English roots of John Dunham prior to 1632

[SarahD]

My 8th great grandfather is John Dunham, who migrated from England (via Leiden, Holland) landing in Plymouth in 1632. I believe him to be a descendent of Richard Dunham of Langford, Bedfordshire (buried 19 Nov 1624 Langford, England). I would like to find at least one additional validation of this information (or a verified source to the contrary) and history of any known predecessors.

This information on John Dunham's parentage is based on two records: 1. A baptismal record found for a John Dunham, father Richard Dunham in 1587 at Pirton, Hertfordshire, which was on ancestry.com (England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975) 2. The will of Richard Dunham located in the Archdeaconry Court of Bedford, which was photographed by Bedfordshire Family History Society researcher Mary Wooldridge.

I am basing my tree on only those written documents that can be verified as reliable - and that does not include family trees with dubious or non-existent sources. One such dubious source is Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists/Who Came to America before 1700, created by Frederick Lewis Weis and continued by Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. (published by the Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc).

The family lineage from John Dunham's arrival in Plymouth forward is well documented; however, due to some tampering to "upscale" our ancestors, where his Dunham line started is murky at best. For example, some family trees have us linked to a suspiciously glorious set of the rich and royals, the famous and infamous, going back to Yves de Creil I, who died in Beleme Perche, France, abt. 997.

Any assistance will be welcome, including other references and sources.

I would also be glad to share information I have if anyone on this forum is looking for information on my Dunham line from the New World side.

[janbooth]

I am not sure if you already have this information, but in case not my Bedfordshire Name Index shows the marriage at Clophill, Bedfordshire for a Jn DUNHAM in 1612. As it is only a name index, it does not show to whom he was married nor the actual date, but FindmyPast has the transcription of a marriage for a John DUNHAM at Clophill on 17 August 1612 to a Susan KAINO and this is corroborated by an Ancestry transcription for the same marriage. Ancestry have a baptismal transcription for a John DUNHAM son of John & Susan at Henlow on 19 February 1615 (presumably 1615/16) and a baptism for a John DUNHAM at Henlow in 1615 is corroborated by my Bedfordshire Name Index. However, I cannot find any DUNHAM records earlier than the 1612 marriage on the Bedfordshire Name Index, so this may indicate that the DUNHAM family were not originally from Bedfordshire although obviously I do not know how comprehensive the Name Index is.

Doing a Google Book search for Richard DUNHAM of Langford brings up an ebook of "My American Family" which quotes extracts from his Will and states that he was a Poulterer in Langford but you obviously already have a copy of the details of his Will so that probably doesn't give any unknown information. It does, however, mention son William & his son Richard, son Richard, daughter Anne & her son Richard & a daughter Elizabeth. FindmyPast's Hertfordshire PR Transcriptions does give the baptism of a William DUNHAM on 7 January 1581 at Pirton - no father shown - and a Richard DUNHAM baptised 17 January 1596 at Pirton son of Richard DUNHAM as well as the baptism on 8 February 1589 at Pirton of John son of Richard DUNHAM. However, I haven't found the baptisms of daughters Anne and Elizabeth I'm afraid.

Janet

[helachau]

Have had a peep at "Dunham Singletary" Family Connections" and Richard Dunham's will. What links John Dunham, Plymouth to this will other than it includes a mention of a"Sonn John Dunham"?

[marymog]

Hi

I had the same problem as you with an ancestor that went to America in the 1600s, funnily enough he was rumoured to have come from Bedfordshire and his name was ~John(no connection to you). A man published a book in the 1900s, full of guesswork, which was taken as gospel and John is on so many family trees and internet pages, all taking him back to a family of baronets, with so many "sirs" in the family that some have taken his lineage back to NOAH! Have been researching this fella for years, but as updates came to Ancestry and other sites, we managed to find his marriage and early death in London, (so it wasnt him in Carolina)

The name was not very common, and we had every line of every John of that name born in England in his time frame. Then another update to FMP listing Wills of Essex and the people named in them, and finally managed to find the surname of a lady that married into the family, so added her line to the tree.Then hey presto, there was our john living in Carolina where he later had a massive family, and there he was in the correct area living with his mothers brother in the year that he first went to the US.

