Thanks for your positive comments, they are MUCH appreciated. Please see the following "Two Early Disbrow Wills-REDUX" which I repeat here, with some minor corrections (including additional info on Nathaniel and that James who buried at OVER in 1633, ...additions/corrections I made to it some time ago and meant to post on that Friday following my Halloween postings: In reviewing my post, repeated below with some very important clarifying corrections (including a comma instead of period after the bequst to a mysterious JAMES in the first John Disborowe will), I notice it all raises a very interesting problem which makes my original post (corrected below) into real "hash"---NAMELY, that if "Mr. James Disbrowe" who is buried at Over in 1633 and who may be the actual father of Samuel & Maj. Gen. John Disbrowe (from that so-called unimpeachable "verbal" source I mentioned in "The Other Shoe Drops," ...this source might certainly presume itself to be so!), then this James line, showing-up first in Eltisley as that mysterious James "junior" family of our concern, would certainly NOT have been inheritors of the Eltisley "advowson" (or perhaps much of any land at Eltisley then??!). This because that James was later inexplicably buried at OVER (...why not at Eltisley if owning significant manorial lands there, afterall??), he's presumed fa! ther of Major General (so noted by my as yet un-named 'unimpeachable' source/"shoe," partly dropped for your "fun", source available to you w/ some looking!!). Perhaps then this "James," as father of famous Disbrowes, late of Over in 1633, perhaps had NO Eltisley lands to enjoy in his old age afterall!? What's up with that one?? It is recorded from various Eltisley village sources, including those "olde notes," for example, that James/Elder & Elizabeth "MARSHALL" owned the "rectory," a fine old house closest to the Eltisley churchyard & built for Elizabeth in 1612 (with a stair-post carving of their initials: "J&E, 1612," so I'm told & have read in modern magazine accounts w/ photos,... which initials actually shed no further light). This matter only partly clears-up by assuming the Maj. Gen. acquired the "advowson" only by his first purchase of it in 1657 from Sir Francis Mannocke. Though Isaak Disbrowe LEASED this also from Mannocke in the 1650's (when it was also then owned by Mannocke). YET, on the other hand, this entire "advowson" of manorial property SEEMS to have been in the hands of the TWO earlier John Disborowe progenitors (see their 2 wills below!!) also undoubtedly well BEFORE 1600, & just as history books also indicate! (So, which John spawned which James as progenitor of which Thomas & which "famous" Disbrowe??) Therefore, the Major General's older brother James must have been involved with some LESSER land holdings, apparently also at Eltisley since he is buried there in 1634, and not at OVER (his burial there was amost two years after his "own" father: "Mr. James Disbrow" was buried at OVER on 20 Jan 1633... So goes this "angle" from that so-called 'un-impeachable' source, I no! ted---of which there is NO such thing, of course, but wait until you discover who it is!!). It has also been a part of the traditional historiography about Major General Disbrowe that he was a "farmer" himself at the very beginning of his military career, at Eltisley no less (about which much of the later published & vicious personal vilifications directed at him refer so unflatteringly, & not just for him as a clownish "rustic," with that word often also referencing a generally unsavory "pagan" association known to those times, in fact!). The Major General was also, nevertheless, said to have been a lawyer early in adult life and did serve on the famous Hale Commission to reform the laws during the Commonwealth (which speaks against his being a purely boorish & clumsy "rustic," as do many other of his appointments under Cromwell!). For all of the above, it does STILL seem "likely," just as other sources have previously put it specifically (including those past Disbrowe researchers from 1986), that the Major General's older brother James (also called "junior") is almost certainly that very same James who is buried in the 1634 Eltisley grave, having inherited some sort of lands under primogeniture from the James buried at OVER (YES, I do have this "un-impeachable" source, which is now looking even more full of "equivocations" than I originally had dreamed up already). This scenerio too is just as Samuel Disbrowe's 1684 pedigree seems to indicate by saying "James died young". So then, YOU figure it all out! It "ain't" just up to me, gang, ...and to some extent "I could care less" for my book-project purposes since that project is ultimately FAR more narrow in its CT witch trial scope, believe me! Unfortunately, there is STILL much I can come up with to "equivocate" the two Jameses division of families (making me look back at the 1986 antecedent report with some original respect restored!), and all this from available records INCLUSIVELY, ...as well as from village records about Eltisley lands & 1612 house, via village historian & his other sources!). Don't count on me for all your answers folks, I'll be gone as soon as I finish these "clean-up" postings. Sorry, but so must be! See wills "redux" below: RE: TWO Early Eltisley Will Abstracts. The following are two will abstracts from the 1986 Antecedents publication. These demonstrate how you can go wrong when presuming too much from just ONE source of information only. During our debate I made it clear that we do NOT know exactly when Major General John Disbrowe may have taken over the lands at Eltisley under primogeniture. Was it before his marriage to Jane Cromwell in 1636? I would say that it was. This is