Could you help calculate birth date for John Crow of Hartford?

Question

John Crow of Hartford is supposedly the son of John and Olive (Bird) Crow of Essex, England. There is a problem. The only birth date I can find for John Crow of Hartford - 1606 - is 3 years after the death of his mother Olive and five years after the death of his father John.

If I had to prove the existence of John or Olivia from their profiles, I couldn't - no records, no marriage, death, baptism, wills, land records - nothing.

Every time I add a source to John Crow of Hartford I get the red banner, and "save anyway" because I do not know what to change -- his parent's death dates or his birth date.

I would like some consensus from the PGM group on whether we should disconnect John Crow of Hartford from John and Olivia Crow. Anderson states in his 2015 Directory of the Great Migration, that the origins for John Crow of Hartford are unknown.

Help please.

Answer 1

His birth date seems to be an approximation or an estimate. He cannot be born after the death of his mother, but he could be born after the death of his father (a posthumous birth). These two facts suggest that this is a poor estimate. A birthdate not later than within about 9 months after the death of the father is a possible better estimate.

Are the death dates for the parents verifiable? What are your sources?

Is he verified as the son of these parents?

Since he was apparently so young when his parents died, do any sort proceedings exist concerning a guardianship?

Comments

That is a very good point, George. Who raised him if his parents died when he was so young?

I wonder if there is any evidence that John Crow of Hartford is actually the son of John and Olive (Bird) Crow of Essex, England? Neither of their profiles has a source outside of Ancestral File refs -- no records of birth, death, marriage, land, wills, anything. If I had to prove their existence from their profiles - I couldn't.

Answer 2

Your going to have trouble with Elizabeth Goodwin his wife who seems to have been having children when she was 10.

I'm in favor of disconnecting the parents. I have added notes to the profiles in question. We can wait and then disconnect. In the meantime, remove John's estimated birth, to avoid the banner. Put it back when you're done

Comments

A known connection with the Goodwins in England would be highly significant, but it seems clear enough that he married Elizabeth in America.  So if he arrived with kids born in England there must have been a previous wife.

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I will remove the birth date for now - the date is from a biographer without giving a source for it.  Thank you Anne - that is so obvious but I didn't think of it.

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RJ, thank you for joining this discussion. I appreciate your comments, and agree that John Crow apparently married Elizabeth Goodwin in New England.

He was possibly owner of the most land in Connecticut, or even all New England when he died. He was very wealthy, and I believe any half sibling relationships among his children would have been revealed at that time, because a significant portion of his land was bequeathed by William Goodwin, Elizabeth's father.

I have not seen evidence of John Crow arriving with children,

Your comments always throw light on a subject, and certainly prompt my brain cells to work. Thanks again RJ.

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Anne - about Elizabeth's age at first born child, I agree with your comment, and plan to work on her profile and on the birth dates of their children, etc.

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Sorry I didn't see this before I detached the parents and added a disputed origins section linking to them I case we later find that he was their son. Also before reading all this I put an estimated birth year back in.  We can estimate he was married within a year of his first child's birth.  Then we can estimate he was at least 21 at marriage.

My apologies for stepping into all this without seeing your work on it.

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The first child's birthdate is the problematic bit.  It's all over the internet as 1628, but there's no source.  If there were a source, it would be in England and we'd know where John Crow came from in England.

But other things being equal we'd think that Crow married Goodwin's daughter in America and Esther was born 1635 or later.  Unless somebody knows some reason why that's impossible.

Could be 1628 was just a bad guess by somebody who didn't figure out the consequences.

If there's some reason why we have to think Esther came over on the boat, we have a choice of (a) connect the Crows to the Goodwins in England or (b) decide Elizabeth Goodwin was a 2nd wife.

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No worries, Jillaine. Your work is always good.

I wanted input from the PGM group -- and as the person who started and led PGM for years, you are all that and more:)

Anderson's Directory is only three years old, and his entry for John Crow of Hartford says it all: origins unknown.

The discussion has been good for being sure that we are agreed, and for bringing out aspects of the family that I had not stopped to consider yet. I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to respond to the G2G discussion.

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Your thoughts on this family are helping me RJ, and your conclusions are sound. I checked William Goodwin's entry in Anderson's Great Migration Begins and on page 793 it says Elizabeth Goodwin was John Crow's second wife, and they were married about 1640.

I expect to be doing some major work and revisions on John Crow's profile next. Surprised to realize the above source was not yet posted to his profile.

There is evidence that John Crow brought his children from his first marriage with him -- they married, had children, inherited... I was not thinking clearly in my earlier comment. There is quite a bit of material on them and their families.

Answer 3

And did he have a brother John Thomas Crow who was born in Ireland and went to Virginia?

There's never only one thing...

Comments

"Never only one thing" -- isn't that the truth! So far, John Crow's early biographers - Savage, Hinman, Judd and others, have all been careful to not make a connection to other Crow families found in early colonial  America.

Any such claims will be examined, and if there is no documentation, removed with comments.

The Crow family is in so many of our family trees, and was very influential in their time. There are sources I added and plan to add more if I can find them.