So if you want to find your John, then first you have to find the correct family. Your only lead is The first wife Kaino, a nice unusual name, on searching the bedfordshire archives there are many spellings of that name, and on the british history online clophill is interesting especially the first paragraph, which could give clues to the former spelling of the name.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch...vol2/pp320-325

this piece has a william caynhoo of haynes, a village very near to Clophill, and down the page one or two dunhams all in the right timeframe.

https://rbscarchives.library.ubc.ca/u...s_Calendar.pdf

as i said also the bedfordshire archives make interesting reading.

Back in the early 1600s travel wasnt easy, so many families married cousins and also into the same families more than once,(my lot did) they had a limited social life, usually taking place in a local parish and market town. so if you can establish susans lineage you may well come across a couple of Dunhams. Also followed William Caynhoo to Little Woolstone,Buckingham, three Caynhoo marriages in the right timeframe. lots of names to research. good luck, you may hit gold. ...... mary

[SarahD]

Janet - Thank you so much for your assistance. I have only recently returned to my post (for the first time, and shame on me). Since my original inquiry, I have also found the baptismal records for all three of Richard Dunham's sons (William, John, and Richard, the younger), which all took place in Pirton. There is a small group of Dunhams in Hertfordshire who use the same church in Pirton and who might be related to "my" Bedfordshire Dunhams.
I have not been so fortunate with Richard Dunham's daughters. There is a record of a 19 Jan 1591 marriage in Bedfordshire between Anne Dunham and William Chaplin that is promising, but no parents are named. The only record I have located that may be Elizabeth's is another Bedfordshire marriage, on 21 Sep 1615, between Elizabeth Dunham and John Hyde.
Another Dunham researcher believes that Richard (senior) may be the son of William Dunham (b 1517) and Elyzabeth Butte (b.1520) who married in Norfolk on 28 Aug 1539.
One of the most recent UK sources I found was a collection of online parish records, which I forgot to bookmark. Thank goodness for online history tracking.
Thank you again.

[SarahD]

Thank you, Mary!

Your suggestions to follow the Kaino bride's lead is great. Guess I have been chasing Dunham's too long to see the obvious. The Clophill online information is wonderful. Too back I am going on vacation tomorrow; otherwise, I would be nose down on the hunt. Thanks, too, for the heads up about potential Dunhams in the Kaino lineage. I must say, the Dunhams do get around; my mother had heard that there was a cross-over or two between her line (Isenhart) and my father's Dunham ancestors, probably somewhere in Illinois.

Had to laugh when reading your first paragraph. The same web of (fake) illustrious ancestors was written up for the Dunham family, too. First I found a Knight, then there were more and more titled characters in OPTs (other people's trees). I didn't get to Noah, but Charlemagne was on the horizon. I looked at the early family history written about my one legitimately well-known ancestor (my 8th great grandfather) then dig up facts on line. It took me forever to lop the imposters out of my tree. Some OPTs still have all the heralds, titles, crests, crowns and hoopla. I try never to look at OPTs any more. Church records, government records, military records and the like are all I trust - slowly but surely the family tree are falling out of my records.

Thank you again and I cannot wait to get back to your message and cull out your suggestions.

Sarah

[janbooth]

Hello again Sarah,

I don't know whether this will be any help but I had a look at Hertfordshire Archives Names Online site and it shows that they hold the Will of a Richard DUNHAM, Labourer of Pirton, dated 1683 - probably a bit late for you but it may hold some information. The earliest marriage I can find at Pirton is that of an Agnis DUNHAM to an Ed TAPSTER on 5 May 1642 - again probably a bit late for you.

Looking at FindmyPast's Bedfordshire Transcriptions brings up the marriage of an Elizabeth DONHAM at Arlesey in 1615 to a John HYD which could perhaps be relevant. Also a baptism for a Susan DONHAM in 1610/11 father William which again could be relevant given that Richard DUNHAM's wife was Susan KAINO. Several other baptisms at Arlesey for children of William DONHAM including a Richard.

Perhaps relevant to Susan KAINO is a burial record at Shillington (pretty close to Clophill) for a John KAYNHO in 1590 - again from FMP.

Have a great holiday and I hope some of the information is useful for when you get back.

Janet

[cicilysmith]

I am interested in the Dunham/Singletary line, because several of them appear on my husband's Matches page for his Y-DNA at FTDNA. His own line is back to North Staffordshire in the early 1700s, but this is nowhere near Bedfordshire and the relationship is probably before surnames were developed. cicilysmith

[marymog]

Thank you, Mary!

