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Archiver > WHITNEY > 2002-08 > 1029213152


From:
Subject: Re: [WHITNEY-L] Hello!
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 00:32:33 EDT


Chris:

I'd like to answer your question about the book entitled "The Ancestry of
John Whitney" This seems to refer to the book published in 1895 by Henry
Melville. I am one of the few in the WRG who actually owns a copy. In this
book, the history of the Whitney family of Whitney on Wye in Hereford is
discussed and described. The one major problem with it is that it contains a
link between Thomas Whitney, gentleman, of Westminster, father of the
immigrant John Whitney, and a man named Robert Whitney, for whom the linkage
back to the others is reasonably well shown. However, both Donald Lines
Jacobus (many years ago) and a modern day genealogical professional named
Paul C. Reed have very cogently demonstrated that it is not possible for our
Thomas Whitney to be the third son of that Robert. Mr. Robert Ward, another
professional genealogist among our membership did an outstanding presentation
about this matter just this past weekend at our (first?) Whitney Research
Group reunion.

So, in essence, you can take the Melville as a decent book up to the
father-son link between Robert Whitney and Thomas Whitney, and fairly good
from Thomas on down to John and his migration. The first part is very
interesting historically, the latter useful for present day genealogical
purposes.

Happy Hunting.

Allan E. Green

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