Rev. George Phillips - Parent Conflict

Started by Justin Durand on Friday, May 1, 2015
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5/1/2015 at 11:53 PM

I need some help resolving the parent conflict for Rev. George Phillips, of Watertown.

If I'm reading the sources correctly, the Great Migration Project has established that George was son of Christopher Phillips, of Rainham (Norfolk) by an unknown wife. That much is apparently established by George's matriculation record at Cambridge University.

But there seem to be two Christopher Phillipses who have been confused.

First, Christopher Phillips, of Devon, born 1565 at Stoke In Teignhead, Devon, son of Rev. John Phillips and Johanna Watters. Almost every Internet source I've found says he married (1) 1587 Agnes Abram, and perhaps (2) 1614 Agnes Rice. By his first wife, he was supposedly the father of (among others) four sons: (a) Thomas, who was supposed to sail on the Mayflower but didn't; (b) William, the immigrant to Taunton; (c) George, the first minister at Watertown; and (d) John, who settled at Plymouth. This information apparently comes from a source called "The Roads Taken", available at Ancestry.com.

Second, Christopher Phillips, of Raynham, Norfolk, born about 1565 at Rainham, Norfolk, son of William Phillips and Johane Houghton. When a wife it given for him, it is Elizabeth Lightfoot. I haven't been able to track down the source of this information, but it appears to be an attempt to develop an ancestry in Norfolk (where Rev. George was born) rather than linking him to a family on the other side of the country.

The only seemingly firm evidence I've been able to find is DNA test results. The descendants of Rev. George Phillips belong to a different subgroup than the descendants of his supposed brother William of Taunton. That means the two men were probably not brothers. If they were both sons of a Christopher Phillips, there must have been two different Christopher Phillipses.

Rev. George is such a prominent ancestor to so many American families I'm hoping that someone on Geni knows more about the problems around his ancestry and can help sort out the problem.

5/2/2015 at 12:43 AM

I can only give you a logic case.

William Phillips MP
Birth: May 12, 1588
Kirkton-in-Holland, Lincolnshire, England
Death: circa April 16, 1654 (61-69)
Probably, Taunton, Bristol, Massachusetts
Immediate Family:
Son of Christopher Phillips and Agnes Abrams

William & George are not brothers. Therefore George should be disconnected from the Christopher Phillips of Lincolnshire & his wife Agnes Abrams.

The other siblings should also be examined for geography & disconnected / provisionally connected accordingly.

5/2/2015 at 9:56 AM

Many of the families on the Arbella settled in Roxbury. I looked at quite a few of them, since I'm descended from several of them.

Roxbury may have been settled earlier than Taunton. I have to check. Anyway my meandering point is that people on ships often were connected, stayed together, settled a town together, intermarried and moved to subsequent towns together. Is it common to find brothers all in different towns so early? Arbella was 1635.

5/2/2015 at 10:49 AM

Also Taunton was Plymouth Colony, quite a bit more easy going than the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony of the Winthrop fleet. And yes, Roxbury was earlier than Taunton, which was a frontier. There is no logical reason to think George & William brothers besides (a common) surname coincidence.

5/2/2015 at 1:07 PM

Of course there's a logic case here, but that alone won't solve the problem. I think it often helps to identify the original source of the bad information, where possible.

A line like this is particularly vulnerable to confusion because Phillips is a common surname. It's particularly common for Welsh families whose names evolved from "ap Philip" -- son of Philip.

In an old issue of the Phillips DNA newsletter I found this statement:

"As many of you know, Richard Ripley is a Canadian genealogist who claims most Canadian and American Phillips families descend from the aristocratic Philipps family of Picton Castle, Wales. He sells a CD containing that misinformation to anyone naïve enough to buy it. Our unbiased, scientific Phillips DNA project has now made it abundantly clear that all Canadian and American Phillips families are not related and do not all descend from a single Philipps family that lived in Wales. So far, our project has identified 73 different Phillips families (most of whom are American or Canadian) who do not share a common paternal Phillips ancestor within 1,000 years. The 1,000 year benchmark is important, because European men did not use permanent surnames more than 1,000 years ago. In other words, the Philipps family of Picton Castle were not using the permanent surname Philipps 1,000 years ago."

http://phillipsdnaproject.com/web_documents/newsletters/Jan_2012_ne...

