Not the husband of Genevieve Burwell

See the records here: https://laura-knight-jadczyk.com/genealogy/knight-index.html

Disputed wife

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-3193

The origin of the tradition that Genevieve Basse married "Captain Peter Knight" is unknown and the tradition is apparently unsourced. It is likely a case of conflation between Peter Knight (1587-bef.1674), Merchant of Gloucester and Captain Peter Knight (bef.1620-bef.1705). Peter Knight, Merchant, was granted a land patent for 255 acres in Isle of Wight County, Virginia.

The Captain Peter Knight that married Anne Hawley was born in 1620. So Captain Peter Knight can not be either the husband of Genevieve Basse, or the son of another Peter Knight and Genevieve Basse.

Family

Peter Knight and his wife had the following children: Leonard, Joseph, Edward, John, William, Guy and Peter.

Will

By the time he made his will in 1702, Capt. Peter Knight listed only four children: James, Elizabeth, Leonard and Mary. He does not mention his wife, so she must have been deceased at that point. Her last appearance in the records is in 1676 when she would have been over 40 years of age so she was surely mother of all these four children. The abstract of the will is as follows and the entire will is not much more verbose!

• Peter Knight of Wiccocomoco Parish in the County of Northumberland, Gent., 28 November 1702:
• Son Leonard Knight a parcel of land bounding upon a branch of the Eastern Neck wch branch is next to his spring branch and southerly Upon the swamp and northerly upon a line of marked trees up the branch unto a marked poplar at head of the sd branch and from thence northwesterly unto a marked white oak standing in a thicket and so along to a marked red oak standing nigh the road to my house and nigh Mr Mayes path and so along his path to the head of the spring branch to Mr. Rich’d Nutts marked tree at the head of the branch and so along his marked trees southerly unto Mr Peter Presleys marked trees and so thence easterly along his line unto ye swamp and so along the swamp to the branch where it began; to him and his heirs etc.
• Son James Knight all the rest and remainder of my land to him and his heirs.
• Daughter Elizabeth Knight shall have as much land as a couple of hands can tend during her life and not to be molested with land she now lives on.
• Son Leonard Knight my silver seals and one hundred pounds of tobacco
• Daughter Elizabeth Knight one hundred pounds of tobacco to buy her a ring.
• Daughter Mary Knight one hundred pounds of tobacco to buy her a ring.
• Son James Knight my sole executor.
• Son James Knight all my personal estate to him and his heirs.
• Witness: mark of Robt R Marsh, Patrick Maley (his mark), Joan O Maley (her mark)
• This original will was presented into Northumberland County Court by John Coppedge and the book of Records wherein the same was recorded being burned with the office, on the sd Coppedge motion it is again admitted to Record. July 16th 1712.

Origins

Searching the English records for a Peter Knight born in 1620 gives back only two possibles:

1620 – Jul 2 – London St Bride – Bap – Peter Knight s/o Peter & Cicely

1620 – Aug 13 – Kent New Romney – Bap – Peter Knight s/o Peter Knight (no mother mentioned)

It appears that the Peter Knight of New Romney died as an infant along with his mother, and his father is noted to be remarrying and having a subsequent child that he named Peter. So he's really out of the running.

On 20 Aug 1655, Capt. Peter Knight gave a deposition in a court case stating that he was 35 years old. What this means is that the Peter Knight who came to be known as Capt. Peter Knight, had to be born in 1620. It also means that the Peter Knight who first patented land in Virginia on 13 Mar 1638 could not be the same person as Capt. Peter because Capt. Peter Knight was not yet 21 years old.

Without knowing this all-important fact, some egregious errors were made in the early days of genealogical research on the Virginia Knights, and these errors have propagated widely via the internet and persist to this very day. (Please read the Introduction which covers this, including the "Abel Knight" issue.) Here, I want to dispose of another one that is ubiquitous.

The Wrong Genealogy for Capt. Peter

Many individuals, unaware of the fact that Capt. Peter told us his age, but still realizing that there must have been two Peters, and assuming they were father and son, have pounced on a Peter Knight whose records are found in the church of St. Margaret Pattens, London. I’ve combed through that parish registry and the results are as follows: (all from the Parish Registers of St. Margaret Pattens 1559-1660, personally studied by myself, the images of which are provided on ancestry.com and I took screen shots): First appearance of a Knight in this parish: Peter Knight and Katherin Swann married 19 January 1589. ...

