WETMORE; ENG / WLS; 1585-1999 I erroneously sent this to L-request, so naturally it hasn't appeared in the digest. Please reply by E-mail; my ISP doesn't carry the NG. -------- Looking for origin of name WETMORE and any Wetmores in the UK. I suspect it may be Wedmore, SOM, which in Domesday also was spelt "Wetmore." John Whitmore (as he called himself) took ship from Bristol to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 with his five children. They were Puritans. His antecedents are an enduring mystery, though various relatives over the past 140 years have tried to make a connexion with various prominent Whitmores of 17th C. England. Alas, real proof as opposed to wishful thinking eluded them. John Whitmore ============= born abt. 1590, birthplace unknown died 1648, killed by Mohegan Indians near Stamford, New Haven Colony. father unknown mother unknown wife unknown marriage date unknown Known Children, b. in England or Wales 1. Thomas Whitmore, b. 1615, d. 1681 (ancestor of all the North American Wetmores) 2. Ann Whitmore, b. 1618, d. 1660 3. Mary, b. 1623, d. 1684 4. Francis, b. 1624 or 5, d. 1666 (ancestor of a line of Mass. Whitmores) 5. John [Jr.], b. 1627, d. 1650 John and sons Thomas and John Jr. moved to Connecticut Colony in 1637. The family may have been Welsh. In a 19th C. genealogy of the Hall family, Thomas Whitmore (who married Sarah Hall of Middletown, Conn. from a Kentish family) was described as "a Welshman living in the West of England." A Josiah Wetmore, living in Queens Co., NB, CAN, in the 1871 census gave his ethnicity as "Welch." So it is entirely possible that they had a Welsh surname that they abandoned. I've been told that today there are 16 Wetmore households in the UK, about 2/3 of them in the Bristol area. In the 1881 UK census a total of 49 Wetmores were enumerated, though I don't know how many households were represented. The number in either case is small enough to have been descended from, say, two Loyalist Wetmores who returned to ENG after 1781. My own line also was Loyalist but they went to NB. Or they may be strictly native, though it's hard to see why there would be so few when there are 3,000-plus Wetmore households today in the USA and CAN. Any and all information will be welcome. Best regards, Warren Wetmore | Hazel Crest, Illinois, USA | Researching BONNELL/BUNNELL/BUNNILL, DWIGHT, | HALL, HAVILAND, STOW(E), TAIT, WETMORE, | WHITMORE WebMerlin@MegsINet.net