John Billingsley (bef. 1601 - 1655)

Born before 1601 in Astley Abbots, Shropshire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1655 after age 54 in London

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Liz Shifflett [send private message] and Robert Pinder [send private message]

Biography

Caution: John Billingsley, born Astley Abbotts, Shropshire, England, before 1601, is a different person than John Billingsley of England, Rotterdam, and America born 1620 (son of Henry Billingsley).

John Billingsley of London, son of Francis and Bridget, apparently did not go to America. He married Jane Hull and mentions her mother, who had remarried, in his 1655 will (his "late dear mother-in-law Mrs Katherine Cooper").

The following is from Billingsley researcher Luke Potter, of Huntingdon, England, in a post on Rootsweb:

John Billingsley was baptised in 1601 in Astley Abbots, Shropshire, the son of Francis Billingsley and Bridget Vernon. The Magna Carta Society have simply followed the incorrect assumption made by Harry Davis in his book on the Billingsley that this John Billingsley eventually emigrated to Rotterdam and that his children then emigrated to North America.^[1]

More from the same poster, at Genealogy Forum:

In his will of 1655, John Billingsley of London specifically mentions land and tenements which he owned in Nordley Wood in the parish of Astley Abbots which he left to his son William, which proves a connection between this John of London and the Astley Abbots family. As further evidence to place John within the Astley Abbots family he also mentions his brother Benjamin Billingsley. Benjamin was indeed another of the sons of Francis and Bridget. Thus there can be no doubt that the John who had been born in 1601 in Astley Abbots was the John who died in London in 1655. ...

John of London mentions in his will that his second wife is Honoria (not Agatha who I know^[2] lived until 1659 at least), and furthermore the children which he mentions (Katherine, Marie, Bridget, Elizabeth, Rachel, William, Benjamin and Nathaniel) do not tally with the children that Davis cited for John and Agatha Billingsley of Rotterdam.

Research Notes

Warning: Check the data: A child's birth date (Billingsley-74 born 1600) should not be before a parent is six years old (Billingsley-71 born 1601). received upon saving 25 April 2018

Sources

1. ↑ And this Billingsley researcher (Liz) thinks Davis's Billingsley Book may have a bigger disconnect, in that it appears the Billingsley who married Agatha and removed to Holland because England was hostile to Quakers was not John, but Henry, and the move appears more likely to have been business-related (see Henry's profile - his father was a member, Merchant Adventurers’ Co., and traded abroad, "probably as a Merchant Adventurer").
2. ↑ "I" being Luke Potter, the Billingsley researcher who authored the Genforum post

• Luke Potter's Billingsley research (see his Genealogy Forum post and [this Rootsweb thread
• Colonel Davis's Billingsley book:
  • The Billingsley Family (Billingsly-Billingslea) in America, by Harry Alexander Davis. Washington, DC; Rutland, VT: Tuttle Publ. Co., 1936. (available online; archive.org link - 2016 capture by the WayBack Machine, accessed 20 November 2020)
  • Note that this source should be used for leads & information verified when possible (see this GenForum post, and this one also).
  • The link given (accessed 2015) is "Server Not Found" now, but was captured by archive.org's WayBack Machine in 2016, so the Billingsley book is still available online (accessed 11 May 2020).
• S00023: Ancestry Family Trees (Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members).

Acknowledgements

• The WikiTree profile Billingsley-101 was created through the import of Hughes Family Tree.ged on Aug 26, 2011 by Kenneth Hughes. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Kenneth and others.
• Two WikiTree profiles for this person were created through the import of breesefam.ged on 09 May 2011. The gedcom upload had Record ID Numbers MH:I5675 and MH:I7250; user IDs A61128B8-3515-43BB-A39C-5CC41943A2A7 and 686BB577-9BE3-467E-8006-B3932157DD32. Both had death in 1659, Clifts, Calvert, Maryland, USA (Age: 71-72).
• Robert Pinder created the WikiTree profile Billingsley-176 through the import of RobPinder_2013-v3_2013-10-21.ged on Oct 26, 2013. Source citation S00023.
• WikiTree profile Billingsley-424 created March 26, 2016 by Crystal Hall.
• WikiTree profile Billingsley-547 created Sep 21, 2016 by Linda Irwin.