Peter Knight son of Peter Knight BURIED 16 Sep 1603

Peter Knight was BURIED 4 Oct 1603

Do you see the problem?

I put in bold caps the most important facts (for our purposes here) to draw them to your attention. If the individuals who had pounced on this family as the source of their Peter Knight ancestry had only taken the time to search just a little bit more, they would have avoided the embarrassment of claiming progenitors who were, in fact, dead before arrival, so to say. The only conclusion we can draw from the above records is that Peter Knight of St. Margaret Pattens, is NOT Capt. Peter Knight or his father and this is not his family because both of these Peters died and were buried in 1603.

Captain Peter Knight’s parents cannot be Katharin Swann and Peter Knight of St. Margaret Pattens. We don’t know why they died so close together; the plague came at intermittent intervals until the early 19th century; England, Europe and North America were in the grip of the Little Ice Age and mortality was exceptionally high. If you spend some time just reading parish registers from that time, you will be appalled by the rates of burial over against the rates of birth at certain times. You can see entire families wiped out in a few pages. But I digress, let’s move on.

Burial record:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184942306/peter-knight

Captain Peter knight was born 1587 at London, Middlesex, England, the son of Peter and Katherine Swann Knight. He married Genevieve Basse, the daughter of Captain Nathaniel and Anne Marie Jordan Basse. [NO]

Genevieve Burwell married Thomas Burwell, Jr.

Known Children:(order of birth unknown)

• Captain William Peter Knight 1658-1720 Md Frances Anne Hawley, Died James City County, Virginia, Colony.
• Edward Knight
• Guy Knight
• John Knight
• Joseph Knight
• Leonard Knight

---------------------------------

Wrong Peter Knight

Peter Knight appears on land grants in several counties of the early Virginia colony beginning in 1638. He patented 150 acres of land in Basse’s Choice plantation in 1640, and 255 acres in 1643. Peter sold the tract to John Bland, an eminent London Merchant.

Peter Knight was a Jamestown merchant and a member of the House of Burgesses in 1657-58, assembled March 13th, representing Northumberland; 1659-60, assembled March 13th, representing Gloucester; and 1684, assembled April 16th, representing Northumberland; and 1685, session begun November 2, 1685, representing Northumberland.

In 1619, the House of Burgesses became the first legislature in America. This group and the governor met together to create laws for the colony. Usually, the most prominent people were elected to serve in this office.

In 1774, Lord Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses, but delegates met together secretly. They established the First Continental Congress. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress met in Richmond. Virginia’s George Washington was chosen as head of the Continental Army. The following year Virginia adopted its first constitution.

Peter Knight was also a Captain in the Indian Wars. Matthew Bradford, who immigrated to Virginia in 1652, was listed as a servant to Peter Knight of Gloucester County.

(Bradford Family History published by the American Genealogical Institute in 1978 by Heritage Press). Debora Come was headright of Peter Knight, Northumberland Co., in 1654 (Early Virginia Immigrants, 1623-1666, by George Cabell Greer, Clerk, Virginia State Land Office, 1912).

Peter Knight’s son, William was the father of John Knight (b. 1680/90-d. 18 Feb 1762, probate date) at Sussex County, Virginia and married Elizabeth Jordan.

http://www.geocities.com/knighthistory/VirginiaKnights.htm

A descendant of Peter Knight's YDNA test indicate his YDNAhaplogroup is R-M269.

References

• http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~woodrough/genealogy/p80.htm#i2953
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-3193
• https://www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I1187...
• https://www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I7150...
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184942306/peter_knight (wrong mother)
• https://laura-knight-jadczyk.com/genealogy/knight-index.html
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knight-996
• https://www.jamestowne.org/ancestors-hatcher---luddington.html Knight, Peter - A4608; died 1705, Northumberland Co.; 1684, 1685-1686 (Burgess).
• https://www.familytreedna.com/public/knight?iframe=ydna-results-ove... R-FT420076—Captain Peter Knight-996 (1620–1705)—(Lineage XII)