John Stone's questionable parents, wife, and son (Rev. Samuel Stone)

Question

Was John Stone, immigrant settler of Hartford, Connecticut, the father of Rev. Samuel Stone of Hartford?  This seems likely, but is there any evidence beyond a gift of land?  John gave his land in Hartford to Samuel around 1639 when John moved off to another town, and that seems to be all we know about him.  John could have been Samuel's uncle or brother, right?

And how about John's parents?  Right now his profile shows that he was baptized in 1573 at Great Bromley, Essex, son of David and Elizabeth (Hewitt) Stone.  Is there any reason to think that the John Stone baptized in 1573 was the same one who settled in Connecticut?  It seems that nothing further is known of David's son John.  For whatever it's worth, David Stone did have an elder brother John, and two of David's sons emigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1635.  Is that enough evidence to warrant attaching David as John's "uncertain" father?  For David Stone's family, see https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxsVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=john+stone+1573+great+bromley&source=bl&ots=iCM6Ycb6p6&sig=n5dVmcqDkfJlPzm8hEPRMbwCiEc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9qtTVda7Kde2ogTr0YHYAg&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=john%20stone%201573%20great%20bromley&f=false

Here's another website stating that John Stone was "Possibly the son of David STONE and Elizabeth HEWITT, although no documentary evidence has been found for this relationship": http://kinnexions.com/ancestries/stone.htm

Unfortunately, John Stone had no known or possible sons except for Rev. Samuel Stone, who had no known sons, so DNA testing can't help.

And what about John Stone's wife?  It is claimed on the internet that she was a daughter of the Rev. Richard Rogers, a well-known Puritan minister.  Is there any evidence to support this?

Answer 1

Perhaps the most convincing circumstantial evidence (based on primary evidence) is that Ezekiel Rogers in his will mentions his nephew Samuel Stone of Connecticut. This ties both Samuel Stone and his father John Stone to Wethersfield, Essexshire (birth place of Ezekiel Rogers and also his sister, who married John Stone). Wethersfield is in between Great Bromley, Essexshire, and Hertford, Hertfordshire. Furthermore, some land left by John Stone to his son Samuel Stone was sold to John Marsh (who came from Braintree, Essexshire, which is only about 4 miles from Wethersfield, Essexshire).

Comments

Good for you Kenneth!

The clues given by studying maps are so underutilized in genealogy - I'm delighted to find you using maps and a will to provide a good speculative connection between Samuel Stone, and John Stone.

If you have not posted your comment in the Comment section of Rev Stone's profile, and John Stone's profile, and (Unknown) Rogers profile, I hope you will do so - or better yet, make it a section in the bio text.

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Thanks,

       Yes, I have used both the comment section and biography section to make my case.  Hopefully it is enough to convince the profile managers to reconnect John Stone with his father David Stone.  But it is a Protected profile, so it is not my decision to make.  

            --------------Ken

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I'm on the trusted list, but I'm not one of the profile managers.  I favor reattaching David Stone as the "uncertain" father of John.

Answer 2

No, that certainly isn't sufficient.   Googling round, I don't see mention of an actual fraudlent genealogy for him, but people *do* keep connecting people up for the slightest of reasons.   Detach, and make a note in the bio that he *isn't* so & so, or that there's no evidence.

Some nice early Hartford records below, both undigested and digested.  When you do a search, you will get a row of little orange darts; hover your mouse over them for a popup of the surrounding content, which makes for surprisingly quick scan. 

https://archive.org/stream/publicrecordsofc001conn#page/n5/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/colonialhistoryo00hart#page/n9/mode/2up
https://archive.org/details/digestofearlycon00manw

Also see: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-Connecticut and http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-Massachusetts

Answer 3

Oh, but wait, see here: http://kinnexions.com/ancestries/stone.htm#Guilford

LOTS of kids, tool

Samuel should be in Cambridge's alumni record, if you want entertainment.

