Francis Cooke and Hester Mahieu

Francis Cooke was born around 1583. He moved to Leiden before 1603, where he met and married Hester Mahieu. They had seven known children, six of whom survived to adulthood.

Francis and Hester were members of the Puritan congregation in Leiden, although they were not part of the original congregation that left England together. Hester was a French Walloon, and upon marriage Francis joined the Walloon church in Norwich and then Leiden. Either Francis or Hester probably had some level of education because upon Francis's death his estate included one Bible and four older books.

Francis came to Plymouth aboard the Mayflower with his eldest son John, who would have been around 13 at the time.  (I will note that Anderson gives John Cooke his own chapter, even though he was still a child in his father's household at the time of his arrival. No such courtesy was afforded to the Carpenter sisters or Mary Chilton, of course). Hester and their three other children, including our ancestor Jacob Cooke, arrived on the Anne in 1623. Jacob was the second son, born around 1618. He would have been a toddler at the time of the voyage. Later, he married Damaris Hopkins, the daughter of Stephen Hopkins, another Mayflower passenger.

Francis was listed as a freemen before 1633. Like most respectable men of the Massachusetts colony, Francis fulfilled a variety of offices, including committees for laying out land and highways. He was listed among the men able to bear arms in 1643. He died in Plymouth in April 1663, and his estate was valued at over 86 pounds. After his death, there were a number of court cases relating to the distribution of his land between his children.

Francis Cooke -- Hester Mahieu
  - Jacob Cooke -- Elizabeth Lettice
     - Sarah Cooke -- Robert Bartlett
        - Lemuel Bartlett -- Mary Doty
           - Lemuel Bartlett -- Hannah Tinkham
              - Lydia Bartlett -- Thomas Kinney
                 - Simeon Kinney -- Olive Doane
                    - Thomas Kinney -- Mary Elizabeth Houghton
                       - Julia Kinney -- Ernest Hancock



References:

Anderson, Robert Charles 1995 The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Henry Cobb and Patience Hurst

Henry Cobb and his first wife, Patience Hurst, daughter of James Hurst, arrived in Plymouth in 1632. Perhaps it's better to say that both Henry and Patience were in Plymouth and married by that date. It's not clear from the documentation whether they married in Massachusetts colony or before arrival. Patience's father was also an early immigrant to the region (but I haven't reached the H book, yet, so I don't know how early).

Henry was born around 1607, based on his year of marriage. His background is unknown. He and Patricia had seven known children. We're the descendants of their eldest son, John.

Henry was a tavernkeeper. Although the family started in Plymouth, they had moved to Scituate by 1634 and to Barnstable by 1639. Most of our Kinney ancestry comes from the Barnstable area, which is out on the arm of Cape Cod. Interestingly, when the Cobbs left Scituate, they sold their lot and house to Manasseh Kempton, another of our ancestors, the husband of Juliann Carpenter.

Both Henry and Patience were members of the church. Henry was ordained a ruling elder in Barnstable in April 1670. He was a freeman before 1633. Henry had at least some education. He was able to sign his own name, as seen on some surviving documentation. His estate included 24s of books. Henry served a number of offices, including deputy and excise collector for Barnstable, and on a number of juries. While a Barnstable deputy, he was fined for "defect in appearance". He was also one of the men authorized to bear arms in 1643.

After Patricia's death, Henry married Sarah Hinckley in December 1649. They had seven children. Henry died sometime between February of 1678 and June of 1679. Patience was buried in Barnstable in May 1648. At his death, Elder Cobb's estate was valued at 80 pounds, including his house and land.

Henry Cobb -- Patience Hurst
  - John Cobb -- Martha Nelson
     - Ebenezer Cobb -- Mercy Holmes
        - Hannah Cobb -- Jacob Tinkham
           - Jacob Tinkham -- Lydia Dunham
              - Hannah Tinkham -- Lemuel Bartlett
                 - Lydia Bartlett -- Thomas Kinney
                    - Simeon Kinney -- Olive Doane
                       - Thomas Kinney -- Mary Elizabeth Houghton
                          - Julia Kinney -- Ernest Hancock



References:

Anderson, Robert Charles 1995 The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Mary Chilton

Here's another...interesting organizational choice in Anderson's The Great Migration Begins. Our ancestor, Mary Chilton, is not given her own entry. Neither is her mother, whose name may or may not have been Susanne. Instead, both are listed under Mary's father, James Chilton. OK, again, maybe there's some justification in Anderson always listing the head of the household, who will usually be a man. But here's the thing: James Chilton never made it to Plymouth. The Chilton family were passengers on the Mayflower. James died before the Mayflower reached the colony, in December of 1620, while it was still anchored off the coast of Cape Cod. He may have never set foot on the land. His wife died soon after, in January of 1621. Only Mary survived.