because I now know that the James "junior" who was buried at Eltisley churchyard in 1634 and who would have been in line for this land-ownership under primogeniture [note: but then would HE have been that James,...how must we then read the wills below, etc??] is not that OTHER James "junior" who was his father and also contemporary to James the "Elder." This James of the 1634 grave is "likely" to have been that James who was brother to the Major General (he could NOT have been that other "James" who was also a son of James the Elder, and older brother to "our" Thomas Disbrowe of 1625 Eltisley bp). So, what's the big deal? Many sources indicate that the Eltisley lands were owned by the Disbrowes long PRIOR to what we also see often on the record as the lease to Isaak Disbrowe from 1650 to 1653 of "Eltisley Manor" (the rectory or manor house which stands near the church is also known to have been built, it is believed from various village "records" including Sawyer's "olde notes," BY James the "Elder" for his wife Elizabeth Marshall in 1612). While the famous general is also known to have bought this "manor" from Sir Francis Mannock in 1657, and the general then "devised it to his eldest surviving son, Valentine," who held the manor in 1706 but had been succeeded by a John Disbrowe by 1710. According to the Sawyer's "olde notes," again only referred to for my own convenience sake (so also see Henry Waters, etc): "The manor is said to have been devised by John Disbrowe, by will dated 1741, to the two sons of his nephew, William Walford of Bocking, Essex" (curiously, BOCKING is exactly where Samuel Disbrow's own brother-in-law back in Connecticut, who is another of my own ancestors: Rev. James Fitch, came from himself back in olde England as well; ...with both Fitch & Disbrowe marrying Whitfield daus. at the old stone house in Guilford, CT two years apart in 1640's!). Here is what we have in the very early will abstracts for the progenitor Disbrow gens (taken from Johnson/Disbrowe's 1986 "The Disbrowes of Canada & Their English Antecedents"): John Disborowe the Elder of Eltisley , Yoeman (1526?-1574) Will dated 14 September 1574, probated 24 September 1574, bequeathed (1) to son John Disbrow, the freehold lands at Eltisley, but if he dies before his heirs are twenty-one years old [note: isn't it interesting how these old traditions still bear-up with respect to 21 yrs as a designation even today!]., then other son Brunow Disborow is to be trustee of the land; John is to pay annually 40 shillings to John's mother Alice Disborow; (2) to son Bruno, the copyhold land in the manor of Eltisley and to pay a like sum to his mother; (3) to wife Alice, household goods in the manor house of Eltisley [note: "manor house"!], cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, and grain; (4) to daughter Johane, 40pds; (5) to James Disbrowe (relationship not given [NOTE: this fact is very unfortunate now for us 'moderns' in splitting up the families as we now have, since this demonstrates we cannot be sure of any absolutely obvious blood relation between the two divided-up families later listed under both James jun & sen!]), Sean? in the manor of Burrough [is this related to village of Burrough Green and the Burrowes families at Over also?] on payment of 20pds; (6) to son Bruno, Sean? of parsonage of Eltisley [NOTE: this demonstrates "advowson" also perhaps invvolved here above??]; (7) to every grandchild, 40 shillings; (8) son John, Sean of manor of Eltisley; (9) to sons John and Bruno, the residual; and (10) executors to be John and Bruno. IMPORTANT NOTE ON ABOVE WILL: I have a hand-written footnote at bottom of my abstract copy of above, & as written by a long respected/hard working Disbrow researcher who has indicated she believes that the James noted above so mysteriously also had a SON also named "James," bp c 1580, who had married our "Elizabeth Marshall". Please also note there is yet one more James who is son also to another JOHN, called "younger" in will abstract below! John Disborowe the Younger of Eltisley, Yoeman (c. 1550-1610) Will dated 27 August 1608, and probated on 23 June 1610 [NOTE: he shows up buried 24 May 1610 at Eltis.]; bequeathed (1) Manor of City Camps otherwise Shudy Camps (in Shudy Camps, Horseheath, and Bartlow) to wife Joan until second son Joseph Disbrow reaches 21 years or if he dies to third son Izhak Disborowe at 21 years or if he dies to fourth son Nathaniel Disborowe at 21 years [note: there is a "Joseph Disbrowe" I have from the Calendar of State Papers-Domestic , p. 586 for Comm For Advance of Money on 18 Aug 1645, who holds the Bull tavern owned by a Royalist soldier named Col Ed. Searle---I think this is the SAME "Joseph Disbrowe" since other Eltisley Disbrowes were also holding and "sequestering" the spoils of civil war, including both Isaac and James Disbrowe too!! NOTE #2: could Nath'l, above mentioned in will, also be that Nath'l noted at Over VR, who is clearly having babies well before the Nath'l of Eltisley, who is brother to famous Major General, could possibly have been of age??]; (2) lands in county of Hertford to wife and to son Nathaniel at 21 years; (3) cash legacies to Izhak and Nathaniel and to daughter Sara Disbrowe at marriage or 21 years; (4) cash legacies to children of Alice Pomfrett "my daughter" at 21 years [NOTE: most interestingly, there is this very same "Pomfret" surname among Saffron Walden clan of Hartford's Nicholas Disbrowe too, and also as mentioned in Rose Hobson Disbrowe's will of 1698, widow to Samuel Disbrowe]; to children of Francis Waspe my daughter" at 21 years; to children of eldest son James Disborowe at 21 years; and (5) executrix & residuary legates, wife Joan. Administration granted to wife Joan 2 June 1610.