Family:Whitney, Thomas (s1550-1637)

Thomas Whitney's Locations

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Mr. Thomas Whitney, gentleman, parentage unproven, was born say 1550,^[1] died 18 May 1637,^[2] and was buried 20 May 1637, St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, England.^[3]

He married, 12 May 1583, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England, Mary Bray^[4], daughter of John and Margaret (Haslonde) Bray. She was baptized 24 Dec 1564, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England,^[5] and was buried 25 Sep 1629, St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, England.^[6]

"On May 10, 1583, he obtained from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster a license to marry Mary, daughter of John Bray, in which he is described as 'Thomas Whytney of Lambeth Marsh, gentleman,' and on May 12th the marriage ceremony was performed in St. Margaret's. 'Lambeth Marsh' is a name still applied to a locality near the Surrey end of Westminster bridge. There were born to him nine children [sic: There were at least eleven, and perhaps thirteen.--RLW], viz: Margaret, Thomas, Henry, Arnwaye, John, Nowell, Francis, Mary, and Robert, but only three [sic: That should be five.--RLW], viz., John, Francis, and Robert, survived childhood. Of these John emigrated to Watertown, Mass., Francis died at Westminster in 1643, and Robert in the parish of St. Peters, Cornhill, London, in 1662. In 1611 it is recorded that Thomas paid the subsidy tax, and December 6, 1615, on the probate of the will of his father-in-law, John Bray, he was appointed executor. February 22, 1607, he apprenticed his son John, and November 8, 1624, his son Robert. The record of the latter, like the marriage license, describes him as a "gentleman." September 25, 1629, he buried his wife, and in April, 1637 [sic: That should be May, 1637.--RLW], died himself. His eldest surviving son, John, being then out of England, administration of his estate was, on May 8, 1637, granted to the other two, Francis and Robert. The accounts of the latter show that the deceased was in comfortable circumstances.^[7]"

In 1603, London was hit by a several-year-long outbreak of the plague in which 34,000 people perished and about 2/5ths of the population fled the city. Typically, it was the aristocracy and the rich who could afford to escape, and we know that Thomas Whitney was of some means, being styled "gentleman" in the records of his marriage. This plague could explain why their daughter Alice's baptism has not been located in Westminster, and why their daughter Margaret was buried in Isleworth in 1604/5.

Note that Thomas was not the son of Robert Whitney, third son of Sir Robert and Sybil (Baskerville) Whitney of Whitney, Herefordshire, as has been widely reported.^[8]

Children of Thomas and Mary (Bray) Whitney:

i.	Margaret Whitney; bapt. 18 Oct 1584, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[9] bur. 12 Jan 1604/5, Isleworth, co. Middlesex, England.[10]
ii.	Thomas Whitney; bapt. 25 Jul 1587, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[11] bur. 19 Aug 1587, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.[12]
iii.	Henry Whitney; bapt. 11 Nov 1588, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[13] bur. 4 Jan 1588/9, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.[14]
iv.	Arnwaye Whitney; bapt. 2 Feb 1589/90, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[15] bur. 11 Aug 1591, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.[16]
v.	John1 Whitney; bapt. 20 July 1592, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[17] m.(1) Elinor -----; m.(2) Judah (-----) Clement.
vi.	Nowell Whitney; bapt. 30 Oct 1594, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[18] bur. 28 Feb 1596/7, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.[19]
vii.	(probably) Meliora Whitney; b. say 1596, bur. 2 Jul 1599, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.[20]
viii.	Francis Whitney; bapt. 27 Jan 1598/9, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[21] d. Aug 1643, Westminster, England; m. Elizabeth -----.
ix.	Mary Whitney; bapt. 2 Aug 1600, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[22] bur. 8 Aug 1600, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.[23]
x.	Alice Whitney; b. say 1602,[24] m. Francis Beale.[25]
xi.	Thomas Whitney; b. about 1604; m. Margaret (Mogge) George.
xii.	Robert Whitney; bapt. 10 Nov 1605, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England;[26] probably d. young.
xiii.	Robert Whitney; b. about 1610; m. Mary Towers.

