William Dudley, Sr. - Ancestry of William Dudley (1608 - 1683) of Surrey and Guilford, Connecticut

Here is the father I detached him from: David Dudley

William Dudley is my 8th great grandfather also but mostly I wanted to walk up the Dudley tree and add sources that were the most reliable available.

As pointed out by Erica Howton, the current David Dudley profile was problematic as it said that he was (1) the brother of Gov. Thomas Dudley and (2) a wheelwright which seems a bit odd and there were no sources cited in his profile.

Here are some other sources: http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:William_Dudley_%286%29

I wrote to the Guilford Keeping Society to ask what information they had about William Dudley from Guilford. The sent me a couple of links. http://www.forgottenbooks.com/books/A_History_of_the_Plantation_of_... and
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~swanger/Dudley/William1.htm
These still list David Dudley as the father of William of Guilford.

I agree with your last paragraph. I think since there is an uncertainty that it should be stated that way.

Thank you for the great response!

I wish that the American Genealogist article was available on-line Private User. I have a subscription to New England Genealogical Historical Society (www.americanancestors.com) and went out and read the Martin E. Hollick article that lays out the evidence for William Dudley of Guilford being the son of William Dudley. It's very convincing evidence. David Dudley did also have a son William, close in age, who remained in England. Besides naming patterns (the name Miles repeats in the Guilford family), there is the fact that David Dudley's William remained in England and that in various family wills it is clear that Willliam's William lives faraway.

I need to check The Great Migration Begins. it has cleared up what is fact and what is unsubstantiated or was misinterpreted for many of these families.

Luckily for our generation of family history research, there is amazing new research happening with the early American families. Think about it, we have inexpensive global travel, the Internet, scanners and copiers, and family associations and other organizations funding research.

Most 19th century sources repeated what was written by one or two of the early genealogists or worse, repeated what was asserted without evidence in vanity genealogies of the Victorian era. Even Savage and certainly Cutter made mistakes.

I think the right thing to do is to have the Overview state that David was believed to be the father and is still believed to be so by some and to lay out Hollick's genealogy and cite some of his reasons and give a link. Which is what I did, although it can always be improved.

I have looked through the many sources listed and am having trouble finding anything that would clear up the question of who the parents of the different William Dudleys would be. I have not looked at them all. I looked at a book that was listed as a source called History of the Dudley Family. The author says that there is a tradition among the Guilford Dudleys, of that time frame, that the first William was related to the Thomas Dudley from Massachusetts. It goes on to say that they might have been remotely related but he has no evidence of that. This is not a direct quote. I don't think that is enough to dismiss family tradition passed down. They probably were related in some way. I don't think it was directly myself. Some of the speculation of who the parents were was based on the fact that he was a wheelwright. That doesn't mean a lot because we don't know why he was a wheelwright. He may have liked to do that. He may have been cut off from any family money. We don't know enough about it to have that be a reason to detach him from a family. The other thing I noticed is that some people feel that since they used certain names, that were probably popular during that time frame, that would be a reason to disconnect from a family. That would be very speculative.
I have not checked every source out but I have looked at many of them. The books written back in the 1800's to early 1900's all pretty much state the same family traditions passed down. I have not found anything yet in these sources that would make me dismiss the family traditions.
I would be very happy to take a look at any sources that could actually prove the family tradition wrong.

This is the article that I would look at:

“The English Origins of William Dudley of Guilford, CT” by Martin E. Hollick The American Genealogist 82 (2007):63-75.

You'll need to go to a library or have an on-line subscription to NEGHS.

My family tradition is that we are descended from Robert E. Lee (on my Jewish side I even heard!). My sister was named Tandy Lee for that reason. There is NO evidence of that relationship and I have looked everywhere.

My grandmother also said that all Frankels were related (false) and that our family was related to Jack Ruby who assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald (could find no evidence of this) and that Herman Wouk wrote Marjorie Morningstar about a Margolis cousin of ours.

Lots of what I heard from my grandmother was in fact validated when I started doing genealogy, but some was just incorrect.

I did see a very nice source recently on the various Dudley families and I agree with you that some of them are related and that we need to look for and add some of that discussion to the Overview or to the Dudley Family project.

I am by the way a direct descendant of both the Governor and of William, of Guilford. Just by coincidence since I have so many early American ancestors, I tend to end up being related to or descended from many early Americans.

As I told Erica, David Dudley apparent was a wheelwright and was likely related to William Dudley, of Guilford.

We have only started in the Dudley Family project, we should find more sources that discuss possible relationships between families.

David I am less certain about frankly. I feel that the evidence for the ancestry of William of Guilford was quite convincing.

This thread is interesting (read all of it)

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2002-12/...

Private User Please continue the discussion about the parents of William Dudley, of Guilford here in this thread.

Please DO NOT edit the tree as you did tonight, to destroy the profiles that I added based on the best and most up-to-date genealogy, available from NEGHS in a reputable American genealogy publication.

We can certainly discuss the alternatives. We can email real Dudley experts.

What we cannot do is arbitrarily destroy parts of the tree to align with 100 year old publications by people who did not go to England and look at the birth, marriage, and baptismal records but repeated other people's assertions.

I am trying to make my tree end with William Dudley from Guilford. I don't want to change anyone else's tree.

Thanks so much Private User for explaining. I was confused. Now I understand!

The best option for that is to do that on your own computer on a family tree program or to do that on MyHeritage where everyone's family tree is separate. On Geni, there is a single collaborative family tree. If you do create a separate tree, someone will find your "duplicate" profiles and eventually merge them in with the World Family Tree.

I have written to Mr. Martin E. Hollick asking him to send us a statement with his argument as to why the records in Dorking and other facts support his hypothesis.

I'll make sure in the profile to be very clear about there being two theories -- the David Dudley theory and the William (Miles line) theory as to the father.

I am busy with work the next few days, but I'll make that change for sure.

I think it is very uncertain who the parents of William Dudley of Guilford are! I would be happy to look at any knew information!

Martin Hollick answered me and is providing some facts from his article that strongly support William as the father of our William and David as the father of the William who stayed in Dorking and had a family. I'll add that to the profile and project.