The Great Migration Begins Sketches JOHN COOKE ORIGIN: Unknown MIGRATION: 1633 FIRST RESIDENCE: Plymouth OFFICES: "John Cooke Sen[ior]" appears in the Plymouth section of the 1643 Plymouth Colony list of men able to bear arms; a line was later drawn through his name, indicating either death or removal [PCR 8:188]. ESTATE: On Plymouth tax list of 27 March 1634 "John Cooke Senior" was assessed 9s. [PCR 1:28].    On 6 February 1636/7 "three or four acres of land is granted to John Cooke the elder at the norwest side of Josua Pratt's land, & betwixt him & the brook" [PCR 1:50].    On 2 August 1653 "John Cooke senior" of Plymouth sold to Thomas Lettice of Plymouth, carpenter, for £3 a "house and garden plot on which the said house standeth being situate in Plymouth aforesaid in the north street lying and being next unto the house and garden plot in which the said Thomas Lettice now liveth" [PCLR 2:1:69, transcribed in MD 3:139]. BIRTH: Before 1607 (John Cooke, son of <A HREF="http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=greatmigrationindex&f3=jumptoFRANCISCOOKE">FRANCIS COOKE</A>, was baptized in Leiden early in 1607, and was "Jr." to this man's "Sr."). DEATH: After 2 August 1653. MARRIAGE: None recorded. CHILDREN: None recorded. COMMENTS: Of all the records under the name John Cooke in the early decades of Plymouth Colony, the above four are the only ones that can be assigned with assurance to John Cooke Sr. Many other records are ascribed to "John Cooke Junior" or "John Cooke the younger," but many are also found without any distinctive indicator. Many of those without a rank indicator, however, including the admission to freemanship on 1 January 1633/4 [PCR 1:4, 21], seem very likely to refer to the younger John Cooke, son of <A HREF="http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=greatmigrationindex&f3=jumptoFRANCISCOOKE">FRANCIS COOKE</A>.     John Cooke Senior was obviously a man of below average wealth and social standing. There is no indication that he was related in any way to <A HREF="http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=greatmigrationindex&f3=jumptoFRANCISCOOKE">FRANCIS COOKE</A>.    Savage suggests that this John Cooke removed to Rehoboth, and that "perhaps he removed to Warwick." But John Cooke Sr. of Plymouth must have been older than John Cooke son of Francis, and must therefore have been born before 1607, whereas John Cooke of Warwick was probably born about 1620 [TAG 52:1-10].