Four profiles for Thomas Pettus born 1598 in Norwich, Norfolk, England

Question

In answer to this question :

Pettus family in great need. Of attention - can you help?

... I've done some unpicking of the Norwich, Norfolk, England branch of the Pettus family. 

I now have four profiles for the emigrant to Virginia, Thomas Pettus. All these profiles had the birthdate of 1598 in common, in either Norwich or Unknown place.  I have made them all the son of Thomas Pettus-408 and his wife Cicely King who are (from the baptism records of the church of St Simon and St Jude, Norwich) the correct parents of the Thomas Pettus born 1598.

The four profiles in question are Pettus-8, Pettus-9, Pettus-137 and Pettus-334.

They can all be viewed from the profile of the father Thomas Pettus-408 (he's the profile that this question is linked to).

(There is another Thomas who died in infancy, Pettus-158, he can be disregarded in this context).

They need to be merged down and their wives and offspring verified. And a death date verified for Thomas Pettus born 1598 who went to Virginia.

A quick win would be to merge Thomas Pettus-8 with Thomas Theodore Pettus-9. The Pettus-9 profile is, I believe, an amalgamation of Thomas and his younger brother Theodore Pettus-156 born 1600. The Thomas Theodore Pettus-9 profile has no useful information or sources, and going back through the merge history, he was originally a completely different Pettus (the person who is now William Pettus-18 who married Mary Gleane-1).

I will propose this merge and will be interested to hear suggestions for the future management of Thomas' profile.

Jo

England Project Managed Profiles Team

Comments

This will be a great improvement.  The exact death date for Thomas 1598 who came to America is not known, but he died about 1668 because his wife was remarried by 1669.  

In April, 1671 Capt. John Groves was ordered by the General Court to return the property of [Thomas] Pettus, orphan.  The property had been placed in trust for Thomas  by his mother. (General Court, 7 Apr 1671)  NOTE:  the term ‘orphan’ in a legal document at this time meant that a person’s father was dead and that the person was under 21 years of age.
Thomas died about 1668:
In 1669 a woman named Anne Munford commissioned an agent in Virginia to collect money owed her by Capt. Grove “and his wife Elizabeth, late the widow of Capt. Thomas Pettus” ( “Tylers Quarterly Historical  and Genealogical Magazine”  Vol. iii p. 180 , available on Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/tylersquarterlyh03tyle]  )

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Thank you Kathie. It's the sort of nerdy untangling I enjoy.

Sorting out Thomas's various attributed wives will also be a bit of a challenge, and maybe they are the wives of two different Thomas Pettuses

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Thomas 1598 had only one documented wife (if he left one behind in England there is no record of her), whom he married before April 7,1643 per the following land record:

Virginia Patent book 2
Capt. Thomas Petus, one of his Majesty’s Councill of State,
886 acs. James City CO., Apr. 7, 1643, Page 40.  Neere Jockeys Neck,
E. & N. upon the Secretary’s land, E.N.E. and N.N.E. upon land of
Mr. Secretary Kemp, N.W. upon Mr. George Mallam, S.W. upon the
Gleab land Cr., S. upon the Gleab land & S. E. upon a br. of Archers
Hope Cr.  250 acs. due by intermarriage with the relict & Executrix of
Richard Durant, Dec’d., who had a patent dated 24 Aug. 1635

That wife outlived him because there are other documents referring to him as deceased and her as alive (and remarried).

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Presuming that this one documented wife is Elizabeth Mouring /Mourning, then who is Katherine Morris likely to be the wife of?

And there is a third wife attached to Thomas Pettus-334, Elizabeth Freeman -11409

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Elizabeth "Freeman" is the real wife, although "Freeman"  appears to be conjecture.  She was Elizabeth Durrant, a widow, when she married Thomas 1598.

There is no such person as Elizabeth Mourning.

Mourning Bourgh was the wife of Elizabeth and Thomas's son, Thomas, the one who was a minor when his father died.  

Katherine Morris was married to a man named Thomas Pettit/Petty/Pettus of South Farnham Parish, in Virginia.  He made a will in 1663 naming wife Katherine.  I think this is the man called "Thomas, Jr" imported by Thomas 1598 about 1643.

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Elizabeth Freeman-11409 (with husbands before and after Thomas) is  attached to  the version Thomas Pettus-334, although unsourced.

Pettus-8 has a wife Elizabeth Mourning-7

Pettus-137 has a wife Elizabeth Mouring-5

Shuld we be aiming for all 3 Elizabeths to be merged down into Freeman-11409?

(Pettus-9 doesn't have a named spouse)

Of course, they have all got wildly different children attached!

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Thomas 1598 and his only known wife, Elizabeth (maybe Freeman) Durrant  had one known child also named Thomas.  The aiuthor of the huge Pettus genealogy books believes that Thomas 1598 had a son named Stephen by a first wife in England, and a daughter named Elizabeth by wife Elizabeth, but I have not seen any confirmatory documentation.  Picking Freeman 11409 for the ‘real’ wife makes sense.  She had at least three husbands - Durrant, Pettus, and Grove(s).

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The Thomas Pettit/Petty/Pettus of Farnham Parish, husband of Katherine was also father of father of Dorothy who married Fugate.

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I never claimed that Thomas Pettus had a son Stephen born in England. I did think that Thomas and his wife Elizabeth had a son Stephen born in Virginia ca. 1641. That idea no longer seems correct as it conflicts with other evidence.

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Do you have any idea where Stephen fits?  Or if he’s connected to the Thomas who died c. 1668 at all?

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I'm hoping that the William Pettus who added the comment 18 hours ago is William Walker Pettus IV, the author of  "Thomas Petyous of Norwich, England and his Pettus Descendants in England and Virginia (Volume 1)". This is the excellently researched and sourced book about the Pettuses from which gave me so many new avenues to look into. If it is - Hello Bill! - the Stephen Pettus born in Norwich C1618 you were commenting on is nothing to do with your research. He is from the unsourced book "The Raglands: The History Of A British-American Family, Volume II, by Charles James Ragland, Jr., (1987) which has a lot of the Pettuses mixed up and has added to the confusion which led to the situation we were in earlier this year with this family. Most of them are untangled, there are just a few stragglers still to have something done with them.

Answer 1

Hi Jo, that’s excellent work and really appreciated. Thanks also Kathy for the clarification about the death date (or lack of).

I have project protected Pettus-8 and the England Project will manage him unless another project would prefer to take him on.

Comments

Thanks for the PPP Gillian. I will add what I have found about Thomas Pettus born 1598 to the Pettus-8 profile.