But of course she doesn't have her own entry.

James Chilton was a tailor. He was born around 1556, probably at Canterbury, Kent, the son of Lionel Chilton. He married by 1586, but his wife's name is not known for certain. Together they had ten known children. Mary was the youngest, burn in 1607. The family moved to Leiden, part of the Puritan community there, where at least one of their older daughters married. Anderson cites a notarial record from Leiden describing an assault on James and his daughter in April 1619. Some historians believe this assault was one of the events that encouraged the Puritans to find a new, safer, home for their religious beliefs.

The Chiltons took only their youngest child with them on the Mayflower. Mary was about 13 at the time. Her eldest sister, Isabella, migrated in 1632 with her husband, Roger Chandler. There is no further record of the other children. James and his wife died in the first major infection that swept through the Mayflower passengers. He did sign the Mayflower Compact before his death. Tradition claims that their daughter, Mary, was the first Mayflower passenger to step onto Plymouth Rock. She married John Winslow by May of 1627.

Notably, this is one of the few cases where our descent from the early Puritans is not through the Kinney line, but rather through my paternal grandmother's Manary line.

Mary Chilton -- John Winslow
  - Susanna Winslow -- Robert Latham
     - James Latham -- Deliverance Alger
        - Anne Latham -- Nicholas Wade
           - John Wade -- Sarah Arbuckle
              - Hannah Wade -- James McGregor
                 - John McGregor -- Susan Baker
                    - Ellen McGregor -- William Manary
                       - Joseph Manary -- Rebecca Wilson




References:

Anderson, Robert Charles 1995 The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Juliann Carpenter and Manasseh Kempton

Here's a real treat: one of the only women to be given her own entry in Anderson's The Great Migration Begins. Sort of.

There's a whole other blog post to be written about the way Anderson organizes his volume by the male head of household, with women as the afterthought, tucked away in the "married" section. Even when women came to the Massachusetts Colony as single, independent people, they don't all get their own entry. Take Juliann. She and her three other sisters are hidden away under their youngest sister Priscilla's entry. It's not clear why the other sisters don't get their own independent entries, since all but one was in Plymouth before 1633. The last of the five sisters may also have been there, I just don't have the documentation to know at this point. They're probably discussed in more detail under their husbands' entries.

Anyway, here's the story of five sisters: Juliann, Agnes, Alice, Mary, and Priscilla, all daughters of Alexander Carpenter, who probably arrived as single women at Plymouth, or perhaps married men who then came to Plymouth, or both. 

Alexander Carpenter was from Wrington, Somersetshire. His five daughters were born between 1583 and 1598, although all dates are conjectural. He moved his family to Leiden by 1611, along with many of the other Puritans. Alexander never came to Massachusetts, but his daughters did. William Bradford wrote a letter to Mary Carpenter of Wrington, who was his wife Alice's sister, in August of 1644 or 1646 noting that the Carpenter sisters' mother had recently died and invited Mary to join them in Plymouth. Although Anderson doesn't lay it out in detail, I assume this means a) the Carpenter sisters were close kin to Alice Carpenter Bradford; b) the Carpenter sisters' mother, who is unnamed at least in Anderson's book, had also come to Massachusetts. Anderson notes that all of the sisters seem to have married a little later than was the norm for women of the time. This seems consistent (to me, at least) with their independence in coming to the colony on their own.

Juliann, our ancestor, was probably the eldest sister. She married George Morton. After she was widowed, she married Manasseh Kempton before May 1627. We are descended from their daughter, Patience Kempton. The second sister, Agnes, married Samuel Fuller. Alice married Edward Southworth and after his death William Bradford (yes, the one whose wife was her kin). Mary never married but lived until 1687 (Go girl!). Priscilla married William Wright and then John Cooper.

Is this a good time to point out how ridiculously inbred the Puritans were? By 1633, the English population of the Massachusetts Colony was still pretty small. Plus, they'd followed a type of chain migration, bringing their brothers and sisters, cousins, and in-laws to the colony once they'd settled in, narrowing their matrimonial choices even further. It's no surprise that we are descended from so many people who are listed in Anderson's book. If you have any ancestry from the early Great Migration period, you most likely are related to a significant percentage of the very small, very endogamous community that perched on the edge of Wampanoag territory.

Juliann Carpenter -- Manasseh Kempton
             - Patience Morton -- 
                 - Thomas Faunce -- 
                     - Martha Faunce -- 
                         - Mary Doty -- 
                             - Lemuel Bartlett -- 
                                  - Lydia Bartlett -- Thomas Kinney
                                      - Simeon Bartlett Kinney -- Olive Doane Kinney 

                                          - Thomas Kinney -- Mary Houghton Kinney
                                              - Julia Kinney Hancock -- Ernest Hancock




References:

Anderson, Robert Charles 1995 The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society.