Matthias Hitchcock of New Haven: who were his wife and parents?

Question

According to Anderson, it is very likely that the passenger of 1635, the resident of Watertown and Cambridge and the resident of New Haven, were all the same person.

Anderson says that Matthias was born about 1610, based on the age of the passenger on the Susan & Ellen.

Anderson says ‘by about 1642’ Matthias had married Elizabeth ___ indicating that Elizabeth’s surname was unknown, not ‘Rogers’.  No parents are listed for ‘Elizabeth Rogers’, so I suggest we change Rogers-6435 to Elizabeth Unknown.

Anderson says that Matthias Hitchcock’s origins are ‘unknown’.  So we could detach his parents, George Hitchcock (Hitchcock-610) and Mary Franklin (Franklin-157).  His supposed mother, Mary Franklin, is not even shown as George Hitchcock’s wife.  Mary Franklin has two husbands: (1) John Hitchcock (Hitchcock-208) with a son Edward Hitchcock (Hitchcock-207) [who really was Matthias’s brother]; (2) John Hiscockes (Hiscockes-1) with two sons Thirza Hitchcock and Luke Hitchcock, supposed brothers of Matthias Hitchcock.   Is there any evidence to support these two also being brothers of Matthias Hitchcock?  Or that Matthias had a father John Hitchcock?

Anderson says that Edward Hitchcock (Hitchcock-207) was the brother of Matthias Hitchcock (Hitchcock-47), so for WikiTree there should be a profile set as the father for the two brothers.  Could we change the first name for Hitchcock-610 from George to ‘Father’, and make Hitchcock-610 the only parent of both Matthias and Edward?  I’m wondering if Mary Franklin and John Hitchcock, the parents of Thirza and Luke were real people who should just be detached from Edward and Matthias.  And maybe the two John Hitchcock/Hiscocke profiles need to be merged?

Answer 1

Hi Kay,  It always makes me so happy to see you here!

I would suggest that you make corrections and notations with your sources in the biography section of Matthias Hitchcock.  I did a similar clean up on Lt. Sam based on Kristina's research in England.  You might want to take a look at his profile to see how I handled it:  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-1852

The Matthias Hitchcock profile needs some more resources, so you might want to include:  The genealogy of the Hitchcock family

Have you tried to contact the profile managers?  Sometimes I post a public bulletin board message with the info that I thinks needs to be changed if I am unsure. But if I have good sources for my information, I just go ahead and make the changes with a good explanation of why I made them.  I also put a statement such as, "EKA - Earliest Known Ancestor. Please do not add parents without source documentation."  Thanks for all you do on WikiTree! 

Answer 2

This is my hypothesis: Matthias/Matthew Hitchcock was christened "John Hitchcock", or perhaps "John Matthew/Matthias Hitchcock", but was referred to as "Matthias/Matthew" to avoid confusion with his father.

I base this hypothesis on the following:

1) No "Matthias/Matthew" birth record exists

 2) There IS a "John" birth record at nearly the same time, at nearly the same place.

3) Matthias names one of his sons "John" - after Matthias' dad perhaps?

4) It is not uncommon for sons having the same name as their father to use a different name, a nickname, at home and among acquaintances.

5) The father's name on the found birth record is the same name as Edward Hitchcock's father - "John". Edward and Matthias were both in New Haven, and it has been assumed that they were brothers.

Comments

Paul, in both statement 2) and 5) you refer to birth records. Which birth records are you referring to? According to the information in Matthias's profile, including that from Anderson's Great Migration, his origins are not known.  If there are known birth records it would be good to have that information added to his profile.

I see that Mike Hitchcock-2780 has taken a yDNA test. You and he are 7C2R, both descended from Matthias's son John, but from different grandsons. Have you considered taking a yDNA test from Family Tree DNA to confirm your Hitchcock ancestry? I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have if you're interested.

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They are English birth records on ancestry.com. If I recall correctly they include county, parish records across the country - some going back to 1530 I believe.

I'm  going to follow up with a screen shot. Look at the 5th record from the bottom (for year 1611).

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Kay, the image of the record may be copyright protected by ancestry.com. So I have to check first before any uploading,.

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Paul, I just looked for Matthias/Matthew Hitchcock on Ancestry.com. The best source Ancestry provides is Anderson's "The Great Migration", page 336, which says that his origin is unknown.

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In re to a DNA test, I took one on ancestry.com and 23andme.com. I think that I linked 1 or 2 of those test results to my wikitree.com account. I'll check if I see Mike on ancestry or 23andme. 7C2R might be too "diluted" for them to catch but we'll see.

I don't need to confirm my ancestry back to Matthias. My grandfather had a genealogy done in order to join the SAR, and it establishes the links.