remove parents of William Brewster

Question

I propose separating the parents entered for William Brewster, father of the William Brewster of the Mayflower emigration to Plymouth Massachusetts. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-128 (Robert Brewster 1440-1505 & Mary Edmunds)

There is no evidence for their connection, & those preceding them is an imagined genealogy often repeated in other online genealogies, but dubious at best. The individuals themselves are real enough but the connections made here is simply an oft repeated hopeful stringing together of names found in ancient records.

I have begin a Brewster name study which can keep these early English Brewsters together, allowing them to exist as individuals who may eventually acquire sourced biographies and perhaps families on their own account. I know from family experience, that Brewsters are already thick on the ground in East Anglia in the 15th C. Allowing this lot to exist as unconnected individuals seems the only way to cope with the problem of unsourced profiles entered to create an unproven family tree.

Comments

William Brewster is an exceptionally important figure in American history and as such there are literally thousands of individuals that have researched his name over the centuries.  I would suggest that his lineage be left alone unless you have proof positive that it is not as it is currently known.

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And Thousands who have included the same imagined ancestry in their family stories. Your reply is exactly why I suggest separating him from the antecedents given in Wikitree - those entered here have no basis in fact. There are no sources, and when I picked them up a few days ago, two of the generations were actually entered as "Unknown Brewster". So, we have a wee challenge for the Mayflower project - if you want to keep this ancestry, enter some sources.

William Brewster's parents have been identified in Scrooby, but beyond that, into Suffolk? In this case, Wikitree could demonstrate a degree of academic integrity not evident in other genealogies for William Brewster of Mayflower fame.

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Hunter reckoned the gentry Brewsters in Suffolk were well studied but no connection showed up

https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028814957#page/n76/

 

 

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Thanks for this link, it will help a lot.

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I've just taken a look at the two articles. I agree there certainly isn't anything in the articles that makes a claim for lineage beyond William and Maude, and I'm always in favor of disconnecting the unproven.

Put a  == disputed origins == section on William Brewster-128 with links to the unproven parents. and a Disputed section on the parents with a link to Brewster-128.

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Thank you Anne, I was going to ask how one noted "disputed origins" once I had found a little more material for the Brewsters.

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All the Brewsters are not related. Elder William has paternal haplotype I-M253 (aka I1), while the "other" Brewsters, the ones with the family crest often misattributed to the Scrooby family, is R-M269. There are several smaller divisions in haplotypes with current men surnamed Brewster, but these two main families are completely incompatible and do not share paternal heritage. Rather than looking at inconclusive research, it is much easier to rely on the y-DNA to guide us.

 

Brief overview of the various lines:

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/brewster/about/results

This is the Brewster Surname Project DNA results:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/brewster/default.aspx?section=ycolorized

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In fact the smaller divisions probably also represent unrelated families.  It's to be expected that there will be R-M269 Brewsters who share a y-MRCA in the 1,000-5,000-years-ago range, long before surnames were hereditary.  This has nothing to do with the surname, and they'll be more closely y-related to people with other surnames.

It would need a precise calculation to determine that two testees descend from different immigrants but share a y-MRCA in the AD 1400-1600 era.  That sort of data doesn't yet exist, so the most you can hope to do is sort out who descends from which immigrant.

The DNA project page seems to be arguing from total misconceptions about how hereditary surnames originated.  It seems to be an article of American faith that a surname is the exclusive property of a kin group.  Why do people find it so hard to understand that the same surname might be adopted independently by unconnected people scattered around the country?

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My family have always enjoyed knowing that a "brewster" was a person who made beer - ale actually. Many of my Brewster lot were "clean living" abstainers.

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In reply to RJ Horace, that's exactly my point. The question of whether there is proof of ancestry before Elder William and his father William is unresolved and the people who are currently connected through Wikitree can easily be from another set of Brewsters (and I would argue that the evidence strongly suggests this). The evidence of several additional haplotypes with only a couple of test-takers shows how the name "Brewster" can have multiple origins. Extrapolating to the ancestry in question, it's quite likely that the near-mythical 14th-C "Galfridus Brewster" in the myriad online ancestries is *not* related to Elder William Brewster and should not be linked to him on Wikitree absent any proof other than surname coincidence.