Your suggestions to follow the Kaino bride's lead is great. Guess I have been chasing Dunham's too long to see the obvious. The Clophill online information is wonderful. Too back I am going on vacation tomorrow; otherwise, I would be nose down on the hunt. Thanks, too, for the heads up about potential Dunhams in the Kaino lineage. I must say, the Dunhams do get around; my mother had heard that there was a cross-over or two between her line (Isenhart) and my father's Dunham ancestors, probably somewhere in Illinois.

Had to laugh when reading your first paragraph. The same web of (fake) illustrious ancestors was written up for the Dunham family, too. First I found a Knight, then there were more and more titled characters in OPTs (other people's trees). I didn't get to Noah, but Charlemagne was on the horizon. I looked at the early family history written about my one legitimately well-known ancestor (my 8th great grandfather) then dig up facts on line. It took me forever to lop the imposters out of my tree. Some OPTs still have all the heralds, titles, crests, crowns and hoopla. I try never to look at OPTs any more. Church records, government records, military records and the like are all I trust - slowly but surely the family tree are falling out of my records.

Thank you again and I cannot wait to get back to your message and cull out your suggestions.

Sarah

Sarah,

The best thing to do is to try to disprove what others are saying, once disproven you make great steps with the ones that are left. (Unfortunately Cainhoes also went toVirginia so online are several versions of their history!) keep away from their trees, unless you want to be related to Adam, Eve or himself.


Worked a long time to disprove the Baronetcy direct line in my lot. What happened back then was the First born son got all the goodies and the subsequent sons were either sent to university in order to become clergymen or barristers or such. The clergy mainly lived the life of Riley, they didnt need any degrees in religious studies. It was the solution to C of E after Henry the 8th took a dislike to Papists. just needed to have been to Uni to run the churches.(for instance Reverend William Caynhoo of Woolston Parva, Buckinghamshire seems to have been clerk(clergyman) in the right area on( Bedfordshire,archives) though it could just be a coincidence) Sons further down the pecking order were given apprenticeships. My lot were always way down the pecking order so over the centuries they went lower and lower down the ranks. The Poor American families are finding it difficult to accept that their patriarch in Carolina came from a middling gentlemans family, with a very super far off link to the Baronets, Noah and the Ark

The Caynhoes must have been something to do with William the Conqueror, the castle was occupied until the coming of the Black Death in 1348, (but not by Caynhoes.)
It appears that the entire population of the castle and the surrounding village died, and the site was abandoned. By 1374 the castle was reported in ruins. It was never rebuilt.

Surnames began with the Norman conquest. From my lot, I saw that the surname was from a wealthy family( King Charles I minions and knighted henchmen), and as you know, surnames were chosen also by trade (miller, thatcher,baker and so on) for people without a particular trade or occupation, they chose from where they came from. My lot had three villages named after this surname and where the villages had been, there were plenty of families still living in the nearby area, with the name of the said village, even up to the 1860s, before they all were forced to go to towns because work was becoming scarce in villages during the industrial revolution.

So maybe you have to find your Caynhos near to Clophill, not necessarily in Clophill, but also could be good. Bearing in mind the spelling, which was given for records by the uneducated by dictation, so could have any spelling that sounds the same. But by the educated the name was usually spelt nearly correctly.I found some wills of my bedfordshire bunch in the Prerogative court of Canterbury wills (on Ancestry) though the spelling can change a lot, its very old handwriting and its according to the transcriber how it is interpreted.

Also found some of mine on the Church of England clergyman listings, and on the listings of Cambridge uni. (two caynhos(various spellings) at cambridge)

this website underneath is usefull, to be searched in every which way with Caynhoe/ Dunham Bedfordshire, or by checking the parish registers, which include the Clophill registers. The Shillington registers have a John Caynho banging out daughters every year or two but no susan among them.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=bedfordshire


not to forget apprenticeships and freemen listings. there are also bedfordshire apprenticeships to be found online.

also search for caynhoo names on google books, these books go back into early times where the names begin as "de Caynhoo" (from Caynhoo)or other spellings, also very interesting.

this should keep you busy for a very long time. good luck Mary