What follows is a general discussion of some examples of Ripley's "mash everyone together into one family" approach to genealogy.

This is one of the examples:

Two sources published by Riply, "'The Roads Taken' and 'verdego' both stated that this John Phillips, hypothetical progenitor of many Phillips who came to America, was born on 21 May 1539 in Northam, Devon, England and died in 1626 in Sussex, England. According to Mr. Ripley, John’s father was Simon Phillips born about 1520 in Llwyngwair, Pembroke, Wales. Also according to Mr. Ripley, Simon’s father was Sir Owen Philipps of Picton Castle. The only problem is Sir Owen (or Owain, to use the Welsh spelling) Philipps of Picton Castle never had a son named Simon."

This is the John Phillips given on Geni as father of Christopher Phillips and grandfather of the three immigrants to Massachusetts.

DNA testing has begun to unravel the mess. Now it appears many of the Phillips lines shown on Geni will have to be broken and re-worked in the next few weeks. If anyone has an objection, now is the time to speak up. Be prepared to cite primary sources ;)

5/2/2015 at 1:43 PM

Disconnected Sir Simon Phillips as a son of Sir Owen Philipps, Lord of Cilsant.

I considered also disconnecting John Phillips as a son of Sir Simon Phillips. This might be suspect at this point but I don't believe we have enough information to know whether or not there are sources to support it.

5/3/2015 at 11:21 AM

Oh, bother! This affects more than one line for me...wouldn't be so bad, but in the last 2 weeks something major happened in the Sinclair line that turned all my GGP's into cousins & extended into in-laws (seems to be fixed now); found several instances of "time shifts" where someone inserted 18th c. profiles into 12th c.; encountered 3 instances of duplicate profiles created since Feb - some extremely spurious; was, also, affected by the Hamby mess, etc. And, have been frustrated by geni's always showing the shortest relationship path, which means that St Brychan, who is a 25th great-uncle & 34th GGF, always shows up as an uncle & throws off relationships upline. So, enough grousing!

Can you tell me if this line is correct:

Richard Bowen of Rehobeth --> Eleanor Griffith (dau. John Griffith--> son of Sir Wm. Griffith of Penhyrn) m. James Bowen (son of Mathias Bowen & Mary Phylips of Picton Castle.
Mary Phylips --> dau of John Phillips (son of Sir Thomas Phillips II) & Eleanor Griffith (dau of Sir Wm Griffith of Penhyrn & sister of John Griffith)

5/3/2015 at 11:52 AM

Someone else might know. I don't. I've spent the last few days focused on Rev. George Phillips, just one of the dozens of problems. This isn't one of my research interests, so it's likely I'll move on in a day or two and leave the problem for people who have Phillips lines.

5/3/2015 at 3:46 PM

I suggest that you email the curator of Richard Bowen as they would know something about this family. Or email the managers from the profile, since one or more of them might be a researcher with good sources.

5/3/2015 at 3:49 PM

Richard Bowen, of Weymouth & Rehoboth

Reading the Overview (About), I wonder at the evidence for the connection with the parents. Cutter is often incorrect by the way. Read down the Overview. One of the managers has added some information as to NOT finding evidence of James Bowen of Wales being the parent of Richard.

5/3/2015 at 3:51 PM

Not in The Great Migration Begins.

5/3/2015 at 3:53 PM

http://www.rigensoc.org/forsale.php Saxbe book on Richard Bowen.

5/3/2015 at 4:50 PM

I created a Phillips Family Cleanup project:
http://www.geni.com/projects/Phillips-Family-Cleanup/25632

I'll start tossing information into that rather than reporting each problem individually.

