The furthest I have got back is Robert Rickman brn 1552 in Ringwood, Hampshire. He had two sons, Nicholas and Robert Jnr. Robert Jnrs Grandson William went on to become a prominent figure in the American Revolution!
I think I got the info through a website called tribal pages.
Assuming I've found the right
tree of TribalPages, it gives the two sons' dates and places of birth as 1590 at Milford and 1602 at Pennington, respectively. Like a lot of what's on TribalPages, it gives no sources, and looking at the earliest few generations I would suggest ignoring it entirely and researching it yourself from scratch.
The dates for the two children mentioned match what I suspect is actually a longer run of RICKMAN baptisms starting in Eling with William (1587), John (1589), Robert (1590), Henry (1592), Katherine (1594), and Richard (1596); and concluding in Milford-on-Sea with George (1600) and Nicholas (1602). The TribalPages tree gives the parents as Robert RICKMAN and Elizabeth BISHOPE who married in 1590. I've no idea where that date came from, but a couple with those names married at Eling in 1577. If that's the parents' marriage, there may well be earlier children baptised elsewhere. It may be possible to confirm this by reading the will 1612A/078 in the Hampshire Archives, which I suspect is the father's. I assume the 1552 estimated date of birth is based on the father being about 25 when he married in 1577, which is a reasonable estimate.
I've followed a different line that goes back to a William RICKMAN (c1535-1599) who lived in or held property in Ringwood, Milford-on-Sea and Eling, on the west, south-west and north-east edges of the New Forest, respectively. William married twice. William and his first wife, whose name I don't know, may have had a son John (bp 1559, Eling) who died as a child; they then a had a daughter, Bridget RICKMAN (bp 1562, Eling) who married Henry LOVELL in 1577 in Eling, had seven children, and was buried there in 1615, leaving a will 1615A/52 in the Hampshire Archives. I have much information on her descendants, and on Henry's ancestors.
William's first wife presumably died and he married a widow, Joan MITCHELL (or MICHAEL?), probably c1575. I do not know Joan's maiden name, nor the given name of her first husband by whom she had two children by him: Joan MITCHELL (b c1560; m John RAKE, 1582, Eling; bur 1640, Eling) and Elizabeth MITCHELL (b c1560; m John ALDRIDGE, 1580, Eling). William and Joan RICKMAN probably had a son William (bp 1577, Eling) who died as a child; they then had a daughter Katherine RICKMAN (bp 1578, Eling), who married David URRY in 1594 in Eling, where two children were baptised before they moved to Freshwater on the Isle of Wight.
William RICKMAN died in 1599 and was buried in Eling, leaving property inventoried at £1123, both in Milford and Ringwood parishes. His second wife Joan died in 1606 and was buried in Ringwood. Both left wills, 1599A/65 in the Hampshire Archives and PROB11/108/141 in the National Archives, respectively. William's will mentions a brother Robert RICKMAN. Assuming a first child in 1559, a birth of c1535 seems a reasonable estimate. If William was one of the eldest of many children and Robert one of the youngest, it's possible that the brother is the Robert who marred Elizabeth BISHOP, and the age gap needn't be as much as the 17 years between the two estimates.
There was also a Morris RICKMAN who had two children baptised in Ringwood: John (1575) & Nicholas (1579); he is likely the Morris RICKMAN who married Mary S___ as Ringwood in 1564. He is also probably the person who was a defendant in the Chancery case
Lovell v Wells between Henry & Bridget LOVELL (the daughter of William RICKMAN discussed above), and Gilbert WELLS and Morris RICKMAN over the manor of Bockhampton in Christchurch. I've not yet read the particulars of the case, C2/Eliz/L12/10 in the National Archives, but it's indexed under Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603), and clearly after 1577 as Henry and Bridget were married. If Morris married in 1564, he could well be a brother of William RICKMAN and/or Robert RICKMAN; if so, the Chancery case may identify Morris as Bridget's uncle; and if the matter was one of inheritance, Morris's father could be named too.
Richard
[email: richard AT ex HYPHEN parrot DOT com]
