On 7/21/2013 7:44 PM, Renia wrote: > > Why do you think he came from Sussex or Surrey? > > A good starter for the various parishes in England can be found here. It > will give you an idea just how many parishes there are in English counties. > > http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/ I don't think he necessarily came from there. My apologies if I gave you that impression. I've been working this problem (finding William's birthplace, date and parents) for over 30 years, so I do understand things pretty well. My initial post only gave a small amount of information, in order to focus on the immediate question. There's a lot more behind the scenes. The Southeast -- Surrey, Sussex and Kent -- had a lot of Canfields over that period of time. But so did Beds and Northants, and some other counties had a few as well. Still, in England overall it's a rather uncommon name. I've mapped them to look for possible patterns and hints of movement - some interesting results have already popped out. In fact, I have two possible candidates in Beds born in the 1650s. I think they are less likely to be "my" William, but I haven't ruled them out entirely. And it would be nice to tie my William to another Camfield, who was in America in the 1600s and was a founder of Newark, New Jersey. He was from Northants. I do think all the various Camfield/Canfield/Kenfield/Kentfield families were at least distantly related, and there are hints of lineage back to the 11th/12th Centuries, but that's a much larger project for the future. So far, I'm aware of nine William Canfields born in England in the right time frame. Only three have been definitely ruled out, and two others seem highly unlikely. I'm just focusing right now on the two in Surrey, because they seem the most likely candidates of the Williams I'm aware of. I know the available records are incomplete, so there may be other possible Williams as well, but I can only work with what's available. So I take one step at a time. I'm hoping my post will lead to additional information and sources I haven't yet found. Dexter