Copying over this post from our Geni friend Shirley:
https://www.ancestry.com/boards/surnames.hopkins/5717
WHICH William Hopkins 1500s-1600s do you want? Somerset, Worcestershire, Hampshire, Eng; Roxbury, MA.
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WHICH William Hopkins 1500s-1600s do you want? Somerset, Worcestershire, Hampshire, Eng; Roxbury, MA.
Shirley Edmonds
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Replies: 0
Posted: 28 Oct 2021 3:03 PM
Classification: Query
Edited: 29 Oct 2021 10:27 AM
Surnames: Hopkins, Vickaris, Arnold, Andrews, Williams, Fisher, Poole, Dudley
A work in progress . . .
I'm hoping everyone will read carefully and add any records or documents you have that prove or disprove what I have here if I've missed it.
There are many William Hopkins in England in the late 1500s and 1600s in church records (and others who never made it to the records) and some of them are getting confused/combined on family trees, and especially on some "shared genealogy" websites where people can contribute anything they want, remove and add people at will, and can't tell a contemporary record from a "hint, a "claim" made by a computer program that grabbed matching names out of some random family tree submittal.
These 4 Williams are usually the ones that people use when they start trying to match names to connect to with
Declaration of Independence/Rhode Island,
Connecticut Immigrants, or
Mayflower/Massachusetts,
in the 1600s.
- 1.
SOMERSET, ENG. (DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE connection--Rhode Island)
Origins unknown but appears in Somerse by 1611. Death location/date unknown.
An unknown William Hopkins married Joana/Johane/Joane ARNOLD,
daughter of Nicholas (not Thomas) Arnold and Alice Gulley
in Somerset in 1611.
She was buried 10 March 1621/22, in Yeovilton, Somerset shown as "Johane, wife of William Hopkins."
Nothing further known about William.
That William and Joana are the GGgrandparents of one of the two often confused Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785), born Rhode Island, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
According to authenticated records kept by immigrant William Arnold, he says his sister Joane had 3 HOPKINS children baptized as shown here:
Frances 28 May1614 (married John Mann)
Thomas 7 April 1616
Elizabeth 3 July 1619 (married Edward Inman)
(possibly more children but nothing solid. There are other names on "trees" but no documentation.)
Frances and Thomas accompanied Joana's brother, William Arnold to the New World in 1635 possibly indicating that their father was deceased? They went first to Hingham, MA then Providence, RI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hopkins_(settler)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arnold_(settler)
This famous family is not hard to track. Here’s the Declaration of Independence connection:
http://www.gaspee.org/StephenHopkins.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hopkins_(politician)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/502/stephen-hopkins
GEDCOMs are not records or documents. They usually contain errors copied from copied trees.
Currently his Profile on FamilySearch has three families combined and parents wrong.
- 2.
WORCESTER, ENG. (Connecticut and Wakefield connections)
Origins unknown but appears in Worcestershire for marriage and death.
A William Hopkins married Helen VICKARIS on 30 October 1609 and died 19 July 1647 in Ribbesford, Worcester. He was a member of the House of Commons. We don’t know his parents, birth place/date.
Father of
George seen at https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Bewdley/QvoEAAAAY...
Anna,
Elizabeth (married John Wakeman).
SEE page 167:
https://archive.org/details/cu31924030495141/page/n181/mode/2up?vie...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hopkins_(Bewdley_MP)
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42900
" . . . . On the west wall of the south aisle are tablets to William Hopkins, who died in 1647, and his wife, 1656."
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_History_of_Bewdley/QvoEAAAAY...
"Here lie interred the bodies of William Hopkins late of Bewdley gent who deceased July 19, 1647 And Helena his wife who deceased Nov. 16, 1656 both in a good old age."
HIS WILL provided by Dave Wakeman (thanks):
http://genforum.genealogy.com/hopkins/messages/1154.html
Written the sixt day of May Anno Dni, 1647
Proved 3rd February, 1647. (Feb 1647 is 7 months after May 1647 in "Quaker" time. Consult Google if the months/years are questionable).
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=5111&h=856...
from England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858
Residence: Bewdley, Worcestershire, England
Currently his Profile on FamilySearch has three Hopkins families combined and parents wrong.
- 3.
HAMPSHIRE, ENG. (half-brother of probable MAYFLOWER passenger)
Baptized Upper Clatford, Hampshire.
William Hopkins bapt 16 Jun 1575, son of John Hopkins and probably his wife Agnes Barrow/Borrowe. We have documentation of his baptism date, place and father's first name. That’s all.
NOTHING further is known of William. No marriage, no children, no death information.
He's probably not the co-bonds-person along with widow Elizabeth granted administration of John Hopkins' probate on 4 Oct 1593. He would have been 18. He’s also probably not the wife of the widow Marline.
John's inventory was reported 4 Sept 1593 so he probably died in Aug 1593 in Winchester, Hampshire.
