed anything beyond his birth information.
So: Alive and kicking until nearly 1840, or dead and buried in 1756? Or a quantum superposition of both? I’m trying to make an observation here, shouldn’t the wave function collapse?
Okay, while I don’t believe in two Charleses, two Georges seems less unlikely. But wouldn’t it be nice if I found the right one the first time?
So let’s just make the assumption for the moment that Barbara COOK’s maiden name was KING; what then?
She was born in Rhode Island about 1784; she probably would not have married John much before 1804. Their oldest child, Laban, was apparently born around 1804 or so. (Rhoda was born in October 1805.) Since Gideon and family were in Norwich by 1800, the KINGs were almost certainly neighbors there, and not necessarily in Rhode Island.
There are no KINGs in Norwich for the 1790 census but there are three KING heads of household in Norwich for 1800: George, George, and John. The 1835 Pension Roll says all three served in the Revolution: John and one of the Georges were from Massachusetts and the other George was from Rhode Island. Land records in Chenango County confirm John was from Massachusetts and one George was from Rhode Island; specifically, Glocester — the same town Gideon COOK came from.
(There’s one George KING listed in each of the 1777 and 1782 Rhode Island state censuses and the 1790 Federal census for Rhode Island: all three are in Scituate, which is adjacent to Glocester.)
The Pension Roll says the Rhode Island George was born about 1746. The other George and John were younger.
In the 1800 census the older George’s household has one female age 16–25. The other two KING households have none in that age bracket, though John has two 10–15.
And do you know who’s on the very next line after the older George in the 1800 census, and therefore was probably one of his closest neighbors?
One of the Georges wrote a will, naming his daughters. The wrong George, though. George of RI apparently didn’t, and there’s no other probate documents for him either that I can find at familysearch.org. Nothing for him at findagrave.com.
He’s not in any census after 1830. Nor are there obvious candidates for his widow.
Some Googling turns up a George KING born in Rhode Island in 1755 but nothing about one born nine years earlier.
So that’s all I’ve got. But it’s enough to get me interested.
Regarding this:
(click for slightly larger version) I’ve been told that after it was microfilmed, the paper copy was destroyed. So unless another copy of the 22 Nov 1905 Brookfield Courier turns up, looks like we never get to find out who they said Chauncey’s cousin in Poolville was.
[Female cousins of Chauncey’s on his father’s side who were in Hamilton in 1905: Emma HOLMES (Jerome’s daughter, Chauncey’s first cousin once removed). That’s it. Unless Hannah HOLMES really was a daughter of Nathan Sr., and had a daughter — such as Rosaltha SMITH, daughter of Edwin and Hannah SMITH (who would then be Chauncey’s direct first cousin). Or perhaps daughters of Nathan’s first couple of daughters, whose identities I don’t know. Chauncey did visit Rosaltha on other visits. I’m not aware he ever visited Emma.]
[But this cousin could have been on his mother’s side.]
It’s kind of nice to add another generation back on a line going back to fourteen whatever AD, but I think I’m at least as much interested in breadth as depth; in some ways, in fact, it’s more satisfying to find information about a more recent ancestor.
I, like most people, have 32 great great great grandparents. I have first and last birth names for 31 of them.
That one small hole bothers me.
The exception is the wife of John COOK — the mother of Rhoda COOK, wife of Hiram HOLMES. John was born about 1771 in Rhode Island and came to Norwich, Chenango, New York around 1799 (says Smith’s History of Chenango and Madison Counties) or 1805 (according to several entries in the 1855 New York State Census).
I went back to looking at this family several days ago. I remembered that in the 1850 census John shared a household with his son King COOK, daughter Jane COOK, grandson Adelbert COOK (the family scandal: he was son of King and Jane’s sister Nancy, who was unmarried when she gave birth, and he was raised by King and Jane), and John’s wife, whose name was shown as Barbary COOK. By the 1855 state census John had evidently died — though I have no better information on his death than that, and no burial place — and King, Jane, and Adelbert still shared a household with King’s mother… but her name was given as Maybill (or Maybell). First and middle names, I figure. From the censuses we know she was born about 1784 in Rhode Island, but that’s about all.
