WHITNEY-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: Re: John, Father Thomas Whitney and Grandfather Robert Whitney.
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 00:39:19 -0500 (EST)

Dear Rick: (and I've copied this to the entire list for the benefit of other
newcomers)

Much as I hate to admit it (since I've enjoyed my connection to all those
Hereford Whitneys for lo, these many years), Robert is right - at least for
now. The arguments put forth in these two articles by Donald Lines Jacobus
(one of America's most respected genealogists and authors for the early 20th
C.) and Paul C. Reed (a professional genealogist from Salt Lake City, known
to at least one of our members as a very careful researcher) are so
compelling as to (reluctantly) convince me that, barring further discovery of
additional reliable data, Thomas of Westminster, husband of Mary Bray, could
not be the son of the Robert Whitney who married Elizabeth ap Morgan
Guillims, he who was the third son of Sir Robert Whitney and Sybil
Baskerville.

Have you read through the two articles yet? Robert Ward has them on his
Website at

http://www.erols.com/rlward1/whitney/

I've been working on this family for twenty-five years, including four trips
to England, and I have no basis for argument with their conclusions - and
they have included documents and sources that I had not previously seen. I
got very frustrated when I got home last summer and discovered this problem
AFTER I GOT BACK from five weeks in England, where I could have worked on it,
had I known of it then. I have been working off and on with one or two
Whitney researchers on England, trying to plot out a plan of attack to see if
we can find an alternative source for Thomas' parentage, perhaps in Cheshire,
as there were a number of Whitneys in that Shire whose descendants migrated
to Essex, Suffolk and Surrey. Believe me, if and when we find anything that
sheds light on this matter we will shout it from the housetops. In the
meantime, I personally have not deleted all the Whitneys from Sir Robert back
to Turstin the Fleming, just added a note that says that the Thomas/Robert
connection is not at all reliable.

Hope this explains things a little more thoroughly. If you want to ask any
more questions, please feel free - I think I know about as much as anyone
about the early English branches of this family, and I have been the
unofficial "keeper of the English ancestry database" for the WRG since it
started 18 months ago.

BTW, I would like to ask the source of your birthdate for Thomas Whitney.
Have you a parish register location for it? I have for years simply had him
as a ca 1563. If your date is provable, perhaps it could aid my search for
his possible parents. There is an entry in Ancestral File for Thomas, which
says born in "Lambert Marsh" in Surrey (which I have not ever been able to
find, despite assiduous searching) - and I find it interesting that less than
a mile across Westminster bridge from St. Margaret's lies Lambeth Marsh,
which IS in Surrey. Also BTW, John Whitney was christened at St. Margaret
Westminster on the 20 July 1592 date, so was probably born some time earlier
than that. I have posted the Whitney entries extracted from that parish
register on Robert Ward's webpage as well.

Happy Hunting:-)

Allan E. Green <>

This thread:

• John, Father Thomas Whitney and Grandfather Robert Whitney. by Rick Holmes <>

  • Re: John, Father Thomas Whitney and Grandfather Robert Whitney. by <>