Regarding the Brewster Surname Project, I believe the piece there was written by a Brit, not an American, and also shows how the Elder William DNA is unconnected to other Brewster branches (to be American-centric, the family originating with Rev. Nathaniel Brewster on Long Island, NY in the 1600s is an easy example).

The project itself, though, has a strong presence in one single line (coincidentally one I share) because of a concentrated effort to prove or disprove a legend circulating in the American South for over two centuries about Mayflower descent. If this kind of concerted effort could be replicated on these various lines, especially with SNP testing, we could expect to attain a better resolution regarding various lines.

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Michael, is "The Brewster Surname Project" you mention a wider one looking as DNA results, or a Wikitree project?

I began a simple name study for my East Anglia lot in Wikitree, hoping to keep clear of the wider American interest in people of Brewster descent.; all East Anglians and their descendants welcome of course.

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Brewster sr's alleged parents Brewster-128 and Maude Mann, and his brother Henry, are a legitimate theory, at least.  The name had been in the area for a while - a Brewster paid poll tax in Campsall and another in Adwick-le-Street, adjacent parishes to Arksey, in 1379.

Later Brewsters in the immediate vicinity are much more likely to be their descendants than to have wafted in from Suffolk.

Brewster-128's peculiar great-grandmother is a time-traveller

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Brewster-Family-Tree-128

https://www.geni.com/people/Velma-Brewster/6000000007375543540

 

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Should have unlinked profiles

Robert Brewster as father - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-103

Mary Edmunds as mother - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Edmunds-457

when I first noticed this problem - can't do it now because of profile protection but had made a disputed origins note on these profiles

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They're the grandparents.  I'd propose removing Brewster-129 and Mary Harvey as parents of Brewster-128.

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How can this be done when a profile is project protected? The profiles for William Brewster & his father have been "project protected" since I first raised this issue.

I came across this problem when taking up one of Anne B's monthly challenges. Picked a pre-1500 Brewster and was horrified when I found where it led to, hence this G2G discussion.

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I don't think Prudence Perkins should be married to 129, she was a theory about the 2nd wife of 131, ie Mayflower Brewster's stepmother.

Probably Prudences Perkins and Peck should both be merged into Prudence Unknown.

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Yes - took me a while to see that prudence perkins has found herself attached in wrong generation - she only arrived with one of the half dozen or so merges for William-129

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She's not any more - merge proposed with Prudence Brewster formerly Peck aka Perkins - 64 as same profile manager involved.

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I see Prudence Peck's alleged mother "Prudence (Gascoigne)" has been given ancestry.  But her ex-father John Gascoigne-16 has been disconnected, so now it looks like her mother got pregnant by the moat cleaner or something.

Mayflower Brewster is given a half-sister Prudence who married a Robert Peck, from Everton, like there's a cousin-marriage theory.  But Robert Peck hasn't been connected to Edward Peck.

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Geni makes Robert the son of Edward, so he marries his niece.  I expect she got a lecture from her brother on what her parents would have thought about it if they'd still been alive etc

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The original parents in Valerie's question (Robert and Mary) are no longer there. Before I make this disconnect I want to double check. Disconnect Brewster-129 and Harvey-40 from William Brewster-128

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Robert and Mary are the grandparents of 128

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Hi Valerie,

The Brewster Surname Project is affiliated with FamilyTreeDNA, as a repository for y-DNA results. Within the project, there are currently several haplotypes (men of different haplotypes are not related within thousands of years), so it may be worth your while to email the admin, Arlin Brewster, to see if he can help you with your particular Brewsters.

 

cheers!

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Thanks, Michael, interesting, had the most intriguing experience of meeting a lady in Kiel who looked exactly like my mum. Always wondered if my lot were Brits or Saxon.

