RE: My "other shoe" now drops...partly! TENTATIVELY (absent further info from my 2nd trip to England), I substantially agree with the two "James Disbrowes theory"' of the division of the early 17th c. Eltisley Disbrow children, including that Thomas (bp 1625) is son to James "the Elder" just as stated in the Eltisley Bishop's Transcripts I have, while the famous Major General is the son of the "Elder's" contemporary: that mysterious James "junior" (yet, with obviously important questions/"equivocations" still unresolved). This requires that we consider the long established historical birth-date of the famous Major General John Disbrowe to be entirely mistaken (as a"historian," such is naturally difficult for me to go along with casually & without knowing better ALL the historical sources for that date----has it been only just Rev. Mark Noble in 18th c.?). Therefore, the Major General had to have been alternatively baptised on 8 Oct 1609 as that "other" mysterious John (to father James "junior") and NOT on the baptismal date of 13 Dec 1608 so long believed by the DNB and other sources. While there were yet OTHER "John Disbrows" of his generation, or just after, floating around in the area (as you will see below), I believe we can "tentatively" account for the TWO of these that we have seen in the Eltisley record recently argued over. Furthermore, I have in fact "sympathized" with the above position from the very beginning of our debate, just as indicated by several of my postings during it (see esp. "Hang In There, Carl", etc, where I reference this fact & another "shoe to drop"!). IT was always NECESSARY to test this "hunch"/hypothesis as rigorously as possible, given all that was at stake (& I do NOT mean for my book-project alone, which in many ways can argue either side easily, while actually finding the above "hypothesis" far more easy to swallow as "plausible" for MANY important reasons). The reason for my own long-standing "sympathy" above will now become obvious below, via that other "shoe" previously noted during the debate, and which very provocative "new fact" I have had in my possession since my first trip to England last December (but which still needs confirmation/resolution during my 2nd planned trip, due to serious unresolved questions about it!). Before our debate, I was in the midst of reviewing the maiden-name issue related to this "fact" (namely the Elizabeth Hatley/Marshall conundrum) and was generally unprepared to conclude anything about this matter until after my up-coming trip to England! This maiden-name issue is the obverse of the two James theory/"hunch." I did NOT always understand or recognize the significance of the "fact" ("shoe") in my possession despite it being a part of my "bible" of closely consulted documents on the Eltisley Disbrowes. I have had many questions about it. Therefore, I'd have much preferred that our "debate" occur AFTER my up-coming 2nd trip to England, planned in part because of my many questions about this issue, questions I already had at the ready during our debate as you've seen since I had been asking them of myself. I had NOT yet resolved some of these by then. I still have not for many others as raised in our debate, etc... Meanwhile, this particular "shoe" flatly contradicts one particularly cherished "proven fact" advanced as obvious by my opposite in our recent debate. Namely, the issue of just WHO may be buried in that 1634 Eltisley grave...THIS is not as obvious as he presumed just from his one source of the Bishop's Transcripts for Eltisley alone, re: the two James "JUNIORS" we know about from that source in early Eltisley. This question is necessarily/inextricably bound-up with the far MORE important question of just WHEN the Major General succeeded to proprietorship of the lands at Eltisley manor under primogeniture, ...not to mention his own more accurate birthdate, despite established "history" now in need of revision. All of which interrelated issues raise vitally important new "history" concerning the Major General's extremely "famous" career, as so long recounted in history books... So bear with me, if you don't mind! WHY then has this issue of the two-family division above been so difficult for some "old Disbrowe hands" to accept (including the 1986 authors Johnson & Disbrowe??), esp. after some of us have consulted more than just the Eltisley VR records alone? Partly because in order to accept this new line-up ("hunch") of the two contemporary James Disbrow families from that one VR source at very early 17th c. Eltisley, we must also accept a very odd fact (now all too un-"equivocal"), one which is expressly 'counter-intuitive.' Namely: that there existed, side-by-side, two James Disbrow families at tiny Eltisley village (obviously related by blood, but now even THAT can a bit less certain) who also each had IDENTICALLY named first & second sons: both w/ given-names of "James" & "John," while ADDITIONALLY