So what was her birth surname? Don’t know. But the somewhat odd name of King COOK makes a little more sense when you know John had a sister who was referred to in his parents’ wills as Susanna KING. Evidently there was a KING family the COOKs were close to, and it’s reasonable to suppose King COOK’s given name implies there were KINGs in his ancestry. But not on John’s side, as far as I know. So the attractive hypothesis is that KING was in fact his mother’s surname. Unfortunately I have no supporting evidence for it.
What I rediscovered on looking at my database was, first, there was a third census record for John’s widow; she was in the mortality schedule for 1860, having died in February of that year, and her name is again given as Barbary COOK. Furthermore, I have a copy of Rhoda COOK’s death record — from 1891 — and it lists both her parents’ names. But not her mother’s maiden name, unfortunately; she’s Barbara COOK.
Fast forward several days, at the end of which time finally my brain says to my brain, “So, what does it say on Rhoda’s siblings’ death records?”
Oh, duh.
She had six siblings. I don’t know what became of all of them. I know Jane was living with King at least through 1880. Neither of them (nor Adelbert) appears in the 1892 state census. There’s a Jane COOK buried in Chenango County who died in about 1896, but she’s buried in Greene whereas King and Jane spent their lives in Norwich, and in fact a different Jane is living in Greene in the 1880 census. King still lives with Adelbert in the 1900 census but without Jane. Presumably she died during those two decades, but I don’t yet know when or where.
King died in 1905, at the home of Adelbert who’d by then moved to Poolville in Madison County; he’s buried in Norwich.
Nancy — scandalous Nancy — married William THORNTON and had several legitimate children by him. Like King, she stayed in Norwich, and died there in 1906.
King and Nancy both appear in the state’s death records index. It’s possible one or the other has their mother’s birth name in their death record. I’ll find out.
What if Mrs. Edwin SMITH wasn’t a HOLMES?
I think the evidence is reasonably good that she was. The Peter HOLMES genealogy says there was a Hannah HOLMES who married a SMITH — though I think it gets it wrong when it says she was a daughter of Henry. She was born in a reasonably plausible time and place. They lived near Poolville, very near where I think Hiram HOLMES lived in 1840. Chauncey HOLMES used to visit the SMITHs’ daughter on his visits to Hamilton.
That’s not very strong evidence in favor, but on the other hand there’s not much evidence against, either. My two worries relates to her age. Her gravestone says she was 62 when she died in 1877, for a birthdate in 1814 or 1815. (The censuses of 1850, 1855, 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875 have ages 33, 40, 44, 59 [sic], 52, and 58, respectively, inconsistently implying birthdates — after adjusting that 59 down to 49 — from around 1815 to 1818 and averaging maybe around 1816 or 1817.) Grace HOLMES would have been about 45 in 1815, with her previous known child, Nathan Jr., born in 1811. A somewhat late age for having children but not ridiculously so. The other thing is the family’s whereabouts in 1820 and 1830: No clue where they were in 1820, but in 1830 there were “extra” people in Jabez HOLMES’s household. Maybe they were Nathan Sr. and Grace and some of their offspring, but there’s no teenage girl. One certainly can think of plausible scenarios to explain that, but the simplest, Occam-preferred theory is that there just wasn’t a teenage girl in the family to be there.
But there was a Hannah, or Hanner, HOLMES, living probably in the Hamilton area around 1837. If she wasn’t the future Mrs. Edwin SMITH, who was she?
If all we had to go on was the suspicion that Nathan and Grace had a daughter named Hannah who married a SMITH, we’d never be able to pin her down. They apparently had three daughters born between 1790–1800; one at the elder end of that could even have gotten married in Montville and stayed there (which would account for only two daughters that age in the 1810 census). Or one could have married in Hamilton and then moved off to anywhere.
Or not. Besides Edwin, there’s an Ambrose Y. SMITH born around 1798 whose wife Hannah was about the same age, and they lived in Eaton, just south of Poolville. Is that her?
Don’t think so. For one thing, the 1850 census says she was born in New York. (She died in 1851, so there are no other censuses to check that against.) For another thing, according to cemetery records and consistent with the 1850 census, Ambrose and Hannah had a son, Ambrose Jr., who was born in 1827. That’s ten years before Hanner HOLMES signed her name — as HOLMES, not SMITH — on a receipt.
