Due to potential mis-interpretations, I have re-crafted this last slightly to eliminate those on Archival record>>> Dear Michael, Sounds like you HAVE watched too much Court TV, Mike,...but then SOMEBODY has to. Being a terrific genealogist who gathered all the then-known facts, listing no less than 17 probable Thomas "D.s" back in England (pp. 18-20, v. one) in your "Descendants" books, some undoubtedly recaps of others.... it is the job of every TRUE genealogists to stay focused on "just the facts, mam..."! We are truly very lucky to have you still keeping us all "honest"... But then I am emphatically NOT a "genealogist" (don't much like that part of the job, & couldn't stand the thought of having t write up all that detail as so wonderfully, accurate & comprehensively presented in Mike' 2 volumes)...No, for me its just about the history, sorry gang!...Though I too am dedicated to finding ALL those facts, "mam...". For a "historian," where known "facts" are absent, then relationships & obvious circumstances are permissible "proofs" too, ...when the known facts fit that is, ...& when all else can fit into its proper place too. This is being recognized academically now with increased use of genealogy by professional historians, ...and despite their inevitable past snobbery about the "lesser" discipline of family history" (once so fraught with truly commonplace & foolish pretensions as to only the "facts" that "fit"!). For our Disbrow/es, the so-far "known" facts are honestly beginning to fit beautifully, in fact! This is not just because of all those networked surnames, as only a few examples springing to my mind now: "Sherwoods" (both at Eltisley & in Samuel D.'s extended family too, PLUS as next-door-neighbors to our own Thomas of Compo, CT, ...even visiting him in his parlor to discuss the Bible per Mercy's trial transcripts), or those "Greens," or many such others as I've been trying to, far too occasionally, note here on this List as they come to me (Gold, Goldinghams, Goldins/ens, Wards, etc for your attention, & much more too!), WHILE then requesting ALL your assistance as to gen connects back to their namesakes in England. I do have many OTHERS still, with more YET to reveal about us, ...all in tight extended-families on BOTH sides of Atlantic, as too apparent it seems to me (including at CT). Only some I've yet been able to gen-connect back in England side of things (hard work you know!)...Well, that's my "theory," anyway, am working mightily upon,...with my working ("circumstantial") list (within "the Disbrow Network") getting much much longer all the time, but still only very tightly revealing something truly "startling," even obvious, without having to look too far-afield about it. ALL of it, I feel, must be telling us something about our own CT Disbrow/es (or more importantly for ME & my book project too much blared about herein, about Mercy Disbrow's witch trial at Fairfield of 1692, very specifically---please recall how that is MY only focus for my book project!!---so plse DO NOT expect pure genealogy lists, ...oh my gosh!). These facts-on-file that "fit" are particularly compelling in the LONG absence, now, of any OTHER qualifying information about our still very mysterious Thomas. I try not to stray more than a marriage or two away from my focus, and keep it within close locational/circumstantial relationships, many now proven by gen.---BUT, hey ya know, I am NO "miracle worker,"... and this gen-chat List has honestly been of far less help to me than I had hoped in coming up with verifiable "cross-oceanic gen. connections" for quite so many of these otherwise obviously inter-connecting surnames (oh well, at least the PATTERN here can be persuasive too, together with what gen-facts I have discovered about this, & they are potent for just who they are concerning). Such gen. verifications should be even far more possible NOW, with internet tools making less need--ha, ha--to cross the Atlantic for research! Well, ha, ha to that.... Actually, the reason why academic historians have so very long snubbed genealogy, despite some of the best (& worst! "NOT" mentioning that somewhat laughable/too "pc" Westport, CT history just printed couple years ago) of that 19th c. phenomenon of local histories being written by genealogists, is because the gens over on our side of the "pond" have presumed (for various political, culturally chauvinist reasons, as well as convenience of research necessity!) that history only BEGINS with the landings at Jamestown/Plimouth, not back in "forgettable" olde England (a check of James Savage's Dictionary randomly demonstrates!)....Truly an obvious problem for any historian wishing to use genealogy in his research. Now, on more positive note please see the new book by Kevin Phillips, THE COUSINS WARS, for some new historiography actually correcting this very same problem, belatedly, while demonstrating how foolish past family pretensions can hold us back & paradoxically too be the source of new interpretations (even while Americas were, pathetically enuf, much further along in recognizing how the Puritan Revolution impacted our American Revolution, much further than the "Brits" still villifying their Cromwellians for obvious reasons of "royalist" bias).. This problem, over on our side, especially perpetuated by many the oldest families as American "self-mythologizers" of "ye olde" NEW England, ...each with an obvious stake in that very "new" history of America (the very influential 19th century Adams family alone is responsible for generations of historical amnesia/prejudice by calling the Puritan era a "cultural desert!"). These olde families obviously include that paragon of history (& history writing), now NOT AT ALL IN-APPROPRIATELY being celebrated on best-seller lists: the Revolutionary Massachusetts ADAMS family, via their chroniclers: 19th c. Henry, Charles Francis, etc....