Donna Suarez wrote: > > Warren, > > I'm not sure that you are entirely correct about the connection between the > Whitmore and the Wetmores. Other than the tendancy to find both spellings > in the public records interchangeably, at least one of the descendants of > Thomas Whitmore (1615 - 1681) changed his name to Wetmore. That would be > Beriah (1658 - 1756), one of Thomas' sons. Hi, Cousin Donna -- Apparently ALL of the grandsons used WETMORE. And in the records of Middletown the name appears variously as Wetmer, Wettmer, Wettmor, and other variations on that theme, from Jane Devlin's posts of marriage and birth records on CT-MIDDLESEX-L. Old Tom used WHITMORE in his will. I'm not aware of earlier instances of his using this spelling. His brother Francis's descendants kept that spelling. Who knows why the change in our line? I've suspected that WHITMORE was adopted, and the earlier spelling was more like WETMORE, though there are so few WETMOREs in the UK (16, I believe) as to raise suspicion that it was some other name that was used earlier. We have a BRICK WALL here, kinfolks! And about the connection to Francis Whitmore of Cambridge: Before I ever read Savage on the topic, I saw that Francis Jr's turning up in Middletown in 1670 was strong evidence that Old Tom and Francis Sr. were brothers. Of all the towns in all of New England (sounds like Bogart in "Casablanca"), why else would Jr. pick Midltn except to be near relatives? Yet there are many doubters that John WHITMORE was the father of the two. To my knowledge, no will of John's has ever surfaced. Did he die intestate after suffering an overdose of tomahawk in 1648? Yet Tom & John apparently were in Wethersfield and Hartford at the same time. Coincidence? Any road, the much-bruited connection with Sir George Whitmore appears bogus. Someone was "claimin' kin." Best, Warren