Likewise there was a Joseph SMITH with wife Hannah in Brookfield in the 1850 census. But she was born about 1806 in New York, and son Westley was born about 1826. A Hannah SMITH, born about 1797 in Connecticut, was in Cazenovia in 1855, but had a daughter born about 1825.
That’s about it for the local Hannah SMITHs. If Hannah did marry a SMITH, but didn’t marry Edwin, they must have left the area and will be a lot harder to track down.
I’ve been getting approximately nowhere trying to figure out John DUNN and Ruth RECORD.
They were, according to Descendants of John Collins, the parents of Anna DUNN, b. 17 Aug 1792, who married Solomon COLLINS of Hopkinton, Washington, RI. RECORD is not a common surname, although “record” is a very common word on genealogy pages, which complicates automated searches.
From what I can see in the census and Rhode Island vital records, there was a RECORDS family in Little Compton, Newport, RI during the early to middle 18th century — including a Ruth RECORDS born about the right time but married to the wrong man — but they may have gone elsewhere by the end of the century. In the 1777 state census there were only John and Thomas RECORDS in Richmond, Providence County. By 1790 Providence county had been split and Richmond was in Washington County, and was home to John and Comfort RECORDS and their households. In 1800 there were only Anna RECORD in District 14, Washington, RI and Jonathan RECORDS in Newport, Newport, RI. Judging by the nearby names, Anna probably was living at or near the same place as John and Comfort ten years before and I’d guess she was the widow of one of them. And was Anna DUNN named for her?
Meanwhile there was a John DUNN in Richmond in 1790. Add in the fact that Richmond is the next town east of Hopkinton and I arrive at a fair amount of confidence this is the right John DUNN, and that Anna, John, and Comfort RECORD[S] were relatives of Ruth — perhaps mother, father, and uncle? But by 1800 the only John DUNN in RI is on Block Island and the only other DUNN in the state is Bernon in Providence, and in 1810 there aren’t any RECORDs in RI — though there are two RICHARDs and a RITCHER, none of whom was in Washington County. Nor do any John DUNNs turn up in Madison County, NY in the early 1800s — though there are two of them in Smyrna, Chenango, NY by 1810. One wasn’t old enough to be Anna’s father, but the other apparently had two daughters between 16 and 25 that year.
Then there’s another tack.
In a post from 2012 I wrote in regard to the Sabina DEWEY of Byron, Genesee, NY appearing my Jerome HOLMES’s address list:
There are several DEWEYs, but not Sabina, in Byron in the 1880 census. Perhaps this was Mary S. DEWEY, wife of Henry H. DEWEY, living in Byron in 1870. By 1880 she was about 5 miles away in Elba, a widow. living with George W. and Mary DUNN.
“HENRY HOBART DEWEY, son of Charles Grandison, b. March 29, 1835, at Alford, Mass.; d. June 12, 1871, ag. 36, of erysipelas, at Byron, N. Y., where he had lived; m. Nov. 26, 1861, at Elba, N. Y., MARY S. DUNN, dau. of George and Mary (Ballard), b. Nov. 10, 1840, at Byron, N. Y. ; there d. Dec. 26, 1895, ag. 55, of pneumonia.” (source)
Oliva’s mother was Anna DUNN, daughter of John and Ruth (RECORD). So this could be the connection though it would be remote; Oliva and Mary S. could have been no closer than second cousins.
I don’t know how I reached that conclusion. Anna was born in 1792. George DUNN, according to census records, was born about 1803. Why could not George have been Anna’s brother? Then Oliva and Mary S. would have been first cousins.
Good hypothesis but it runs into trouble. In the 1875 New York state census it says George was born in Oneida County. And I can’t find any evidence of a John DUNN in Oneida County before the 1840 census, and the one who shows up there appears to be in his forties, way too young to be Anna’s father. There are some John DUNNs buried there, but none on that site that were old enough, either.
(While we’re searching graves, how about Ruth DUNN? The only one in New York or Rhode Island with a reasonable birthdate is this one, in Wayne County. And her husband was William.)
I do find a David DUNN in Westmoreland in the 1800 census, in the 16–26 age bracket. No DUNNs in Oneida in 1810. Unless their names were misspelled or mistranscribed, of course: DANA, DANE, DEAN? Or DUN: There was an And. DUN (with two sons under 10), and another DUN whose first name is some hard to read abbreviation, looks like Jch. to me, also with two young sons. Both were in Benton.