(BTW, while I do TRY NOT to be a 'gold-digger,' I did just discover that the New England progenitor of this "famous" American family, the very obscure Henry Adams who settled at Wollaston (once Thomas Merton's infamous "Merrymount"), was married to someone named "SQUIRE," ...OH, Oh, there I go again, eh....."The Squire family, that of Henry's wife, was a tiny bit more distinguished [note: author meaning that neither were anything but the most obscure DIRT farmers back in England!]. Two sisters of Edith Squire Adams also migrated, Anne and Margaret, Mrs. Aquila Purchase and Mrs. John Shepard respectively [HEY, don't we Disbrow/es also have some "Shepards" in extended family, pertinent to our more obscure history---AH YES, that all-important CAMBRIDGE connection again!!]. This [author continues], not a Dragon, is probably what moved Henry across the water." (p. 34 "First Families: The Making of An American Aristocracy" by Nath'l Burt, 1970---HEY, so who's this author "Burt," descended then from those "Burts" at Salem tangling with our Isaac Disbrowe thereabouts in 1630s/40's?, recall how the PENNOYERS tell us much about very likely motivations then);...that "Dragon" stuff noted above has long been provocative secret history in Adams "chronicles," here also something to do with secret societies, & "congregational" religion,..and other such fun stuff, ...but you guys just wait!)... I will hope to discuss in some "remarkable" detail in my book project actually, the idea of "relational analysis" revealing some truly REMARKABLE history (& not just "implausible history!"), long overlooked FACTS, in actual fact, now made obvious via a wealth of circumstantial (& not "just" so...) relationships of inter-relating families with their convergent, very often POTENT histories. ALL the "facts" fit..., now so obviously so far 9and I'm looking for ALL, since I know what to expect otherwise,especially from those wonderfully contentious British academicians)---Hence, my initial emphasis on the "startling" discovery that Samuel Disbrowe's close family relations: the Pennoyers, were intimately involved in my own Mercy Disbrow's 1692 witch trial, in more ways than you yet know! From which startling revelation many wonderful new facts truly do reveal themselves (so, you guys want everything revealed here, instead of via my much promised "book project"!??), all further confirming those relationships I am proposing, of course....(but THAT is my book project, gang! So read it when I can get it written, ...if I ever CAN, ...WHENEVER! ...NOT all is being revealed on this List, I might add---I can't give it ALL away for gosh sakes... Nor can I get the job done simply by answering questions, posting endlessly here----except those more nagging, vital questions, via YOUR help, about such as those WILLS at Cambridge's Shire Hall....so WHO will help?). What you all do not quite know (& it is NOT my intention to post everything on this LIST soon as I discover it, I would have no time for anything else!!), is just how MUCH of the remarkable history of England (at the highest levels of activity!) during those turbulent years of the Puritan Revolution is also actually being reflected right back into the settlement of early Connecticut/New Haven, and expressly (YES, I know this is ALL very hard to accept!) through our complex little maze of Disbrow(e)s, each settling down so very early right here in olde CT, quite specifically!! This back-ward reflection is via a host of families constituting what I have been calling, not just for convenience sake: "The Disbrow(e) Network," who much concerned themselves with early CT settlement during & after Hooker (actually with him too, as with our Roxbury Disbrows hooking up with the "famous" Rev. John Eliot,... HE was actually a follower of, & "reader" for, Hooker's own congregation back in England! Those Cambridge connections at BOTH ends being central to soo much of this "networking" going on, both intellectually & economically> Eliot was also closely involved, on the record, with both Rev. Henry Whitfield and our own Samuel Disbrowe at Guilford, where Eliot's own son became pastor, that one later figuring so importantly in the "reprieve" of our Mercy Disbrow"(/e)"---(NO, our Thomas never did spell it with that "e"). This provable "network" includes the SAME family surnames, at very high levels of government, also associating with our own extended Disbrows of CT on very intimate terms (not just via those amazing "Stricklands" on BOTH ends whom I have uncovered significantly more concerning, yet to note here... But, as a sampling at least for now since they are NOW on my mind much, ALSO such as: Sir Henry Rich, the just noted George Fenwick, the Winthrops, the Hutchinsons (very startling new stuff there, "relationally"/factually!)---As to the Winthrops (there is more yet) recall too that our own Mercy Holbridge was "farmed-out" as an in-law "servant" into the household of that very same famous CT Governor's "closely involved" New London medical/alchemical colleague/partner (& her own "in-law relation"---so, have said that one explicitly enuf?): "Rev. Gershom Bulkeley!" Those are just off-top-of-head for being most recently worked on, and do not begin to set the pattern or do justice to it here (with many others in my notes). This missive, is obviously NOT to Mike Disbrow, who has done (and continues to do) us all such great & necessary service, and now by also keeping us focused on the issue for him, with our feet firmly planted upon the ground! He must do only "the necessary" in showing us the VITAL importance of those Cambridgeshire wills, and which we ALL must now contribute to examining (not just ME!!)