Wednesday, April 08, 2009

William Carpenter and the Geneabloggers

William Carpenter, passenger on the Bevis in May of 1638, surely would be surprised to find that Midge Frazel and Randy Seaver, both genealogists are his descendants.

Randy's blog post about finding corrections to his Carpenter line from Carpenter guru, Gene Zubrinsky caught my attention as Gene helped me with my Carpenter mystery in January of 2007 as I attempted to get help with Molly Carpenter, wife of Japheth Bicknell. Christopher Challender Child, of NEHGS wrote an article 159:319 which helped clear up some of the inaccuracies in the Bicknell line, which I would never have figured out by myself (Thanks!) but it still left me wondering about Molly's ancestors. Gene spent significant time figuring it out for me and warned me of the "dangers of historical books" which has become a worry to us who are trying to find accurate information.

Molly Carpenter7 born about 1751 in Cumberland, RI was the daughter of Nathaniel6 and Elizabeth (Butterworth) Carpenter of Attleborough. [Cumberland, RI was set off from Attleborough, MA, which was once part of Rehoboth, MA] Nathaniel was the son of Ezekiel5 and Sarah (Ide) Carpenter and he had a sister named Molly who died as a teenager and probably my Molly was named in her memory.

Ezekiel5 was the son of Nathaniel and Mary (Preston) Carpenter.
Nathaniel4 was the son of William and Miriam ("Saile") Carpenter
William3 was the son of William2 and Abigail (Briant) Carpenter
William2 was the son of William1 Carpenter (came together on the Bevis from England)

I am grateful to my RI friend who is also a descendant of William Carpenter for helping me with many of my RI lines. He took a photo of the grave marker of William who is buried in what is now East Providence, RI

3 comments:

Lori Thornton said...

I need to do further research, but I may be a cousin to you and Randy. I haven't really worked my Carpenter line, but it supposedly goes back to William also. If I ever get caught up on some of these other projects, maybe I can take a little time and investigate some of the claims.

Family Curator said...

Sounds like a cautionary tale for relying on compiled books.

Will you and Randy be meeting at a family reunion anytime soon?

Wendy said...

Ooh, this helps me too. I haven't really explored my Carpenter line, but now that I know William came on the Bevis, I'll definitely make a note of it. Thanks!