William Barden ... came to America from England in the year 1638 as a covenant servant of Thomas Boardman.
According to the Pioneers of Massachusetts by Pope, William was bound for seven years' service, and on December 1, 1638, after having served Boardman for only seven months, he was transferred to John Barker of Marshfield for the rest of the period, to learn the trade of a brick-layer. He was classified as being able to bear arms in 1643 [Pope]. His service with Barker terminated in 1645, indicating that William was 21 years of age that year. After the expiration of his apprenticeship, he went to Concord, then a mere settlement.
In Feb 1660/61 William Barden married Deborah Barker, daughter of John, his former master ... soon after their marriage, Deborah and William went to Middleborough and then to Barnstable, where they remained about 20 years. There they had nearly all of their children. From Barnstable they removed to Middleborough, his wife being dismissed from the Barnstable Church to Middleborough in 1683.
Birth 1633 Middleboro, Plymouth, Massachusetts
Death 1692/1693 Middleboro, Plymouth, Massachusetts
Note conflicting information about his birth place, see Sources, below.
The Nutting Genealogy, published by C. W. Bardeen, has the following narrative of the Barden genealogy leading up to their marriage to the Nutting family:
The Bardeens of America are descended from the Bardens of Yorkshire, England. "Record of Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution" (i. 595) gives 30 variations of spelling of the name Bardeen. In the "Records of the Town of Hinsdale, Mass.", the same town clerk records the bans of Zephenia Bardeen, the marriage of Zepeniah Barden, and the church record of Zephaniah Bardin. William T. Bardeen (g 73) was so entered on the militia roll of Fitchburg in 1848 and the next year as Wm. Barden. The Bardens are among the older families of Yorkshire. John de Barden, who was lord mayor of York in 1376, was the son of Thomas, who married the daughter and heir of Thomas Thyrkell; and grandson of Roger, whose daughter m. Roger Mayerolles, Lord of Tinsloo. John Barden's daughter married Henry Wyman, also lord mayor, and became the grandmother with many greats prefixed of the Earl of Strafford, beheaded in 1641. The family gave the name to the manor of Barden, in the parish of Hanxwell, three miles N.E. of Leyburn, and several representatives have always been named in the record of the landowners of Great Britain. But there were younger sons who had to be provided for, and in 1637 William Barden was among those selected by the Plymouth colony as one of the "youths of 14 years of age, of good habits" to send over as apprentices. He was apprenticed to John Barker of Plymouth. According to the Plymouth records (i. 110) the said Barker was "to teach the said William Barden the trade of bricklayer, and in the end of his term to give him twenty bushells of Indian corne, two suites of apparell, & an ewe goate lambe". He got more, for in 1600 he married his master's daughter and in 1684 moved to Middleboro.
He became a land-owner, and a part of the town is still known as "The Barden hills". His homestead is still owned in the family, and a picture of "The old Barden house" is given in the last history of the town (1906). He d 1692, and his estate was divided among 13 children. His great grandson Thomas, afterward a revolutionary soldier, m Hannah Nelson in Upton, Apr. 23, 1772, and Shadrach was the third of their five children. [1]
Sources
↑ Nutting, Rev. John Keep; Nutting Genealogy. A Record of Some of the Descendants of John Nutting, of Groton, Mass. Syracuse, NY. C.W. Bardeen, 1908. [1] pages 96-103.
Per "Immigrants to America Before 1750": Came from England probably June, 1638. Settled at Plymouth, Mass., where he was apprenticed to Thomas Boardman to learn the trade of carpenter, but January 10, 1639, his apprenticeship to was sold to John Barker (d. 1652) as a bricklayer (father of his future wife), as William evidently wished to learn that trade; removed to Marshfield, Mass., 1643; to Concord, Mass., after 1645; then to Duxbury, Mass.; lived in Barnstable when first children were born; removed to Middleboro, Mass. abt. 1683; m. Feb., 1660/1661, Deborah Barker (b. 1617 - will made May 18, 1721, proved Mar. 7, 1722), dau. of John and Anna (Williams) Barker, of Marshfield;
Birth and death from The Barden/Bardeen Genealogy by William A. Bardeen, 1993 and from Middleborough MA VR; marriage from the Vital Records of SE MA Vol. 3 Barnstable and Sandwich
WILLIAM BARDEN, of Marshfield, 1643, removed
to Barnstable, Mass. Married, Feb. 1661, Deborah
Barker, and had Mercy, Deborah, John, Stephan, Abra-
ham, 1674, Joseph, 1675, Ann.
References:— Amer. Ancestry, II, 6; Savage's Gen
Die. I, 114; His. Richmond, N. H, 299 ; Cleveland's His
Yates County, N. Y., 184, Essex Inst. Coll. VII, 213.
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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with William by comparing test results with other carriers of his Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA.
However, there are no known yDNA or mtDNA test-takers in his direct paternal or maternal line.
It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with William:
I have moved to the Research Notes a large block quote on his claimed origins from Nutting that was recently added to this profile; however, I am not sure it belongs in the profile at all. I would propose deleting that large block of text from this profile, and, if Nutting cites reliable sources for the claims in it, that those claims be added to the profiles for the individuals he is discussing.
Scott, there are a lot of problems in this bio. I've been doing research on him for my own purposes, but it's too much information to put in a comment. Nutting does not give sources. The whole English section is sheer speculation. No one has claimed, nor did I find, any plausible evidence that he came from Yorkshire. The reference to apprentices sent to Plymouth Colony is a poor and misleading paraphrasing of "Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families," which only posits that he may have been sent over as an apprentice. The latter source isn't much better scholarship-wise, also unsourced and with errors. So, layers of misinformation. I'm currently parsing it, assessing and sourcing, but I thought I'd at least shed some light on Nutting's blurb.
Given their dates of birth assigned here, its not possible that Deborah Barker could have been the mother of William, Content or Nathaniel, or Sarah. Deborah would probably stopped having children by 1680 when she was about 41 y.o.
Barden-523 and Barden-4 appear to represent the same person because: Same wife, some of same children. Given that his apprenticeship was terminated in 1645, showing that he was 21, 1624 is probably a good estimat4e of his birth year.