Scotland Project Help Needed: Ambrose Clare's supposed Scottish Origins [closed]

Question

This man was an early settler of Virginia.  There is an unsourced claim that he was born in Scotland of specific Scottish parents, and that he even had a son William, also born in Scotland before the family migrated.

Seeking Scotland Project's assistance in confirming these origins.

Thank you!

Comments

Do you have date birth for Ambrose ???

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Supposedly 1589 but undocumented.

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Jillaine, tomorrow I will add some research leads already dug up on this by Bobbie Hall who had also put me in touch with another person. Will take a little digging...nothing had borne fruit yet and then I got pulled in another direction.

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Thank T and Bobbie...

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I find no credible evidence in a search of ScotlandsPeople to suggest that an Ambrose Clare or Christopher Clare (and variant spellings) ever produced records in Scotland anywhere near Aberdeenshire, or elsewhere in Scotland before 1800. Checking the parish of Turriff, I don't find any Clare baptism or marriage records, nor do I find any wills in the Aberdeen court listings for that surname and variants.

I note that on FamilySearch they list a marriage for Ambrose in Dorset, England: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NVG6-5TG 

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Searching for the son William's birth/baptism has also been unfruitful. His profile states he was born in Auchencrow in Berwick, which appears to be a small village in the parish of Coldingham. No Clare records appear there before 1800.

There appears to be a lot of "traveling" going on with this family, which makes me suspicious. Christopher was born & died in Staffordshire, England, a wife who was born and died in Ross in Scotland. They had a child in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who had an "unknown wife" and had a child by her in Berwick. A look at a map, and it makes one ask: sources??

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Bobbie has pointed out the traveling issue I was going to make note of. A similar result has been found searching for the related Bogue family also supposedly of Auchencrow. The purported granddaughter of Ambrose, Jane Clare perhaps brother of Timothy Cleare, had as her first (of five) husbands a William Bogue supposedly of Auchencrow. He nor his family group can so far be found there by myself, Bobbie or a couple of contacts Bobbie shared. There's one possible connection on the Bogue family yet to be run down. It may be read several places that records for William Bogue of Auchencrow cease about the time records of him begin to appear in Virginia but nowhere are any records found in Auchencrow nor can the origin of that statement be found to date.

It should be noted that information currently in the history pages of the Auchencrow website is taken, without attribution, from an undocumented American publication.

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I've detached the parents, added a disputed origins and re estimated a more likely birth year.thanks everyone!

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Thanks, Jillaine.

Answer 1

Found the will proved in London.  It's in The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 441 and the shareable (Ancestry) image is at https://www.ancestry.co.uk/sharing/20969680?h=de3bf5

At a quick skim, there is no obvious connection to Scotland but there are several "Scottish" surmanes.

Comments

This appears to name the wife Ann, daughter Mary, son-in-law that I cannot decipher (can someone more familiar with the script decipher?). In context "boy Will" appears to refer to a servant and not a son. No son is named though the attached "son" William was alive when the will was written in 1686 and certainly not a boy.

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I read it as John Hay Esq.  He also leaves a "Scotch boy" to his daughter and money for a mourning ring to a John Drummond.