... While my "facts" are a bit more "circumstantial" presently ("RELATIONAL"), such is presently ALL we can hope for from what we now know,... They are to me nevertheless very potent for what they are saying , & potent for HISTORY'S sake, even whether or not our own Thomas Disbrow of Fairfield turns out to be quite exactly who I certainly do believe him to be right now (given ALL my "relational circumstances!"). Despite our current "speculations" as to whether those Cambridgshire wills may or may not precisely identify our own Thomas ever (actually, I tend to think not, though I obviously MUST go back to see for myself!!), we must realize that we nonetheless DO have some very good handle on this question...(it so far is my own feeling, from what few of them I did see, some NOT copied and from list I have of them, that we are NOT likely to find out much more about our own Thomas of Fairfield from those---though I'd better never say "NEVER!"). We also know that his father (see, I'm already convinced), "James Disbrowe" of Eltisley had many additional offspring recorded in Parish records along w/ one "Thomas" of my circumstantial "presumption,"... These later children are NOT mentioned in the 1614 will, of course, or as proved even in 1638! Just as Eddis Johnson/Harold Disbrowe have pointed out as only mildly curious to them (this not unheard of), but still odd I think. There could be MANY reasons for this though, including that one unmentioned female dau. we know as his, Rebecca, who married Rev. George Greene, was no longer his personal financial responsibility (it was extremely commonplace to "drop" such females from wills when they got married back then, becoming the responsibility of their husbands). Since our Thomas was only 13 years old also in 1638, still under his mother's care (as far as I know, we have no obvious death record whatever for this Eltisley Thomas ---though I'm looking---don't want those "Brit" academicians after me!), with "primogeniture" ruling all the roosts back then too (legally required inheritance by eldest son in order to keep land-holdings together in one family line, a feudal-holdover for manorial power,... actually this being an issue for correction for some Cromwellians during "their" truly remarkable, but failed revolution). Yet, what is not known to most non-lawyers, even those who watch court TV, is that "circumstantial" evidence almost ALWAYS is the reason court cases are won or lost! AND, I count it a near "miracle" that so far, with such highly talented and aggressively motivated genealogists as all of you on the Disbrow-List, that we ALL have come up with nothing further to confirm our man, Thomas's positive identity,...beyond my "circumstantial evidence" that is (which is actually far more than most historians use for their own necessary "speculations"). BTW, the Shire Hall clerk groaned at me when she heard I was a "Disbrow" researcher, asking me: "What is up with that name!" I tried to tell her our compulsions, which is exactly WHY we will most certainly figure this out in the end! IT has been my hope to do so & just whomever our Thomas may turn out to be...BUT one thing is already for certain---he is one of that close network of "Disbrow(e)s" so important to my state's earliest history, yet for quite so long a time all but forgotten... STSquires ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Disbrow" <dizzy@michweb.net> To: <DISBROW-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 10:51 AM Subject: [DISBROW] Question about identity of Thomas Disbrow > >From - Mike Disbrow, listowner > > Subject - Do we yet have proof of Thomas Disbrow's parents? > > > This question can go to Steve Squires, or anyone else who might know or have ideas on the subject: > > Since James Disbrowe's (of Eltisley) will of 1614 does not mention a son Thomas (presumably because the will was written before said Thomas' birth ca1625) what other evidence do we have, if any, besides Mark Noble's book "... The Protectoral House of Cromwell...", to show that James of Eltisley did indeed have such a son named Thomas? > > I hesitate to be a skeptic, but it seems we are taking Noble at his word a bit too willingly here, without any other corroborative evidence (I've been watching too much Court TV lately!). Or am I wrong? Yes, there was a Thomas Disbrowe (or perhaps more than one?) in the area at about the right time, etc., but what proof do we have for his parentage? That seems to be what we're looking for here, in such places as these old wills, etc. If I'm forgetting or have overlooked some other piece of proof, please correct me. > > Steve, thanks for posting the old wills, or what you can decipher of them. I've seen some of this old English "script" and I know it can be nearly illegible to the "modern eye". I'm in accord (with a degree of skepticism, of course) with the links you're making between our Thomas of Fairfield and that Thomas who came over on the Crown Malligoe, the one who appeared in the Assize records, and that Thomas of the Eltisley/Cambridge area, which linkage I made some limited attempt to prove in my book. Keep up the great work you're doing. > > Mike > > > ==== DISBROW Mailing List ==== > The Disbrow Family Web Site: > http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/5853 > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >