Thanks for the help so far guys. A bit more information to maybe help put things into context, I got a lot of information from the book Ancestors and Descendants of Ephraim Forbes and Amy Fitch, by Clarence W. Vogel, written in 1957.
The beginning section talks about John Forbes/Fobes from Leiden Holland, and later Duxbury Massachusetts.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066140591;view=1up;seq=25There are two contradictory reports on when he came to America, most saying he came in 1636 with the last shipload of Puritans from the Netherlands under Reverend Robinson, but this book also mentioning an alternate date saying:
"The compiler found one unproven source of information that stated John Vobes arrived in 1632. Upon his arrival he was a tailor by trade but his landholdings indicate he took up farming as his occupation."
It does say that source was unproven, but also maybe there were two guys by the same name? I know there was a James Forbes in Hartford Connecticut around the same time. Maybe there was a John Vobes/Fobes, a tailor who came over in 1632 and my John Fobes was someone who came later? There's no evidence of John Fobes of Duxbury actually working as a tailor, he seems to have taken up agriculture right away and left 60 acres in his will to be split between two of his sons.
There is mention in that book of "An indenture between him and Isaac Allerton." Isaac Allerton was a wealthy businessman and former tailor who had lived in Leiden for a while and then moved to New England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_AllertonThere is also a letter (one that there is a microfilm of at my college that I plan on checking out when I get back) entitled "A letter from Sarient Maior Forbes from the King of Swethens army to his reverend father Mr. Iohn Forbes, minister to the Worshipful Company of Marchant Adventurers residing in Delft touching the great battle fought by Lypsick betweene the King of Swethen, the Duke of Saxons army, and the Emperours army, and that commanded by Generall Tilly, of the Catholique League the 7. of September, 1631"
So it seems there was a Sergeant-Major Forbes, son of a Reverend Forbes living in Delft, Holland, who was present at the Battle of Leipzig. I haven't read the letter yet but I plan on checking it out soon. Maybe Sergeant-Major Forbes was traumatized by the religious wars in Germany (if he was born in 1610 he would have only been about 21 at the Battle of Leipzig/Breitenfeld in 1631), and decided to come home and pursue another profession? Looking up Reverend John Forbes he later recanted his views, at did most of his sons, and returned to England and died in 1634. Maybe that resulted in an already traumatized John Jr. being isolated further from the family and he went with the Puritans to America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Breitenfeld_(1631)
I don't know what their source is but here is a short article from another family tree:
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Forbes-80"Growing up in Holland, even in an English-speaking community, gave John a soft English (I think they meant to say Dutch) accent resulting in the distortion of his Scottish surname 'Forbes' into Vobes, or Ffobes and finally Fobes. He became a tailor by trade. Thus John Fobes, as he was then called, was one of the fifteen young men who landed in Duxbury, Plymouth Colony, in 1636, with Rev. [Isaac-?] Robinson's English Puritan group that emigrated to New England from Holland. He was indentured to Isaac Allerton, whom he had doubtlessly known in Leyden for Allerton had left England for Leyden by 1611, living in its English Puritan community until he and his family emigrated to America aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Isaac Allerton was a tailor, so it was natural that John Fobes, also a tailor, would pay for his passage working for him, one of the richest men in Plymouth Colony."
Here is a DNA chart of men with the Forbes last name:
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/forbes/default.aspx?section=yresultsIt looks like some people might be a bit confused in their ancestry, as John Fobes/Forbes comes up a couple of times with different haplogroups in the list, but at least twice he is listed with the R-M269 haplogroup, which is consistent with the Forbes men from Scotland who are mentioned in that list, including a man from Aberdeen which is where the Forbes clan is supposed to originate from.
