Rebecca Graves

Rebecca married Capt. Samuel Adams before 1652. Samuel (son of Henry Adams and Edith Squire) was born about 1617; died on 24 Jan 1689 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Susanna Adams died on 16 Mar 1741 in Pomfret, Windham, Connecticut.
2. Rebecca Adams was born about 1654 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts; died on 17 Sep 1727 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts
• Baptised: 16 Jun 1605, Stepney, Middlesex, England

Notes:

He was a shipmaster who settled in Charlestown, and made frequent voyages back and forth across the Atlantic. He fought in the English Civil War, where he attained the rank of Rear Admiral. He should not be confused with the Thomas Graves, an engineer who arrived in New England in 1629, settling at Charlestown, who apparently returned to England in 1633.

Thomas married Katherine Gray. Katherine (daughter of Thomas Gray and Katherine Myles) was born before 30 Jun 1605; was christened on 30 Jun 1605 in Sutton, Suffolk, England; died on 21 Feb 1683 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachussets. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also spelled Greaves. He was a shipbuilder of some standing in Stepney. In 1603 he is recorded as a vestryman there.

His will of 1 Aug 1637 leaves "to John, William, and Rebecca, children of my son Thomas Greaves £10 each when 21", also to "son Thomas and his heirs house where I now dwell near Dickshore in Lymehouse." His son Thomas is named one of his executors.

The fold-out pedigree chart in Eben Putnam's "Notes on the Ancestry and Connections of 'Rear Admiral' Thomas Graves of Charlestown, Mass." (Essex Institute Historical Collections 31:174, 1895) — which is visible only on the copy on archive.org, not on Google Books or Hathitrust — indicates that this John Graves was a son of Henry Greaves of Stepney and his wife Margaret, who married on 8 Jul 1590. But the same article notes that this John Graves was a vestryman in Stepney in 1603, which seems an unlikely position for a boy of thirteen or less.

John married Sarah Malter on 6 Apr 1597 in Stepney, Middlesex, England. Sarah was born before 8 Nov 1579; was christened on 8 Nov 1579 in Stepney, Middlesex, England; died before Jun 1624. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Ratcliffe, Middlesex, England

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Harwich, Essex, England

Notes:

We are showing that the father of this Thomas Gray was Richard Gray who died in 1602 and was a well-connected sea captain, and whose widow Josian went on to marry Christopher Jones, later the captain of the Mayflower on its 1620-1621 voyage to the New World. This seems at the very least plausible, given that Thomas Gray's widow Katherine Myles went on to marry, as her second husband, Rowland Coytmore, also a sea-captain with strong connections to the burgeoning industry of global colonization.

Set against this, we feel obliged to note that our only documentation for Richard Gray as the father of this Thomas Gray is the 1880 article "Gray and Coytmore" by William S. Appleton (citation details below), the opening sentence of which gives us pause: "Long and careful researches have been made by myself, and for me by the late Horatio G. Somerby..." To the best of our knowledge, William S. Appleton was a respectable contributor to 19th-century genealogical periodicals, but Horatio G. Somerby, after his death, was found to have been an industrious and indefatigable genealogical fraudster.

An image of the will of Richard Gray who d. 1602 is on the web site of the Essex Record Office (essexarchivesonline.co.uk, reference number D/ABW 17/43), but the publicly-visible thumbnail is not legible, and given our still-imperfect skills with 16th-century handwriting, it seems unlikely that we could reliably read it even if we paid the fee to view the full-sized image. An abstract of Richard Gray's will of 28 Jun 1602 is on page 174 of Eben Putnam's 1894 "Notes on the Ancestry and Connections of 'Rear Admiral' Thomas Graves of Charlestown, Mass." (Essex Institute Historical Collections, volume 31), but the abstract mentions only wife "Josnam", brother John Gray, and father Thomas Gray, which does nothing to establish Thomas Gray who d. 1607 as a son of this Richard Gray. The same page of Putnam's article also contains an abstract of this Thomas Gray's will of 16 Aug 1606, which "mentions wife Katherine to whom land in Sutton; late Robert Miles her father; brother-in-law Thomas Wyseman; son Thomas; daughters Susan, Parnell and Katherine Graye." The presence of a daughter named Susan does, at least, provide some slight onomastic evidence for Thomas as a son of Richard by Richard's first wife Susan, as stated in Appleton's 1880 article.

Thomas married Katherine Myles on 30 Apr 1593 in Sutton, Suffolk, England. Katherine (daughter of Robert Myles and Parnell Reve) was born before 17 Mar 1576; was christened on 17 Mar 1576 in Sutton, Suffolk, England; died on 29 Nov 1659 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachussets. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also spelled Catheryn.

Notes:

According to David A. Male's pamphlet "Christopher Jones and the Mayflower Expedition 1620-1621", he was "a noted mariner with connections to the captains of the Armada fleet and treasure hunting in the Indies."

See the entry for Thomas Gray who d. 1607, shown here as this Richard Gray's son, for some observations about the evidence for this Richard as the father of that Thomas.

Richard married Susan. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Robert married Parnell Reve on 23 Oct 1574 in Buxton, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He is mentioned in the will of his son Richard Gray, which calls him "deceased in Church Lane" and mentions lands owned by Richard's father in Harwich, Dover court, and Ramsey.

William S. Appleton's 1880 article (citation details below) states that this Thomas Gray was in turn the son of another Thomas Gray, also of Harwich, but we know of no evidence for this.

Jafferye married Alice. Alice died before 29 Dec 1570; was buried on 29 Dec 1570 in Sutton, Suffolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]