In 1820 there are about five (depending on which index you go by) DUNN heads of household in the county. That starts to get too far from George’s birth to be useful, though.
Of course there could have been other DUNNs the census missed, or who were not heads of household.
Another source: Apparently there was some sort of county census in 1814, and here are images of a typewritten list of land owners. I see two DUNNs there: Samuel, in Augusta (p. 2) and William, in “Vernon, Augusta, Verona” (p. 29). There’s a Samuel in the 1820 census in Augusta; no William in the census before 1860.
I don’t see any DUNNs in the wills index before the 1880s, and the probate files don’t seem to start until 1867 (and there appears to be no index for them).
Summary: I feel fairly confident I have John DUNN pinned down in 1790 and relatives of Ruth RECORD in 1790 and 1800. Before and after that, though, nothing but fog and bricks.
After my two royal (and wrong!) lines, the oldest line I have goes back through Samuel HOLMES, to his father Elisha, to his father Also Elisha, to his mother Mercy FAUNCE. Mercy’s mother was Patience MORTON, and Patience’s mother was Juliann CARPENTER.
After that, it’s CARPENTERs all the way down. If you believe Amos B. Carpenter’s concisely titled A genealogical history of the Rehoboth branch of the Carpenter family in America, brought down from their English ancestor, John Carpenter, 1303, with many biographical notes of descendants and allied families, published in 1898 (and of course you shouldn’t), Juliann’s father Alexander’s paternal line goes back as follows: William, John, James, William (ca 1440–1520), John, John, Richard (ca 1335–?), John (ca 1303–?).
What caused me some confusion at first was that Amos B. Carpenter leads off the book with a long section about John Carpenter the Younger. He was a Town Clerk of London, the author of the first book of English common law, a member of Parliament, and the founder of the City of London School. He’s also not one of Alexander’s ancestors! Alexander was (supposedly) not a descendant of that John but of his brother… John.
John Carpenter the Younger. Not my ancestor. Photo courtesy B. Darling, MISM, City of London school.
Right. John’s brother’s name was John. “It was not then uncommon for two brothers to be named alike”, says Amos, which seems to me is being Unclear on the Concept of names, but maybe it’s true. I’ve seen a number of instances in 17th–19th century American families of parents bestowing the same name on two children, but only in cases where the first one died in childhood and the second was born after that. Anyway, John the Town Clerk was called John the Younger or John Jr. for a reason, and the reason was his brother, John the Elder or John Sr. Both were sons of Richard, and John the Elder was the one in Alexander’s line.
Amos writes, “But we think we have information enough to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the break of a hundred years or so between John Carpenter, Sr. … and William [son of Alexander — RSH]… can be satisfactorily filled.” He then doesn’t exactly go out of his way to trot out this evidence in any detail, but does say he “has shown conclusively from certified copies of English records the line of descent from John Carpenter of 1303…” so maybe he got it right.
The earliest step in that gap is the son, John, of John the Elder, and right there it looks like a problem. John Sr.’s son John was Bishop of Worcester, and there’s nothing on that Wikipedia page about any wife or children, unsurprisingly.
Don’t you hate it when your ancestors are childless?
But wait; also on that Wikipedia page it says: “John Carpenter the bishop was also known as John Carpenter the elder. He had three siblings, Margery, John the younger, and William.”
Yep. John, the son of John, the elder brother of John, had a younger brother named John.
Or so Wikipedia says, citing evidently a Carpenter genealogy DVD. I suppose there must be a better source somewhere, but I haven’t seen it. (Amos doesn’t mention John the Bishop. Also, a bit worryingly, John the Younger (the elder John the Younger) (the Town Clerk, okay?) mentions John the (younger) Elder (the bishop) and Margery in his will, but not William or John the (younger) Younger.) Presumably John the Younger the brother of John the Elder the son of John the Elder the brother of John the Younger is John the Ancestor of Alexander according to Amos. Unless I’m confused, and why would I be?
I thought all those Thomases among the Colchester HOLMESes were bad enough…
Anyway, I have yet to find anything debunking this particular line, so maybe it’s true. If so it’s a line going back over 800 years, definitely my longest non-mythological one.
Holmes genealogy 