Comments

These are definitely NOT the same Sam and John Stone of Hartford, Connecticut.  The Guildford Stones come from Co. Surry, England, and sailed directly to Guilford, CT, of which they were among the founders.

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There are Guildford Stones with the same names as Hartford Stones living at the same time in what became Connecticut.  They are not related, so far as I know, and certainly not identical.  One must use great caution in dealing with all of these people, and EXTREMELY cautious about merges.

Answer 4

There doesn't seem to be support for the various connections, but there also isn't much in the John Stone biography that could discourage people from connecting family members to that profile. Revise the biography to (1) tell what's known about this John Stone (not much, AFAICT) and (2) describe the various inferred (but unsubstantiate) connections that people have made to connect him with parents, son, etc.

Answer 5

Doesn't this fall under the new "uncertain" practice/policy? My understanding is that unless we can prove he wasn't the parent, we're supposed to keep him attached as the parent and mark him as uncertain.

Comments

I would agree that it is best to keep them attached to the parent, but as uncertain.  If there is good circumstantial evidence of a connection, the lack of documentary evidence (which is often lacking) is a weak reason for detaching them.  

For instance, there is considerable circumstantial evidence that John Stone (father of Rev. Samuel Stone born 1602) was the John Stone b. 1573 (son of David Stone of Great Bromley).  At such an early date, lack of documentary proof is to be expected, and therefore circumstantial evidence has to be our primary focus (see their Wikitree profiles and recent comments):  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stone-189 .

Answer 6

Jillaine, I'm inclined to think that you might be confused about the "uncertain" policy.  But I suppose that comment might fit me as well.  In my opinion, discussing specific examples is a good way to establish rules of thumb.

So, I will quote from the policy and apply it to the present situation, for the consideration of you and others.  From the current draft of the policy (I think Chris is still weighing the exact wording):

"An Uncertain name or parent may be speculative but it should not be a guess. If you're only guessing at a name or parent you should not use the data fields. Instead, explain it in the narrative. You can link to highly speculative parents in the text." 

That comes from here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Uncertain

The key word is "speculative," which correlates to "conjectural," and conjecture means "an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information."  In other words, there needs to be supporting evidence.

In this particular case, I can't see any reason not to conclude that John Stone was, say,  Samuel's younger brother or his uncle or his cousin, in addition to the possibility that John was Samuel's father.  We simply have no indication of the likely birth year of John, beyond the fact that he was an adult in the 1630s.

In this particular case,  "father" is just one of several guesses, so -- barring further information -- John should be detached as Samuel's father.  (Samuel Stone is my ancestor, by the way, so I'd be pleased to be able to connect him to the earlier Stone lineage, but there's just nothing there for evidence.)

EDIT: However, as Patricia Hawkins noticed above, "John STONE is named as a grand nephew, son of Rev. Samuel STONE, in the Apr. 17, 1660 will of Rev. Ezekiel ROGERS."  So there's the Rogers connection; Ezekiel refers in his will to "my loveing Nephew Mr. Smuell Stone of conecticot", per his will quoted at http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rogers-3410

Of course, Samuel's son John can't be the same as the John Stone of Guilford, because Samuel's son John couldn't have been an adult in 1639.

Comments

From my limited research, it appears that most of the relationships attached to John Stone's profile are based only on unsourced family trees posted on genealogy websites. Perhaps there's more of a basis for some of them, but I've not run across anything. So I agree with John Schmeeckle that these are little more than guesses.

However, there may be a shred of evidence supporting the theory that John Stone was the father of Rev. Samuel Stone (Stone-351). On  page 262 of the 1886 book "The Memorial History of Hartford County", the bio of John Stone appears immediately above the bio of Samuel Stone, and Samuel's bio begins with a statement that he was "son of John Stone." It would be reasonable to infer that this means he was the son of the John Stone described in the previous paragraph. Additionally, as noted already on this page, that short bio of John Stone indicates that he transferred his allotment of land to Samuel Stone by gift before 1640. The Memorial History book doesn't identify its sources, but it quotes an unidentified document indicating that Samuel Stone owned some land that was given to him by John Stone, and perhaps there was some other evidence of a father-son relationship.