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Anne B - thanks for stepping in

Answer 1

Here are four sources for you

1. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} Stratton, Eugene Aubrey (1986). Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620–1691, p. 251, Salt Lake City, UT, US: Ancestry Publishing.
2. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} Merrick, Barbara Lambert [Ed., Comp.] (2000). William Brewster of the Mayflower and His Descendants for Four Generations, 3rd Rev. Edn., pp. 1–5, 30-35, Plymouth, MA, US: General Society of Mayflower Descendants.
3. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c d e} A genealogical profile of William Brewster, (a collaboration between Plymouth Plantation and New England Historic Genealogical Society)[1]
4. Jump up ^ "Brewster, William (BRWR580W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brewster_(Mayflower_passenger)

 

I have to think that a more worthwhile endeavor would be for you to research the surname of his wife, so she does not go through history as Mary "unknown"

Comments

Perhaps your project Richard? I am interested in the Brewsters of East Anglia - William Brewster ex the Mayflower is just one descendant.

Re the links above, they do not include an ancestry for the Mayflower William Brewster beyond his parents which we agree are probably legit.

Answer 2

I agree. The Mayflower Society in its Descendant Series refuses to identify parents for Elder William Brewster. They say no birth records have been found for him. Mayflower Families in Progress, William Brewster of the Mayflower and his descendants for Four Generations, 1997, p 1.

Comments

I have the 2014 GSMD silver book for Elder William Brewster. It does identify his parents: "William Brewster, son of William and Mary (Smythe) (Simkinson) Brewster, was born..." --Merrick, Barbara Lambert, ''Mayflower Families Through Five Generations Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in December 1620'', Vol. Twenty-four The Descendants of Elder William Brewster, Part 1, Pg.1.

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For those of us too far removed from this family line, please tell us here what the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has to say with reference to the parents of Elder William Brewster including the sources in which the information is located.

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In going back over this discussion, I see that the two Williams you link are the Elder's father and grandfather, and that I didn't understand exactly whose parents you referred to in your original question. The Mayflower Society does not address the Elder's grandfather at all in the Silver Book which I quoted. 

What it does say on page 1 (quoted in my previous comment, above) refers to Elder William's parents, William and Mary (Smythe) (Simkinson) Brewster. The footnote for this refers to his birth date being calculated from an affidavit which was cited in NEHGR [New England Historical and Genealogical Register], 18: 53 (Registry of Affidavits, Letter k, fol.26); MD [Mayflower Descendant], 1:161-163; Dexter [Henry Martyn Dexter and Morton Dexter, "The England and Holland of the Pilgrims, 1821-1890" (Boston, 1905)] 253, 605; MQ [The Mayflower Quarterly (journal), started in 1935], 36: 57.

On page two it says "No birth records have been found for William Brewster or for his wife Mary. Each of their birth years have been determined by calculation from two separate affidavits, which were made by the Brewsters while residents in Holland: (7)

'On 10/12 June 1609, William Brewster made an affidavit, giving his age as "about forty-two." The contents of this instrument pertained to the guardianship of [his reputed niece] "Ann Peck, native of Launde [next Scrooby], when the aldermen of Leiden granted to Thomas Simkinson (8) of Hull, merchant, the power to receive seven pounds sterling that Ann had left in the hancs of william Watkin, pastor of Clarborough [approximately six miles south-east of Scrooby], when she left England.' "

Footnote (7) refers to TAG [The American Genealogist], 41: 1-2 (affidavit #1); NEHGR, 18: 53 (affidavit #2); Dexter, 605.

Footnote (8) Says: "Additional research on the surname of Simkinson may prove and support a relationship to the mother of William Brewster, Mary (Smythe) (Simkinson) Brewster. NEHGR, 124: 250-254 published the present status of research."

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Thank you very much for going to this trouble; it is very useful to have this explained so concisely here for the sake of others interested in this pedigree.

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We also know he entered Cambridge University in 1580.  Probably one of those precocious types.  James arrived in 1582.