having identically named wives too: "Elizabeth!" This is carrying "witchy" coincidence to the level of the absurd, of course... But such is the case, unless I'm somehow now mistaken about this odd complex of facts (which I cannot seem to get past by way of explanation other than as fascinating "COINCIDENCE," which even to me seems a bit unusual). This is now "proven" by that 1614 will of James Disbrow the Elder I keep mentioning.... And isn't HE still the guy who fathered "Thomas" according to all Eltisley VR material yet available (....obviously, all usual "good sense" about such VR records says we cannot reassign Thomas simply due to some "equivocations" from these limited VR records only)? All of which (above) I have been at great, & increasingly distressing, pains to point out during our debate. Here's how curious it can get: the 1614 "will" of the Elder James only further deepens this mystery when it refers to "my NOW eldest son James"(---my upper-case emphasis is added!). So then, what son could have come before that "NOW" eldest son James, ...especially recalling that this father, the "Elder," supposedly had married one "Elizabeth Marshall" only by 1 August 1605 (according to the limited Eltisley VR material alone; ... & was it even a "first" marriage?), and that same VR material only records just ONE "James son" anywhere to any Disbrow line then, that one as baptized only one year later (&, bafflingly, this son can "only" be the son to that OTHER contemporary of the Elder James: that so mysterious "James junior")! Where do we fit in TWO sons for James the ELDER within just a year after his marriage to Eliz. Marshall then??! MY POINT IS THIS: where is that OTHER "James" offspring of James the ELDER to be found on any record (anywhere??), and if, in fact, the Elder was ALSO just married barely one year before the first known Eltisley bp record of 17 Aug 1606, recording one "James as son of James JUNIOR" (when these VR begin altogether)....Such are obviously important questions, never posed just to be confusing (if my opposite once may have suspected )! I have found nothing else on this problem in the Over vital records I have, or from my own far more limited Burrough Green, Elsworth, Haddenham, etc, VR material so far....PLEASE RECALL THAT THIS DEBATE CAME JUST AT A TIME WHEN I WAS REVIEWING ALL THIS MATERIAL INCLUSIVELY, AND HAD ALREADY DECIDED TO GO TO ENGLAND AGAIN TO AUTHENTICATE SEVERAL RECORDS. WELL, so now perhaps you see my dillemma.... Further, my review over the past week (after our debate) of ALL my own available evidence has been helpful in demonstrating that no "William" (from James Elder's 1614 will naming him "3rd son"), as I once thought I'd seen however, was ever born ELSEWHERE "additionally" for our witchy pairings. Nor did he ever die early enough to subsequently be entirely ignored by the other source materials I have for Samuel Disbrowe, for example, which mentions no "William" in his pedigree or will as thereby possibly being his "brother" too. See Samuel's 1680 will & 1684 pedigree, which latter item is actually very surprisingly inadequate, in several respects...such as failing to note also his own sister Rebecca Green!! I have already, in our debate, indicated one possible reason for this pedigree's inadequacy, via the separately indicated feeble health of Samuel by then. His incapacities were already being spoken about by his own brother-in-law, London Lord Mayor Sir Patience Ward, on the record from a decade earlier (when Ward was Alderman) concerning Samuels attempt to be named CAmbridgeshire Sheriff then & oppositon by Ward due to Samuel's health issues by 1674, including deafness & being "moped"or listless, 10 years before his 1684 pedigree was taken in a "visitation"---se my following post on this matter specifically). The same as above for William, in my subsequent research the past week after debate, is also true for "Nathaniel," who is himself acutally listed by the 1684 pedigree (though NOT by Samuel's 1680 will significantly!), thereby being identified as a "brother" unlike the William above (while a "Nathaniel" is also noted as "brother" in the 1654 Wm. Leete letter, printed by Henry Waters in his Gen Gleanings, THIS Nathaniel is confusingly only one Nath'l WHITFIELD, and not a Disbrowe by blood---see Waters footnotes on this also!). Concerning which given-name of "Nathaniel," there are still MANY confusions/questions from the early 17th c. OVER vital records with respect to various Nath'l DISBROWS indicated there and even preceding the Eltisley bp one from 13 Sept 1612, however. I particularly wanted to note William Disbrowe above expressly because he demonstrates that the three known brothers as fathered by the Elder James (by 1614 will) were EACH born long prior to two BRUNO Disbrow Eltisley baptisms (followed soon after by "their" obvious burial listings) from that very same Elder's line (by the VR record alone). Therefore, it is