The Greenes of Rhode Island

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The Greenes of Rhode Island

With historical records of English ancestry, 1534-1902, compiled from the mss. of the late Major-General George Sears Greene, U.S.V.

• by Louise Brownell Clarke
• published by The Knickerbocker Press, New York, New York, 1903; subsequently part of NEHGS Reprint Program, Boston, Massachusetts.
• 892 pages
  • Complete Reprint Copy in possession of Warren Ayer
• WikiTree Profiles that use this source

Available online at these locations:

• https://books.google.com/books?id=jxdqSEfgK50C
• https://archive.org/details/greenesofrhodeis00gree

• missing pages between page 612 and 617. which contain:

Maj. Charles Thurston Greene (2907),

Mary Anna Greene (2908), and

Major-General Francis Vinton Greene (2910),

• This book has very poor, or nonexistent, OCR. However, it has a great index at the back of the book.

• http://ia802506.us.archive.org/28/items/greenesofrhodeis00gree/greenesofrhodeis00gree.pdf
• https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/98586-the-greenes-of-rhode-island-with-historical-records-of-english-ancestry-1534-1902?offset=42

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Memoir On The Life And Services Of George Sears Greene
• Preface To Genealogy
• The House Of Greene
• The Greenes Of Northamptonshire
• Drayton, Northamptonshire
• Boughton, Northamptonshire
• Greene's Norton, Northamptonshire
• Pedigree of Greene Of Greene's Norton
• Gillingham, Dorsetshire
• Bowridge Hill, Gillingham
• The Greenes of Dorsetshire
• Settlement of Warwick, R.I.
• The Greenes of Warwick R.I.
• First Generation
• Second Generation
• Third Generation
• Fourth Generation
• Fifth Generation
• Sixth Generation
• Seventh Generation
• Eighth Generation
• Ninth Generation
• Tenth Generation
• The Family Arms
• Latest Research In England
• English Wills
• Appendix I (Wills And Deeds)
• Appendix II (Notes And Correspondence)
• Appendix III (Inscriptions)
• Index, Page 787

Errata

Horatio Gates Somerby Fraud

In the Greenes of Rhode Island, it is stated that "Mr. Greene (Rev. John Singleton Copley Greene) ... employed Mr. H.G. Somerby to make research for him in England... The results not being entirely satisfactory...".^[1]. Since Horatio Gates Somerby "is noted more and more for the frauds he perpetrated"^[2], his impact on this source must be discussed. H.G. Somerby is mentioned in Greenes of Rhode Island a few times: in general discussions of possibilities^[3], he is given credit for finding a useful source: Subsidy Rolls, 1543, 1547, 1558^[4], and for supplying a few wills.^[5] A mention of "Robert Grene" has been confirmed in the Gillingham subsidy rolls only for 1545 (assessed on goods in the amount of £1).^[6] The UK National Archives have no records of a 1547 subsidy roll for Gillingham, and the status of the 1558 is unclear. The most important consequence is that the most problematic will, that of Robert Greene, supposedly proved Jan 7, 1650 in an unidentified jurisdiction, is the key piece of evidence linking the immigrant John Greene of Rhode Island to the Greene family of Gillingham, Dorset, England, so there is a high likelihood that creating this link to the immigrant was the intent of the forgery. This is considered to be a typical motive of Somerby, to fabricate an English lineage for wealthy American clients.

Of these wills "submitted by Mr. Somerby", one is listed on Page 33, with the others listed starting on page 736. Since this casts doubt on the authenticity of these wills, only primary sources for these wills should be used. If found, the primary sources will be given below.

• Page 33:
  • John Greene of Cucklington, County Somerset, husbandman, dated April 16, 1620, proved May 22, 1620.
    • Lea, J. Henry. Abstracts of Wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury at Somerset House, London, England (NEHGS, Boston, 1904) Page 173
    • Available for purchase at The National Archives: PROB 11/135/567
• Page 736:
  • Sir John Throckmorton, 1445.
    • PCC 248 Luffenham, PROB 11/3/531
    • Testamenta Vetusta (1826) Vol. 1, Page 248
    • A Genealogical and Historical Account of the Throckmorton Family (1930) Page 45
  • Peter Greene, Proved June 1, 1583.
    • Available for purchase at The National Archives: PROB 11/65/414
  • Richard Greene, Proved May 3, 1608.
    • No primary source has been found.
    • location not found: "Ancestors of Forrest Greene In England and America"
    • location not found: Converse, Charles Allen. Some of the Ancestors and Descendants of Samuel Converse, Jr. (Eben Putnam, Boston, Mass., 1905) Vol. 2, Page 862: Appendix 5, "Some Records of Convers, Converse, etc., thus far found in England and France"
  • Richard Greene, Proved June 23, 1617.
    • Available for purchase at The National Archives: PROB 11/129/754
    • The Greene Family in England and America with Pedigrees (Boston, 1901) Page 113-22
  • Robert Greene, Proved Jan 7, 1650.
    • No primary source has been found.
    • The Greene Family in England and America with Pedigrees (Boston, 1901) Page 122
  • Rachel (Greene) Perne, Proved Nov. 13, 1656.
    • Available for purchase at The National Archives: PROB 11/259/173
    • NEHGR (1884) Vol. 38, Page 311-2

Excerpts from The Greenes of Rhode Island

• (Priv. print., Watertown, N.Y., 1951)
• Includes index. "Ebenezer Greene and his descendants", by Charles Howard Greene, being a supplement to The Greenes of Rhode Island

• https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005694888

As noted previously, the supposed 1650 Robert Greene will is the most likely forgery and the key element of the case for John Greene's ancestry in the book. This Robert Greene is claimed to have been a resident of Cucklington, Somerset and to have devised a property in Gillingham, Dorset. Because the will crossed two different jurisdictions, the Archdeaconry of Wells and the Royal Peculiar of Gillingham, the probate would normally have to have been handled by a higher court, either a common bishopric or an archbishop's prerogative court. In this case, the two jurisdictions were not subject to the same bishopric, so the probate should have gone to the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) merely by the jurisdictional issues, and if it was real, the value of the estate involved probably would have required a PCC probate anyway. For example, the verified 1620 will of John Greene of Cucklington was probated in the PCC. The PCC wills are now well indexed and easily available, and so it can be established that the will does not exist among the PCC wills in the National Archives. Searches of the wills of the Royal Peculiar of Gillingham (held in Wiltshire) have also failed to discover any such will.

Citation Formats

Please add your preferred citation format below, so that it may be easily copied by you and others:

• <span id='Clarke'></span>Clarke, Louise Brownell. ''[[Space:The Greenes of Rhode Island|The Greenes of Rhode Island]]'' (Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1903) [ Page ].
• [[#Clarke|Clarke]]
• <ref name=Clarke>Clarke, Louise Brownell. ''[[Space:The Greenes of Rhode Island|The Greenes of Rhode Island]]'' (Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1903) [ Page ].</ref>

Footnotes

1. ↑ Greenes of Rhode Island, Page 433
2. ↑ The American Genealogist, 1999
3. ↑ Greenes of Rhode Island, Page 32
4. ↑ Greenes of Rhode Island, Page 38
5. ↑ Greenes of Rhode Island, Page 33, 736
6. ↑ Helen Ford, see https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/535756/corrections-too-be-engaged-on-the-greenes-of-new-england