5/3/2015 at 4:55 PM

I also resolved the parent conflict for Rev. George Phillips, of Watertown in favor of Christopher Phillips and Elizabeth Lightfoot.

5/5/2015 at 6:05 PM

A friend in the UK has tracked down some interesting information about the family of Christopher Phillips, of Rainham.

According to the Norfolk Archives website, there are no surviving parish records for Raynham South (St Martin) prior to 1740, although there are some Archdeacon's and Bishop's transcripts dating from 1600:

http://www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk/view/NCC154771

One of the surviving Archdeacon's records mentions Christofer Philipps as churchwarden in 1606.

Then from an article in NEHGR vol 52 (1898) pages 318-320 we have some Phillips extracts from this and neighboring parishes:

* Marriage of Walter Saunders and Alice Phillips, 1553 at West Raynham
* Marriage of Nicholas Phillips and Martha Large, 1618 at West Raynham
* Burial of Anne Phillips, daughter of Christopher, 1618 at West Raynham
* Burial of Xtopher Phillips, 1621 at West Raynham
* Baptism of Katherine Phillips, daughter of Christopher, 1595 at Colcreak
* Baptism of Mary Phillips, daughter of Christopher, 1594 at Colcreak

And from local account books:
* Payment to Christopher Phillips for making a pair of doors, 1594
* Payment to Christopher Phillips & his son for one day's work, 1607

https://archive.org/stream/newenglandhistorv58wate#page/n691/mode/2up

This gives use some very significant information. It's very unlikely that the Christopher Phillips who appears regularly in and around Rainham 1594 to 1607 and died there 1621 was the same Christopher Phillips as the man whose had children John, Jacob & Hannah born at Stepney (London) in 1606, 1608 & 1618.

With that in mind, I've created a new profile for Christopher Phillips, of Stepney and will transfer those children to him.

5/7/2015 at 11:34 AM

We have some confusion among three different men named John Phillips. Each of them claims to be the immigrant John Phillips who died 16 December 1682.

1. John Phillips. This is the person identified by Richard Ripley as the immigrant, Totally off base. I'm going to delete his death date and move his About Me information.

2. John Phillips, of Dedham. This profile explicitly claims to be "John Phillips, of Plymouth Colony", but is somewhat confused. The parents and date of birth are from Ripley, but for two different Johns. The date of death is 16 December 1682 but the place of death is Marshfield rather than Boston. A different John Phillips died at Marshfield in 1691.

3. John Phillips, of Dorchester & Boston appears to be the man who really died in 1682 at Boston although the profile says he died at Dorchester. He lived at Dorchester, but later moved to Boston and is buried there.

Findagrave has a profile for the John who died in 1682 at Boston. It cites Robert Charles Anderson, Great Migration Begins (1995).
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=35396971

There is also a discussion at WikiTree about identifying John who died 1682 at Boston. It also cites Great Migration Begins, and contains quite a bit of detailed information.
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Phillips-713

I'll do some of the cleanup here, but I don't plan to go into the surrounding profiles.

5/7/2015 at 12:55 PM

I agree with proposed changes.

As a side note: I have found http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=mr&MRid=47062703 contributions to be of high quality, so feel comfortable with her posted research as a guide.

11/9/2019 at 9:49 PM

Hello, all. I inherited these MPs of Justin's, and despite his careful attempts to differentiate the various Christopher Phillips, it appears that they have been intermerged over the past several years. I've tried to unmerge as much as I can, but I just cannot reconstruct what Justin had built--it's all been tangled up too much, and I don't know what wives and children go to which one. So I am posting them here and turning them over to the good graces of someone who knows these families better than I. If one of my fellow curators will take them on, please do so.

I apologize for any further mess I may have made in trying to detangle what has come to me.....

Christopher Phillips, of Stepney

Christopher Phillips, of Devon

Christopher Phillips, of Raynham, Norfolk

There was another one merged in that was born in 1565 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

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