not INEVITABLY obvious that this line is simply naming these later "Bruno" sons for a mysterious progenitor of this line who is also named "Bruno," & thereby in order to inevitably tie this line expressly to that still mysterious, earlier generation which did include a "Bruno." I do not say ALL this just in order to be confusing, OK!? Further, there are several other confusing William Disbrowe references on the record elsewhere, including via Gary Boyd Roberts will abstract for a Cambridge baker who died 1648. Without giving too much away, I will say that THIS William is especially interesting to me since, while Robert's will abstract mentions NO familiar surnames relating to the Eltisley Disbrowes, it does mention one surname at least which is somewhat provocative of my major thesis about Thomas of Fairfield, CT: ....namely, the surname "Bassett." While I originally intended to post some OVER VR analysis to this List I now NO longer intend doing so since all this "mess" has tended to be "over-reacted" to while simply raising endless rounds of further time-consuming explanation. However, I will say this much about the OVER VR here: There are a great MANY "provocative" surname convergences in that material: "name magic" (among other provocative connecting links), far too many for "coincidence" alone in my estimation. Such links as between the many Disbrows there & familiar surnames also closely associating with our Disbrows at early southern New England, and also at Eltisley more naturally! These surnames include GREENE, Webb, Jackson, HATLEY (there are TWO Hatley's on record at very early southern New England, inclding on ship HOPEWELL I believe it was and certainly at Milford, CT one "Philip," who returned to England 1649, within a year of Samuel Disrowe's return too), BULL (this at Hartford with Nicholas Disbrowe, etc), CROUTCH (a "Crowtch" spelling appears early 17th c. Eltisley VR too, this surname is similarly spelled as "Crouch" by Schenk in her "History of Fairfield," but usually appears as "Couch" at Fairfield, CT, Compo>> they are next-door neighbors to my own Thomas Disbrow there & figure prominently into my book-project; "Cooch" is also a variant spelling which apears in 18th c. Eltisley VR!!), Palmer, Mills (see Rose Hobson Disbrow's will & Samuel's too), HOBSON, Bond, Barnes, Peck/Pecke (one "Paul Peck of Ell-tisley" is listed as ship paasenger by one of Banks books, probably the guy at Htfd!), Coopar/COOPER, Gunton, Burrowes (this one is very provocative in many ways), Harvie, Frost, Finch, FARRINGTON (very many here, & shows up w/ Isaac Disbrow's ship passenge to NE, fascinating to my thesis!), Ward, Hull (another very early CT surname of my own ancestry who marreid a later Disbrow of mine), Willigo (from will abstract we tried deciphering recently), Woodward, Hawkins, Kirbye, Ellis, Clarke, GRAY, MARSHALL, Spenser, many MANSFIELD references (surname at New Haven & the current name of my own hometown in CT!), BENTON, STOCKER, COE, Bodger, Jones, Holland, Gates, Burton, RICHARDSON (at NE & maiden name of wife to goldsmith John Disbrow; recall "banker DESBOE" which I discoverd at Bank England Museum >>there are several surnames of "DESBROW" on Over records too), Barons, Smith (ha, ha), Fransum (in a barely deciphered Disbrow will I have), Hall, Thompson, etc.... Finally, there is my own "SQUIRE" surname which shows up several times at Over and at Eltisley VR BOTH. While more commonplace than Disbrow, this surname is not only connected to my own Mercy Disbrow's witch trial in 1692 in several ways, it is also associated closely with her own stepfather: the Rev. John Jones of early Fairfield, CT. Rev. Jones was "ordained deacon" at Peterborough in 1613 (per F.C. Hart, TAG, 1996) after which time he certainly associated there with his close family friend, Sgt George Squire of that same place in England, who accompanied him to Fairfield by 1644. I note with interest from my Cambridge University ALumni CD (which unaccountably includes more Essex/Cambridgeshire 17th c. DISBROWs as alumni than has so far been posted to the D-List recently, or which may appear in Alumni Cantabrigensis book reference alone too!): one BRUNO DISBOROUGH also was "ordained deacon"and "priest" at this very same Peterborough, Eng. in 1630, & at a time when our Rev. John Jones was "probably rector" at Abbot's Ripton, HUNTS... So then, it is NOT particularly in my interest to neglect any possible association of any Bruno Disborowe of Eltisley as a possible progenitor for Thomas Disbrow's Eltisley line of James the ELDER, of course! This "Squire" surname also appears as a fellow passenger with one Thomas Desbororw on the ship CROWN MALLIGOE in 1677 as one "Elizabeth Squire," among other obvious Fairfield, CT surnames aboard with him then. Why have respected past Disbrow researchers never caught on to the TWO James Disbrows at early Eltisley?? In preparation for my last trip Dec. 2001, I was sent much