Hello, all: I'm an Californian researching the English origins of my immigrant ancestors, two brother-in-laws who emmigrated to Jamestown, Virginia circa 1612/13. There are some tantalizing clues in the literature regarding the name of one of them, Pharaoh Flinton (a surgeon, according to the records of the Virginia Company of London), as follows: In "Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature" Charles W.E. Bardsley states: "This affection for the Old Testament has never died out among the Nonconformists. The large batch of names I have already quoted from modern directors is almost wholly from the earlier Testament... Wherever Dissent is strong, there will be found a large proportion of these names. Amongst the passengers who went out to New England in James and Charles's reigns will be found such names as Boaz Sharpe, Esau del a Ware, Pharaoh Flinton, ... Obediah Hawes, ... Malachi Mallock ... . Occasionally an ... Epaphroditus Haughton, ... or Annanias Mann is met with; but these are few ... . Puritanism made early stand in Yorkshire, though in the matter of nomenclature the northern counties seem to have been the slowest to take up the new custom. Puritan names still linger in our northern dales. If we look over the pages of the directories of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire and strike out surnames, we could imagine we were consulting anciently inscribed registers of Joppa or Jericho. It would seem as if Canaan and the West Riding had got inextricably mixed. What a spectacle meets our eye? Within the limits of ten leaves we have three Pharaohs... Pharaoh occurs, and went out to Virginia, where it has ever since remained. It is, as already shown, familiar enough in Yorkshire." Furthermore, all the names can be found in one parish record, according to an article in "Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine" Volume LXXXV October 1927 Number 10: "In the Manchester Directory for 1877 we find a "Kerenhappuck Horrocks", while in 1850 there was one "Kesiah Simmons", and in 1862 "Eli-Lama-Sabachthani" Pressnail staggered along under his terrific load. Another luckless wight, bearing his sorrows thick upon him, was "Lamentations" Chapman, mentioned as early as 1590. "Dust" and "ashes" enjoyed great vogue. Here we find in one register a "Boaz" Sharpe, "Pharaoh" Flinton, "Obadiah" Hawes, "Malachi" Mallock, "Epaphroditus" Haughton, "Annanias" Mann. Surely "Barabbas" was not a happy thought, still there was a "Barabbas" Bower in 1713." On the other hand, "A dictionary of English surnames" By Percy Hide Reaney and Richard Middlewood Wilson University of Sheffield 1958, flatly states that "[t]he modern form of many of our surnames is comparatively recent, often preserving a phonetic spelling found in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century parish register. Pharaoh is a reconstructed spelling of Faro, originally farrer, found also as Farrey, Farrah and Farrow in the seventeenth century."... no mention of religion! My question to the lists is whether or not anyone has heard of any of these particular names, and knows which parish register is being referred to? Thanks and regards, Stephanie