WHITNEY-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: LMA visit report; Lambeth; Isleworth; IGI; Henry
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 11:53:27 GMT

Allan,

Well - Ed and I both made it to the London Metropolitan Archives
(ex-GLRO) on Tuesday. Ed looked through the LAMBETH St Mary P.R.s
(separate bapt. & marr.) for the period 1538 thro' 1590, and I looked
through the ISLEWORTH All Saints P.R. (combined bapt., marr. &
burials) for the period 1566 (P.R. start date) thro' 1610. All these
have been filmed, and the film clarity was fairly good on the whole.
However, the Isleworth register was badly damaged, supposedly as a
result of the Great Fire of London in 1666. This register covered the
period 1566 to 1653, and it must have been lodged somewhere closer to
London than Isleworth to have been so damaged by the Great Fire.
Apparently the originals are currently held in the Hounslow Public
Library.

Unfortunately Ed found no reference to a Thomas Whitney over the
period mentioned above. However, he did find one Whitney entry - a
baptism for John the son of Robert Whitney on 27 Sept 1567. It is not
at all obvious where this baptism fits in. The new facts are that a
Robert Whitney and a John Whitney are linked to Lambeth Marsh in
addition to our Thomas, the John Whitney being baptised there in 1567.
This Robert could just about be the 3rd son of Sir Robert - the date
almost makes sense - Robert could have been aged 20, although it is
somewhat 'tight'. It might account for why Thomas called one of his
sons John - if indeed Thomas & Robert were somehow related. Pure
speculation!

Now for the Isleworth register. First of all, I did not search beyond
1610 and so did not find any of the Isleworth entries relating to
Thomas/John/Elinor. My objective was to find entries pertaining to a
William Whitney, referred to by Melville, quoting Henry Austin
Whitney. HAW mentions a William Whitney in Isleworth circa 1574 with
3 sons "William, Robert & Nicholas" (no specific dates quoted), and
Jacobus (or Reed - I forget) suggests that Thomas's forbears should
perhaps be sought in Isleworth.

I found the following 7 entries:-

a) 1573 July 24 Bur. Johan Whitney the wife of William Whitney
b) 1573 Sept 17 Mar. ? Whitney to Elizabeth Smyth
c) 1575/6 Jan 26 Bap. William Whitney the sonne of William Whitney
d) 1579 Oct 27 Bap. Robert Whitney the sonne of William Whitney
e) 1581 Nov 26 Bap. Lawrence Whitney the sonne of William Whitney
f) 1586 Aug 03 Bap. Elizabeth Whitney the dau. of William Whitney
g) 1590 July 12 Bap. Cedron Whitney the sonne of William Whitney

Comments on the above .....

on a): Spelling 'Johan', presumably = Joan or Joanne - clearly "the
wife ..".

on b): 2 weddings were entered for that day. The groom's given name
for the second wedding appears to have been written at the
end of the first line immediately following the entry for
the first wedding, and had been burned away, being at the
edge of a right-hand page. The first word on the second
line was "Whitney".

on c): I have used "/" as a reminder that the calendar year ran
April-March

on f): The name Elizabeth for the first (only) daughter is at least
consistent with the assumption that the wedding was of
William Whitney to Elizabeth Smyth

on g): Definitely "Cedron". My wife tells me that she has come
across this name in old legal documents

Final comment: no sign of a Nicholas as reported by HAW. I
wondered if he had mis-read "Lawrence" but this is unlikely
as the script was reasonably clear. Ed invited a passing
lady to offer her opinion and she said "definitely Lawrence"
without any prompting.

More speculation - the date of the above marriage was 10 years before
Thomas's marriage in 1583, so maybe William was Thos's older brother
as suggested by Melville.
------------------------------------------
I have again checked through the 1988 IGI London Whitney listing, and
I note an entry for Thomas Whitney, BIRTH, 1560 (no exact date), at
"LAMBETH, Lambeth Marsh". The lack of an exact date usually indicates
an Individual Entry, virtually all of which I have found to be wrong
at best! Also, Lambeth would be listed under Surrey, not London, if
recorded by an LDS photo team. I would normally be inclined to ignore
it as pure speculation on someone's part, but it might be worth
tracing the IGI entry document, which dates from June 1987, so the
originator is probably still traceable and can be asked for his/her
source. Do we know anyone who could easily do this? The Batch code
is 8633503 sheet 71.

Another odd one which might be worth tracking is the IGI Surrey
Whitney entry for Robert Whitney, MARRIAGE to Elizabeth
Guilliams/Williams[/Duglim], also 1560 (no exact date), again at
LAMBETH. It might be useful to find out the source of the Lambeth
connection for this Robert, the 3rd son of Sir Robert. I have not
seen any other public record reference to Lambeth for this marriage.
The Entry date is May 1978; the Batch code is 7727901 sheet 82.

If the above two entries were reliable (which I strongly suspect they
are not), then it would virtually clinch the connection between Thomas
and Robert, still leaving the age difficulty to be explained, given
that Robert apparently could not have been born before 1548. Perhaps
you could try to pursue the sources for these IGI entries.

On the subject of the origin of Henry of Connecticut, Reed mentions
the Fish Street records. I had also homed in on these when
corresponding with Tom Butcher, whose note on the de Salis fraud you
recently transcribed. The 1988 IGI London Whitney listing shows the
following somewhat bizarre set of entries relating to a Henery - all
at London, St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street:-

a) 1622 May 12 BAPT Henery Whetney to Henery Whetney/Elsabeth
b) 1623 May 23 MARR Henery Whetney to Anne Watson
c) 1623/4 Mar 21 BAPT Willam Whetney to Henery Whetney/Elsabeth
d) 1628 May 18 BAPT Henery Whetne to Henery Whetne/

One needs a fairly vivid imagination to explain these! I feel they
are worth checking carefully, and I will do that when I can. On the
Connecticut side, is there any mention of Henry's wife's name, e.g.
from a shipping record, or of any children ?

John

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