Questions on Ancestors in England 1600's

[catharina]

Hi

Joshua Holland or sometimes called Josiah was a Quaker from Chatham in Kent.  He died in 1695 and left a will.  He was an active quaker contributing £7 15s to the purchasing of a burial ground in Rochester Kent in 1675 (the largest donation) He was arrested in 1683 for being more than 5 miles from his abode and imprisoned at Maidstone. He was also arrested in 1682 & 1685 in Chatham.  The Chatham St Marys Churchwarden Accounts indicate he refused to pay the church rate in 1673, 1674, 1675, 1676, 1677, 1678, 1681 & by 1683 is marked 'gone ' ie he was in prison.  Because of the clampdown on quakers in the 1680s he may have gone to London, but also his job as mariner may have made him move.  I suspect that he had 5 children & that each received 1000 acres of land in Pennsylvania.  The fifth child was presumably a daughter married to a Slany to produce a grandchild by that name.  This was a name that existed in the Chatham parish registers for that period.  Unfortunately no early Rochester Quaker Meeting records survive so his marriage or that of some of his children may not be traceable.  The court records are published in J S Cockburn 'Calendar of Assize records : Kent indictments 1676-1686'.  I have found this out doing local quaker research & would verify the information you have on the other Holland children.

Catharina

PS I work at the local archives so will check Chatham transcriptions to see if I can find a Slany who married a Holland.   

[waynedholland]

Catharina,

Thank you for the wonderful information about Joshua.  That really tells me something about the man that he was.  It is a little disheartening to find out i might never know his wifes name, or who his children married.   I think i have tracked down his grandson John Holland in Chester, Pennsylvania, he arrived in PA abt 1710 and went back to England where he married Mary Somerford in a Quaker Meeting House,  i dont have my notes right here so I dont have the Meeting Houses name offhand. John then went back to Chester PA with his new bride.  I have been trying to find any indication of John Sr's other children or his marriage but of course nothing yet, I know his wifes name was Maria, the closest record i have found so far is a mariner John Holland and Mary Kinnet marriage in Stepney in 1686.  Anthony Tomkins and Elizebeth Holland did take up a 1,000 acres of Joshuas land in Bucks County but i have been unable to track them any further.  I wonder where Thanks Holland's life took him, and I also wonder since Joshua in his will only mentioned Francis Jackson, not his daughter Hannah, and he mentionioned his granddaughter Mary Slany but not her mother, whether those two daughters had passed allready.....

Something to ponder, I love the information, thank you again i love Genealogy!

Wayne

[catharina]

Hi

I have checked Chatham transcipts, but cannot find a marriage between a Holland & Slany.

I have found out a little more about Hannah Jackson.  She died in Surrey in 1692 & had two children
Joshua in 1685 & Francis in 1687.

Another genealogy website in US (Google Public library + Tompkins + Holland) about Tompkins family estimated Anthony Tompkins dob as 1672.  Therefore he and Elizabeth would not have been married in 1690 & hence not in Joshua's will.  There is no trace of their marriage here and I would hazard a guess they married in Pennsylvania. 

Catharina

[Paul Caswell]

Hi Wayne,

If you can narrow down the dates a little for Joshua and confirm he was actually born in Chatham rather than just 'from' Chatham you may find CityArk worth a visit.

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0cz/

The registers are not transcribed or indexed but I find that makes it much more fun.

Paul

[waynedholland]

Found some more information about Anthony Tomkins and Elizabeth Holland on the Pennsylvania Side of things. They are mentioned in a compiled book of the Tomkins/Tompkins family in America.  This is what it says

Anthony Tomkins and Elizibeth Holland daughter of Joshua Holland, Quaker
had of Horsleydown
  Joshua b.  d 1726 Burlington, NJ
  John b  d Dec 10 1744 in Penn
  Robert b 1675  d May 17 1727 in Penn
  Anthony  apparently only one to remain in England
  Elizabeth b d Oct 1745 in Penn


Also some i found on Francis Jackson and Hannah Holland

their son Francis Jackson died on 31st day 3rd Month 1692 aged about 5 years

I also found a daughter Hannah Jackson died in 4th day 11 Month 1691 aged about 6 months
also a son Benjamin Jackson aged about 4 months died  18th day 6th month 1690
the birth of Joshua Jackson is noted in Middlesex reords as being 7th day 1st month 1686

all of the death records have place of records listed as being Surrey and burial in Cho.. Alley

Found Hannah Jackson's death, it says she died at Plaistow in County of Essex on 12th day 9th month 1692 of the consumption aged about 26 years

The Plaistow entry is especialy interesting because of John Holland's will mentioning it.

I found all of this on the website TheGenealogist.co.uk, very handy site. Even if i had to fork over a little cash to use it

[behindthefrogs]

A word of warning about using printed pedigrees from the USA.  They are usually based on two sources, family stories and the same sources as you are using.  Unless you can distinguish between these you should be very careful about using them as a confirmation of your own resources.

I have used a number of these and it is very interesting to find out how much of the content is correct and from where it was derived.  As an example in one of these a common ancestor was shown as born in a particular place in London which I knew was wrong.  However this fact led to me finding a bigamous marriage and his first wife and daughter living in that area of London.

David

[waynedholland]

I know exactly what you mean about printed resources in USA.  When I first started doing my families genealogies I would find information online, or I would find a complied family tree that looked great.  I soon realized that many of them contain many errors and unless there were reputeable sources included to not really trust the information.  I have seen connections that arent even possible,  ie a mother giving birth 2 years after she was born. 

Some people make huge assumptions too.  For example this May I am going to place a grave marker on my ancestor Benjamin Holland born apx 1758, previously to my research he was listed in records as having been buried in Lower Merion Friends Meeting House,  i eventually found several documents that proved he was actually buried at Lower Merion Baptist Church cemetery.    Apparently because he had buried several infants in the Quaker cemetery they archivists assumed he was buried there too. He was an American Revolutionary war veteran and finding his actual grave we can finally but a VA marker on his grave. 

Thank you all for the links and information before i posted on this chat all i really knew about Joshua Holland was that he had bought land in Pennsylvania and had died in 1690.

[catharina]

Just thought I would update you on Joshua Holland of Chatham.  If you type his name plus trade tokens in Google Books you will find that he produced his own trade token in the 1660s in Chatham. 

The book by Williamson gives a bit of info on the token. 

Good hunting

Catharina

[catharina]

I forgot to mention that if you google the same info plus ebay you will get an image of the token.

Catharina