Notes

Smith & Sanborn listed James Whitney as possibly being another child in this family. This was the James Whitney, buried 13 Mar 1636/7, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.^[27] However, there are many unconnected Whitneys in the St. Margaret's Church Parish Registers, and we can find no reason for including James as a child of Thomas and Mary (Bray) Whitney over any of the others. He could have been a grandson, other relation, or completely unrelated.

References

1.^  Supposition. He was most likely born sometime between 1549 (making him aged 80 at his death) to 1562 (making him aged 21 at the time of his marriage).

2.^  Thomas Whitney's son Robert stated that his father had died "on[e] ascenc[i]on Day last past eleven yeares", The answere of Robert Whitney defend[an]t to the bill of complaint of Henry Canon Compl[ainan]t, 22 Jun 1649, Chancery suit C 5/387/43, folio 2. In 1637, Ascension occurred on 18 May - Bukke, Kristense & Thomsen, The Comprehensive Genealogical Feast Day Calendar (Thomsen's Genealogical Center: Bountiful, UT, 1983), p. 49.

3.^  Burial record of "Thomas Whitney" 20 May 1637, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

4.^  Marriage record of "Thomas Whitney to Mary Bray" 12 May 1583, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

5.^  The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, pages 523 and 551.

6.^  Burial record of "Mrs. Mary Whittney" 25 Sep 1629, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

7.^  Archive:The Descendants of John Whitney, page 17.

8.^  The purported paternal grandparents of Thomas Whitney were originally put into doubt on chronological grounds in the article by Donald Lines Jacobus, "Pre-American Ancestries: John Whitney of Watertown, Mass.," The American Genealogist, vol. 10 (1933-1934), pp. 84-88; and were conclusively ruled out in the article by Paul C. Reed, "Whitney Origins Revisited: John¹ Whitney of Watertown, Massachusetts, and Henry¹ Whitney of Long Island and Norwalk, Connecticut," The American Genealogist, vol. 69 (1994), pp. 9-14.

9.^  Baptism record of "Margaret Whytney, d. of Thomas", 18 Oct 1584, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

10.^  Burial record of "Margaret ye daughter of Thomas Whitneye", 12 Jan 1604/5, All Saints, Isleworth, Middlesex, England.

11.^  Baptism record of "Thomas Whittnay, s. of Thomas", 25 Jul 1587, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

12.^  Burial record of "Thomas Wittne" 19 Aug 1587, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

13.^  Baptism record of "Henry Whitney, s. of Thomas", 11 Nov 1588, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

14.^  Burial record of "Henry Whitney" 4 Jan 1589, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

15.^  Baptism record of "Arnewey Whitney, s. of Thomas", 2 Feb 1590, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

16.^  Burial record of "Arneway Whittney" 11 Aug 1591, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

17.^  Baptism record of "John Whitney, s. of Thomas", 20 Jul 1592, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

18.^  Baptism record of "Nowell Whitney, s. of Thomas", 30 Oct 1594, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

19.^  Burial record of "Nowell Whittney" 28 Feb 1597, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

20.^  Burial record of "Meliora Whittney" 2 Jul 1599, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England. It is believed that she was a previously unidentified daughter of Thomas due to onomastics - her sister Alice Beale later named a daughter Meliora Beale.

21.^  Baptism record of "Francis Whitney, s. of Tomas", 27 Jan 1599, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

22.^  Baptism record of "Mary Whytney, d. of Thomas" 2 Aug 1600, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

23.^  Burial record of "Mary Whitney" 8 Aug 1600, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

24.^  Alice Whitney is believed to be a previously unidentified daughter of Thomas Whitney due to her husband's involvement in the indictment case against Thomas Whitney, Jr. Since she married in 1620, she was probably born sometime about or before 1602. Because there are few gaps in which she could have been born, her birth has been placed at about 1602.

25.^  Marriage record of "Alice Whitney to Francis Beale", 1 May 1620, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

26.^  Baptism record of "Robert Whitney, s. of Thomas" 10 Nov 1605, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

27.^  Burial record of "James Whitney" 13 Mar 1637, St. Margaret's, Westminster, England.

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Copyright © 2006, 2009, Tim Doyle, Robert L. Ward, and the Whitney Research Group.