| Ellen (Unknown) Skidmore is currently protected by the Puritan Great Migration Project for reasons described in the narrative. Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: PGM |
This profile is being protected by the Puritan Great Migration Project due to her disputed last name at birth shown by some as Whitehead or Prigg, neither of which has any primary or reliable sources.
Ellen Died 1656 in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Thomas and Ellen (Unknown) Skidmore had (5) five children, all born in England except John:[1]
Name Prigg: According to one unsourced reference document, "Nothing certain has been learned of her family, but it seems likely that her family name was Prigg." The author refers to her father as "William Prigg, yeoman, of Westerleigh [who was one of Thomas'] agents to sell his messuage on Westerleigh Street". "William Prigg... was probably his father-in law. He was a substantial yeoman who owned a messuage which adjoined that of Thomas Skidmore’s uncle Thomas on Westerleigh Street, and the Prigg family would certainly have been well-known to the Thomas Skidmore of New England... Prigg’s will does not mention his presumptive daughter Ellen Skidmore or her children". No other publications found to date show that her last name was Prigg.[1]
Name Whitehead: According to the same reference as above, "On 16 May 1647 Susannah Hudson of Boston wrote to John Winthrop, Junior, who was then at New London, asking him to “stop [collect] 14 shilings for mee for Daniel Whithed which is in Tomas Chidnor’s handes.” This suggests that Whitehead was already the son-in-law of “Tomas Chidnor” of New London... Daniel Whitehead was certainly at Hempstead on Long Island by 1647, and his presumptive brother-in-law Thomas Skidmore, Thomas Skidmore, Junior (1627-1683?) had followed him there by the same year from Connecticut. The relationship is also substantiated by an enormous number of records that show that the Skidmores and the Whiteheads behaved for several generations later in a truly “cousinly” fashion, and that Whitehead’s first wife was a Skidmore and that she was the mother of the eldest three sons mentioned in Whitehead’s will in 1668."[1] [Italics added]
In a work published in 1902, the author, John Cornell asserted that Daniel Whitehead, born 1603, married Jeanne Skidmore (without citing any sources).[2]. In 1911, a different author contended: "Jeanne Skidmore married Daniel Whitehead of Hempstead, L. I., and became the ancestress of one of the most prominent families on Long Island... No records have been found by me that show whether she was a sister of Thomas Skidmore, or of Richard Skidmore ; but she belonged to their generation and was without doubt "Jeanne Scudamore" of England, and a sister of one of these pioneers, I am inclined to think of Thomas Scudamore of Huntington, L. I."[3] No sources were provided to support the claims.
In 2000, an article in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record provides insight into the confusion about Thomas' first wife being Ellen Whitehead. The article makes a compelling case for why Whitehead is incorrect, and also refutes published information that Thomas Skidmore and Daniel Whitehead are brothers-in-law.[4] At the end of the article, the author reminds the reader that even with publications by reputable genealogists, readers should always seek out sources in support of their information.
In 2005, Warren Skidmore stated that "Jeanne Whitehead was not a Skidmore. Her family was not correctly identified until 1970 when an abstract of the inventory of Daniel Whitehead’s estate at Newtown, Long Island was found and published." "Thomas Skidmore III of Huntington continued his interest in Jane Whitehead’s posterity. On 15 December 1702/3 he petitioned for and was granted the administration on the estate of Simon Ingersoll who had died at Huntington on 8 January 1702. It seems probable that it was the several items of Skidmore-Whitehead transactions that led Cornell (and then Hawley) to wrongly think that Jeanne Ireland, the third wife, was a Skidmore.[5]
In summary, all the "sources" that showed Ellen was a Skidmore were incorrect, as proven by detailed research.
Ellen (Unknown) Skidmore, Born 1607, Birthplace: Herefordshire, England; Marriage to Thomas Skidmore, 1626 age 21 Westerly, Gloucester, England
An unidentified son was shown in a merged in profile: Joseph, born 1647, Murderkill Hundred, Kent, Delaware
See also:
Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
Featured National Park champion connections: Ellen is 13 degrees from Theodore Roosevelt, 19 degrees from Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, 9 degrees from George Catlin, 16 degrees from Marjory Douglas, 22 degrees from Sueko Embrey, 12 degrees from George Grinnell, 24 degrees from Anton Kröller, 12 degrees from Stephen Mather, 21 degrees from Kara McKean, 12 degrees from John Muir, 15 degrees from Victoria Hanover and 23 degrees from Charles Young on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
[Do you know Ellen's family name?] | S > Skidmore > Ellen (Unknown) Skidmore
Categories: Puritan Great Migration Adjunct
Clearly a duplicate to Unknown-617598. Please merge