For those who want to read Walne's article, here are two ways to find it (I cited the first one yesterday). Good genealogical or historical libraries should have one or both. Peter Walne, "The English Ancestry of Colonel William Ball of Millenbeck," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 67:399-405. Reprinted in _Genealogies of Virginia Families from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_ (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981), vol. 1, pp. 16-22. Here are pertinent excerpts I have transcribed: "From the time of Joseph Ball II of Lancaster County, many attempts have been made to establish the English pedigree of Colonel William Ball of Millenbeck, first Virginia ancestor of George Washington's mother. . . . "It was perhaps unfortunate that by the time Joseph Ball II began to conduct his own researches into his ancestry in the 1740s, during his long residence in England, passage of time appears to have dimmed to the point of extinction the clear light of true knowledge of his family's origins. For instance, Joseph was not certain of grandmother Hannah's surname, as letters to Joseph Chinn of July 17, 1745, and May 23, 1747, and to his cousin Mrs. Ellen Ball Chichester in 1745 in his letter book show. . . . "Traditionally, Colonel William is said to have been the son of William Ball of Lincoln's Inn, one of the four Sworn Attorneys of the Court of the Exchequer of Pleas in London. [note: The pedigree of Ball of Barkham and Wokingham recorded by this William Ball at the Herald's Visitation of London in 1634/5, and now amongst the records of the College of Arms, volume C.24, seems to have been the starting point of almost all past Ball researches. This pedigree is printed in _Visitations of Berkshire_, I, 62 (Harleian Society, vol. LVII, London, 1908).] In recording his pedigree and arms before the Heralds, William gave a line of descent back to the late fifteenth century in the parish of Barkham in Berkshire. His first ancestor was himself a William said to have died in 1480, [note: Not, as in the Downman family Bible and the account in the 1939 edition of _Burke's Landed Gentry_, lord of the manor of Barkham, but merely an inhabitant of the parish possibly of yeoman status.] leaving a son, Robert, said to have died in 1543 but most probably the Robert whose burial is recorded on May 30, 1546, in the Barkham parish register. [note: I am indebted to the vicar, the Reverend C.C. Roycroft, for permission to inspect the first parish register, still in his custody, from which the entries relating to Balls in Barkham are quoted.] Robert by his wife Margaret, who was buried on June 13, 1542, left two sons, William 'to whom his father gave all his personal estate, died 1550. Lived at Wokingham,' and Edward 'to whom his father gave all his lands.' Edward died in 1558, was buried on August 21 leaving a will proved in October 1558 from which it appears he left a wife, Agnes, and two daughters. William, the elder son, married Margaret Moody and had by her a son, John, and three daughters. John succeeded to his father's lands in Wokingham and took to himself two wives, one of whom, Agnes, daughter of Richard Holloway of Barkham, died without issue, and the other, Alice Haynes of Finchampstead, bore him four sons and three daughters. John died in 1599 and, according to the wish expressed in his will, was buried in the churchyard at Wokingham. [note: His will was proved in the Court of the Dean of Salisbury as the parish was a part of that ecclesiastical peculiar. I am indebted to my colleague, M.G. Rathbone, County Archivist, Wiltshire, for a photostat of this will now in his custody with the other probate records of this Court.] The eldest survivor of the children of John and Alice Ball was another John, tenant of the manor of Evendons in Wokingham, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Webb of Ruscombe near Wokingham, [note: This Elizabeth was not, as the pedigree in _Burke's Landed Gentry_, 1939 edition, says, the wife of John Ball who died in 1599. Two generations have been conflated in that account.] by whom he had five sons and six daughters before her burial at Wokingham on September 12, 1616. [note: The parish registers of Wokingham do not begin before 1674. An almost complete series of 'Bishop's Transcripts,' 1600-1640, exists in the records of the Dean of Salisbury, now housed at Salisbury. . .] John himself is reputed to have died in 1628, but no trace of his will or of his burial at Wokingham have been found. "The first-born and eldest surviving child of John Ball at the time of his death was William. The exact date of his birth is not known, but it was probably in 1603. [note: In March 1639 Robert Ball of Holshot, Hampshire, gentleman, died. This Robert was brother to John Ball who died in 1599 and uncle of William. He held certain lands in Wiltshire and Hampshire