This is merely a shred of evidence, but I think it merits respectful inclusion in the biographies of both John and Samuel. If John's profile had no other family connections, I'd also support linking his profile to Samuel's as an "uncertain" relationship. However, John's profile is festooned with links to 10 other supposed family members that appear to be completely unsupported. Those other 10 links seem like pure guesslike speculation.

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Also, that same page 262 of the Memorial History book very specifically states that this same John Stone removed to Guilford, where he was one of the signers of the original compact in 1639. This is, however, inconsistent with the history of Guilford.

Samuel Stone's son John is a different person.

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It is also inconsistent with the genealogy of John Stone of Guilford, which denies a connection between his family and that of Rev. Samuel of Hartford.  See https://books.google.com/books?id=i_4UAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR7&lpg=PR7&dq=rev+samuel+stone+hereford&source=bl&ots=ICrop8vGUt&sig=_klxqH6NBm9pwo-K5kWEZX-2lAc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=F0hVVdiZDsLUoATCvoHIBg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=rev%20samuel%20stone%20hereford&f=false

But we know from the will of Rev. Ezekiel Rogers that Samuel Stone had a son John, who appears to have been alive in the 1660s.  What happened to him?

John and William Stone of Guilford were from co. Hereford, and Rev. Samuel Stone was from co. HerTford.  The John Stone genealogy (page v) mentions a tradition of six Stone brothers, with three settling at Watertown and the other three in Connecticut; and that they were "all the sons of Rev. Samuel Stone, a non-conformist divine of Hertfordshire, Eng., and educated at Emanuel College, Cambridge, and a lecturer in Torcester, Northamptonshire (vide Cotton Mather's Magnalia, Vol. 1, p. 392-5, Hartford, 1820).

"On the other hand, and in direct conflict with the above, a'History of the First Church of Hartford, Conn.," states that Rev. Samuel Stone was the son of John Stone, a freeholder of Hertford, England.  This is based on investigations made in England and and on the Records of Hertford, and so far as the ancestry of Rev. Samuel is concerned, this statement is undoubtedly the correct one.  The register of the 'Church of All Saints,' Hertford (not Hereford), has the baptisms of the Rev. Samuel and his brothers and sisters...."

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I've started adding information to John Stone's profile.  This is all rather rough; I'll be the first to admit that there is plenty of room for improvement.  I suspect that John should be tagged as the "uncertain" father of Samuel, based on the following:

We know that Hartford, Connecticut was named for Samuel Stone's hometown of Hertford.

In Hertford we find the baptism of Samuel Stone, son of John in 1602.  (He had a brother John, who died young.)

Around 1639 we find reference to Samuel Stone of Hartford, Conn. receiving land from John Stone, one of the original proprietors of Hartford.

It seems that the most plausible supposition here is that Rev. Samuel Stone came to America with his elderly father, who died soon after arriving in Connecticut, so Samuel got his land, which he quickly sold.

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Don't miss Dan Sparkman's comment above that the link I gave: http://kinnexions.com/ancestries/stone.htm#Guilford

are the Guilford Stones, not the Hartford Stones.

Which I suppose I could have deduced from the "Guilford" in the link.

Answer 7

I see a lot of incorrectly linked John Stones primary because there are so many. At least in the Gregory Stone line the firstborn son was commonly named John and I see evidence of that going back further. So multiple John Stone's of similar age in a geographic area isn't a real stretch considering whole families came over, and two brothers would marry and have children and both would name their first-born son John.

My brother is John, my dad is John, my grandfather's brother is John, my great-grandfather is John, my great-great-grandfather is John. All first except for John Dennison first-born sons.

That means extra caution is needed looking into any particular John Stone because much of the documentation will seem to overlap.