important reference material, including material I noted several times in our debate, by Harold B. Disbrow & Eddis Johnson. These two collaborated on a 1986, 60-page "English Antecedents & Their Kinsfolk" publication which flatly ignored (entirely!) the existence of the now so famous "other" James Disbrow (called "junior" at Eltisley VR), as did Johnson in his earlier/identical report called: "Disbrow Families of England" from 1976. Meanwhile, these authors (absurdly to me now!) lumped all the children, some 15 or so, of the two James Disbrows into that one family of James "Elder/senior" (called "the Elder" by them); and which issue would not have seemed too unusual since large families were expected/required then. Oddly enough, these authors also cited the very same Bernice Disbrow vital records material (collected from one Margaret Bone of England in 1975) which was also the basis for the flawed Hutchings posting to our own Disbrow Archive in 2000, and as used by my opposite in our debate far more successfully than the above authors apparently. Why did these past authors do this? I can only come up with one suggestion, after looking at all the sources I have now and before I "peek" at any original 17th c. records on my trip (which was planned, in fact, well before this debate in order to resolve some of these very same "confusions," recall that I began my examination of the Hatley/Marshall conundrum just before this debate, and was in the midst of this review expressly for my trip, when the "hostile" debate ensued!). I can only now speculate these authors entirely overlooked that other James Disbrow (called "junior" and who is certrainly all too obviously in those vital records as contemporary to the ELder) perhaps because the lines of the TWO James seem so identicall in such curiously "witchy" fashion as I outlined in part ONE. I am also sad to report that I believe from my index of Disbrow wills at the Shire Hall (to follow) that there is now NO available will for the contemporary James "junior" in question here. Sorry gang! These authors based each chapter of their reports on the will abstracts for each significant generational progenitor (I therefore have early Disbrow will abstracts for the following from this material: John Disborowe/Elder, John Disborowe Younger, James Disbrowe/Elder, Isaac Disbrowe/Senior, Major Gen. John, Samuel Disbrowe, etc.). The absence of the James "junior" will seems to have been their fatal flaw perhaps. So, what is my so-called "Other Shoe to drop?" I was verbally given information in England which states unequivocally that the James who is buried at Over, dated 20 Jan 1633, is the actual father of Major General John, brother to Samuel Disbrowe (he is also very curiously buried just days before one "Robert Hatley" there too). Though it was not then excluded that Thomas also could have been their brother. While this verbal information must be closely checked against available actual documents I know about which exist in duplicate from the 17th c., I was not able to see the pertinent item listing on my last trip. While these documents themselves clearly also have multiple "equivocations" about them, it is NOT possible for Thomas to have been listed as he is in the Eltisley Disbrow VR under James "the Elder" and still be the son of this other James who is clearly buried at OVER in 1633! James "the Elder" is clearly only that James who is buried at Eltisley on 23 Oct 1638. Although his "Elder" status is not indicated in the Eltisley Bishop's Transcripts, we do have his 1614 will as proved also at that very same time of 1638. So, failing an arbitrary re-assignment of the VR listing for Thomas as being fathered by a "junior" instead of the "senior" (recall that even the Village historian Mike Sawyer mistakenly left out a couple of such designations in his copy for me of this VR, obviously also derived from the Cambridge Central Library material I also collected!), then I must conclude that Thomas is NOT the son of the same father as the famous two Disbrowe brothers of early 17th c. Eltisley. Get it?? I do NOT intend to reveal to you just what this VERBAL information is at this time, how I came by it or how I intend to verify it on my up-coming trip to England. I had once every intention of doing so, but given the ugly tenor of our debate, the ungrateful attitude of many of you, my concerns over some of your own over-reliance on this sometimes too lazy medium...I intend that you should do your own homework now and figure it out for yourselves. Call it your "class assignemnt.". OR, you may simply buy my book when it comes out, as it most CERTAINLY will, for all the many fine new angles I have uncovered, one tenth of which have been shared with this sometimes oddly discourteous List (is it the anonymity of us all that makes us so bold to treat one another so, or are we all just descendants of a "witch"???). Enjoy the hunt.... (Happy Halloween!) SSquires