Richard Wells, Dr. - White Whyte Weston Wells Wotta MESS!

And I put my foot right into the middle of it, because at least one of these characters is on my direct family line.

Richard Wells > Mary Wells + (1st husband) Capt. Thomas Stockett > Elizabeth Stockett Plummer > Elizabeth Plummer I(j)ams > Mary Ijams Waters > Josephus (W.) Waters > 5 more generations > me.

The questions start with whotheheck this Dr. Richard Wells character is, and how to tell him from any other Richard Wells running around the Colonies at about the same time (middle 17th century). He was *probably* born in 1609 in Saltish (or Saltash), Cornwall, England, but the only sources for this are secondary at best. There was supposedly a Richard Wells who emigrated to Massachusetts circa 1632 and got himself booted out - different guy with the same name? Probably.

He probably embarked for Virginia at age 26, on the ship "Globe" of London on 7 August 1635 - there were two Richard Wells shipping out for Virginia in that year, but the other one (who sailed on the "Assurance") was only 17. They both were single at the time, as far as the records show.

He was sometimes referred to as "Doctor", and as a "Chirurgeon", which means that he had at least a passing acquaintance with the art of medicine. He acquired some land, and then some more land, and then still more land. And he learned the arts of politics, getting into the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1645.

At some point not too long after setting up in Virginia, he married...whom? and had ten or eleven children (by her alone?) when he and his whole family removed to Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in 1653. And he quickly inserted himself into the political picture there too.

He cut two of his daughters off in his will (made 22 June 1667) with twelvepence each, with the strong implication that they had married men he did not choose for them and did not approve of as husbands. His daughter Mary Yate, with whose marriage to Capt. Thomas Stockett he seemed less displeased, was to receive three cows and £100. He divided his property among his five sons, listing them each by name. Three other children, and his wife, weren't mentioned at all. http://www.ancestrees.com/pedigree/2957.htm

He died (probably) in July 1667, and the will was probated in Maryland on 31 August and in London on 14 November of that year.

So much for the verifiable facts. Now it gets really hairy.

To have had ten, or possibly eleven, children by 1653, he must have gotten married between 1635 and 1640, and no later. Traditionally he is said to have married Frances Wells, daughter of Richard Whyte, IV and Unknown Profile, also known as Lady Catherine White (Weston). But...the dates don't add up.

Lady Catherine was born in 1607 (calculated backward from her Epitaph in Rome, 1645, which gives her age at death as 38). Exactly when she married, we do not know, but that she could have had Frances as her first child in 1622 - when she herself was barely fifteen - is stretching it a bit. It is somewhat more plausible that she married circa 1625 (at eighteen) and had George as her first child in 1628 (this is the consensus birthdate for George White). But notice what that does to *any* possibility of her daughter Frances being married off even as "late" as 1640! (What, at age *eleven* at the very oldest???)

It gets worse. The White family were Catholics and Royalists, and England was getting too cold for them in many more ways than just literally. There exists in the House of Commons records a pass allowing the White family - husband, wife and children all cited by name - to go to France in 1642.

From the House of Commons Journal, Volume 2 - 08 April 1642 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=14#sec-a15

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*White's Pass.*

*Ordered, That Rich. White, of Hutton in the County of Essex, with the Lady Catherine his Wife, and George, Jerome, Charles, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Francis [sic!] White, their Children, shall be licensed by this House to be transported into France, together with Three Men Servants, and Three Maid Servants (whose Names are also particularly to be inserted in the Warrant) and to transport their Trunks of Apparel, and other necessary Provisions: And the Searchers are required to take care that no prohibited Commodities be exported by them.*
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Note that Frances is listed *last*, which may suggest that she was the youngest child (that they had records of), or that the children's names were listed in no particular order.

If she went to France, and then on to Rome, with her parents and siblings, in 1642, then she certainly was not getting married to Richard Wells in Virginia in 1635 or 1640 or any plausible time for her to have been the mother of *any* of those ten/eleven children. And most particularly not of Mary Wells Stockett Yeats, who was probably born no later than 1640 (given that *her* first child - disregarding the anomalous and implausible "Elizabeth Yate" - was probably born circa 1660.

Some people who simply can't let go of the White-Weston connection (because it leads back to Royalty eventually) hypothesize a first wife, possibly also called "Frances" - see: Frances Wells, and then a second marriage to the highborn Frances White. But that only works for people whose family lines lead back to the youngest child or two, if that, and any descendants of Mary Stockett Yeats are right out of luck.

A possible solution to the conundrum is that Dr. Wells married *a* Frances White - but not *that* Frances White. "His" Frances White would be older - she would have to be - and might, or might not, be a collateral relative (possibly an aunt?). More likely, unfortunately, she would have been from the untitled Virginia gentry with no particular claim to distinguished ancestors.

And then there's Jerome White, whose presence in Maryland has been used as supporting evidence for the "Richard Wells married Frances daughter of Sir Richard White and Lady Catherine Weston" theory.

The problem is, both "Jerome" and "White" are reasonably common names (Sir Richard apparently had a brother as well as a son by that name). So is "Frances". It's not improbable that a distantly related or completely unrelated Frances White might also have had a brother named Jerome.

Not least because there apparently is some circumstantial evidence that Jerome son of Sir Richard White and Lady Catherine Weston never left Europe, but remained in Italy performing valuable services for the Catholic branch of the Stuart family, particularly James II, as he has sometimes been credited with helping to arrange James' marriage to Mary of Modena. (Probably as an assistant under-secretary or something equally obscure, to be sure.)

There is one more unresolved conundrum. Lady Catherine Weston White died in Rome in late October, 1645. Sir Richard survived her at least long enough to have a moving epitaph composed and installed at the English College in Rome. Yet there is alleged to be a son named James Whyte, born in 1647, who is sometimes said to be hers as well as his - which he could not possibly be. Did Sir Richard marry again? If so, whom? Or was he taking his consolation where he might, and this son was an accidental result? Or is the whole thing, well, accidental?