John's 2nd wife was Elizabeth Williams. No origins for either him or her. His "father" invented as a man who worked in Norfolk who has no known documents for birth/baptism, marriage, baptism of chilren, will/inventory/probate. Elizabeth's parents not Morgan Williams and Elizabeth Breyton who weren’t a couple. There is no "Duglam", England. She is a generation older than Morgan. She married a Baskerville. Her GRANDSON, Robert Whitney married Morgan's daughter who happened to be named Elizabeth.
John and Elizabeth are probably the parents of Stephen Hopkins (1581-1644) of the Mayflower. Stephen's baptism recorded 30 April 1581 in Upper Clatford, Hampshire.
Stephen's "father" is often erroneously copied as the mythical Nicholas Hopkins and the impossible mother Mary Poole was a very old error invented in the 1870s. We know its origin and we know how it's currently being transmitted/spread.
For the probable MAYFLOWER connection to the family of William who we never see after his baptism:
http://tinyurl.com/Johnson-Book
http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.hopkins/5435/mb.ashx
which explains most of the goofy errors about this family (Dudley, Nicholas, Poole, etc.).
No one in this family from Hampshire
is known to be relative of anyone who married an
Arnold
Gilbert
Vickaris
Kelsey
Shattuck
Fuller
White or
Winslow.
Currently this William's four ID Profiles on FamilySearch have him either dying before he was born, being born 8 years before his parents married, with a wife who wasn’t his, mixed up with the William #1 from Somerset and #2 from Worchester, three sets of parents, married to a fictional mother/grandmother, invented debunked grandparents one with a burial record attached between 1703-1710, having siblings who either aren’t his or have no records of ever living. Usually the “sources” are listed as “Family Histories”, WikiTree, MyHeritage and GEDCOMs which often are nothing more than errors copied from copied trees on the other websites.
GEDCOMs are not contemporary records or documents.
- 4.
(Roxbury, Suffolk, Massachusetts)
Origins unknown but appears in Roxbury, Suffolk, MA in Jan. 1656 out of nowhere. He is often seen on some copied trees as being both himself (ca.1630- 1688) -AND- his fictional father William (ca.1605-1688) who appears to have not one single record or shred of evidence but appears to be held out in hope of being the son of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower (who didn't have a son named William) in 1605.
Often his “father” is seen married to someone named Elizabeth UNK (or worse, Elizabeth Dudley whose father is often shown born in 1555 in New Haven, CT to parents who both died in 1551) who usually has the death date of a different confirmed Elizabeth Fisher who was on the Mayflower. There is no Dudley (especially a Constance Dudley) connection to the Mayflower nor this man in these generations. Ditto about knowing where that error originated and how it's being transmitted/spread. This William's birth & parents are unknown.
He married Hannah ANDREWS
and is in the MA vitals shown dying 8 March 1688
(often seen on erroneous copied trees as 5 March 1688).
Some trees copied him as "William Myrick Hopkins" but that's an error tied to the Mayflower two generations later.
---------------------------------------------
NO MIDDLE NAMES BACK THEN
Beware copied trees: Commoners commonly didn’t have middle names back then.
None of the Pilgrims did.
Only 3 signers of the Declaration of Independence did
https://www.genealogymagazine.com/beware-of-18th-century-middle-names/
https://time.com/4451977/history-of-middle-names/
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/why-no-middle-names.htm
https://www.tribstar.com/features/valley_life/genealogy-fabricated-...
https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/middle-name
. . . of the first 20 United States presidents, only six had middle names.
There was no John Nicholas, Elizabeth Ann, Joanna Helen, William Thomas, or William Robert in the 1500/1600s in England.
---------------------------------------------
Sometimes a Ruth Wilkinson appears in one or more of these families. She really was born abt 1685 (not 1585) and is really the MOTHER (YES) of the Stephen Hopkins who signed the Declaration of Independence.
But some trees have her born a century too early and shown as the WIFE (NO) of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower.
NO KNOWN CONNECTION between the Hopkins family in Hampshire to any other Hopkins family in
Warwick,
Norfolk,
Worcester,
Gloucester,
Somerset.
Once they get to North America no known connection in
Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, or
Connecticut
IN THESE GENERATIONS.
----------------------------------------
On Ancestry the entire Family Data Collection 4-Part Series (- Individual, - Births, - Marriages, - Deaths);
Passenger and Immigration Lists Index 1500s-1900s;
U.S. and International Marriage Records 1560-1900 (a real marriage record has an actual date and location of the event. Some of the USIMRs don’t even have a maiden name for the bride);
U.S., New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (note the absence of the word Records);
OneWorldTree (discontinued by Ancestry in 2008 because of so many errors);
the Millennium File;
and AGBI
are databases or index lists or transcribed indexes of transcribed index lists, or the best anyone could do without documents, but usually not historical documents or records.
Much info was extracted by computer sweeps through submittals from people who often just collected names.
The old FamilySearch "contributed" IGI files from the original website were removed about the same time because of so many duplicated errors, but they are being recycled by people who are copying the old bad info off of old trees and resubmitting the exact same errors.
Find-a-Grave is only as good as the information submitted by the contributor. Sometimes just copied errors because they’re trying to “help.”
All help appreciated if you have records I've missed.
Also, please advise if any of the links have gone missing.
Thanks for your help.
Shirley
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