by feudal tenure and his death necessitated an _Inquisition Post Mortem_ into these lands. This ends with a statement of the relationship between Robert and William and also says that William's age in 1639 was about 36, i.e., he was born about 1603. The Bishop's Transcripts of the Wokingham registers are deficient for the years 1602 to 1606. The inquisition on Robert's death is P.R.O., _Chancery I.P.M._, 15 Chas I, pt. I, no. 99.] This is the William traditionally asserted to have been father to Colonel William of Millenbeck. [note: The preceding brief account, as modified by reference to original sources, is based on the pedigree as recorded in 1634/5. From local Berkshire records in the Berks Record Office, Reading, it could be amplified.] . . . "On September 1, 1623, William Ball, son and heir of John Ball of Wokingham, gentleman, was admitted to Lincoln's Inn to commence his studies as an embryo lawyer. [note: Lincoln's Inn Admission Register, f.85.] In due course, he must have successfully completed his studies and probably, thanks to his uncle Robert, [note: Robert's will proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1639 (P.C.C. Harvey 133) speaks of his 'friends of the Exchequer' and of his law books.] himself a practitioner in the Exchequer of Pleas (if not a sworn attorney), was practising in that court as early as the beginning of 1630. [note: P.R.O. E12/14.] The date of his appointment to one of the four attorneyships in the court is not certain but it must lie between 1630 and 1634, when his own statement in the recorded pedigree attests the fact. . . . "On July 16, 1627, . . . William married Alice, daughter of Richard Waltham of London, merchant. . . . "William's death occurred in November or early December 1647. . . . His wife Alice was named executor, to whom probate was granted on December 14. [note: This will, surprisingly enough never discovered before, was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and is registered amongst the records of the Court now in the Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House (P.C.C. Fines 244).] . . . "His will [leaves legacies] to his daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, Susan, and Sarah and to his sons Richard and Samuel. [note: This disproves the statement in _Burke's Landed Gentry_, 1939 edition, that he had five other sons besides Colonel William.] No mention is made in the will of a son, William, who might have been Colonel William of Millenbeck. "But a son and heir William there was. . . . The omission of specific legacy to the widow Alice would seem to support the probability that arrangements had been made before November 1647 for the future fortunes of widow and eldest son. An argument could be put forth that William had already gone to Virginia before his father's death, but this would antedate Hayden's date of 1650 (p. 51) or the date 1657 in the Ball letter book and Downman Bible. In any case, the younger William could have been no more than nineteen years old in 1649, since his parents were only married in 1627, and could certainly not have married a Hannah Atherold in 1638. Nor, as Hayden asserts, is he likely to have been born in 1615 when his father was a mere child of twelve years. "The first evidence of a William Ball, son of William Ball, attorney of the Exchequer of Pleas, who could have become Colonel William of Millenbeck is found in the 'Parish Booke for Wokingham'. . . . A deed of September 28, 1641, . . . names . . . William Ball of Wokingham, gentleman, and William Ball, son and heir of William Ball. [note: Berks R.O. Wo/RZ 1, f. 109] Unless the first of these two Williams is an entirely different person of another branch of this numerous family, then he must be equated with William of Lincoln's Inn and Fetter Lane and his son must be the person traditionally said to be the first Ball in Virginia. . . . Unless the father had married in London or Wokingham before 1627 (and there is no evidence that this did happen), this son could hardly have married at the age of ten a girl from Suffolk nor even in 1650 been described as of mature years. . . . "The man who is reputed to have founded the family in Virginia, in fact never left England or Berkshire. In the same 'Parish Booke' of Wokingham already quoted is entered the next deed in the series of appointments of trustees of the Almshouses. [note: Berks R.O. Wo/RZ, 1, f. 110] This is dated April 13, 1670, and in it the four surviving trustees appointed by the deed of 1641 appoint further new trustees. One of the survivors is William Ball 'of Bracknell, Esquire,' who can only be the younger William of 1641. . . . On June 10, 1687, at Trinity College, Oxford, Samuel Ball, son of William Ball of Bracknell, esquire, aged fifteen, matriculated but never appears to have taken a degree. [note: _Alumni Oxonensis_, ed. J. Foster (Oxford, 1891)]" Kathleen Much