WHITNEY-L Archives

Archiver > WHITNEY > 1997-04 > 0860202228


From: "Robert L. Ward" <>
Subject: Re: Royal heritgage of John and Elinor Whitney of Watertown, MA?
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 20:03:48 -0500


At 11:28 AM 4/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am new to this group, and in fact to the study of my family's genealogy.
>I have recently been compiling family tree information that a number of my
>relatives who have the genealogy bug have collected over the years. One
>of the branches in my tree can be traced back to John and Elinor (-?-)
>Whitney of Watertown, MA., through their son John (bap. 14 Sep 1621,
>Isleworth, England).

Welcome! That makes you a cousin of quite a few of us. We would like you
to post as much of your line of descent as you would feel comfortable doing.

>While searching the internet recently, I was very surprised and interested
>to find a web site that traced the ancestery of John Whitney back through
>the European Royal families. After eagerly downloading a lot of
>information, I stumbled across another web site that referenced two
>papers in The American Genealogist (Donald Lines Jacobus, M.A.,
>"Pre-American Ancestries: John Whitney of Watertown, Mass.," vol. 10
>(1933-1934), pp. 84-88; and Reed, Paul C., "Whitney Origins Revisited:
>John-1 Whitney of Watertown, Massachusetts, and Henry-1 Whitney of Long
>Island and Norwalk, Connecticut," vol. 69, No. 1 (Jan 1994), pp. 9-14.).
>These papers cast a lot of doubt on this supposed royal linkage. However,
>the papers also hint that many people are defending this linkage. My
>personal take after reading the papers is that they have some good
>arguments, but that they are by no means conclusive.
>
>I would like to know what the prevailing opinion about this controversy
>is? Do most people accept the conclusions of Jacobus and Reed? I suspect
>that this debate may have gone on in this group gefore, and if so I
>apologize in advance, and maybe someone can point me to a FAQ, or some
>archives that would discuss this topic.

Kevin,

My opinion is that the ancestry is at best unproved and unlikely, and almost
surely incorrect. There is a smidgeon of possibility that it is correct, but
there is insufficient documentation to accept the link between Thomas WHITNEY
of Westminster and his alleged father Robert, son of Sir Robert. In my mind
the most telling argument against that acceptance is this. John-1 WHITNEY's
nephew John, son of John-1's brother Robert, claimed to be heir male of the
WHITNEY of Whitney family of Herefordshire, and submitted a pedigree (which
is the *only* document supporting the alleged connection). His claim was
*rejected* by authorities at the time, who were in a much better position to
know the facts than we are today. Furthermore, the nephew could not have
been heir male, since John-1 was older than Robert, and so he and his
descendants would have had precedence over Robert and his. It sounds like
John, son of Robert, was trying to pull a fast one!

Anyone who claims that John-1 WHITNEY was a great-grandson of Sir Robert
WHITNEY must supply proof. That proof is currently lacking. Any claimed
genealogical link without proof cannot be accepted as correct by any serious
genealogist.

Just my opinion. <grin>

Regards,

Robert

Robert L. Ward

http://www.erols.com/rlward1/
12236 Shadetree Lane, Laurel, MD 20708-2832
301-776-1659

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