423. Whitcomb

Outline

1. Thomas Whitcomb (d. 1619) m. ca. 1585 Johanna Pope (1560?–1629); Taunton, Somerset, Eng.
2. John Whitcomb (bef. 1598–1662) m. 1623 Frances Cogan (1606–1671); Taunton, Somerset, Eng.; Hingham, Lancaster, Mass.
3. Jonathan Whitcomb (ca. 1636–bef. 1691) m. 1667 Hannah ____ (d. 1692); Lancaster, Mass.
4. Jonathan Whitcomb (1669–1715) m. (1) Mary ?Joslin (d. bef. 1710); Lancaster, Groton, Mass.
5. Joseph Whitcomb (ca. 1692–bef. 1738) m. Elizabeth Wheeler (1678–aft. 1728); Littleton, Stow, Lancaster, Mass.
6. Joseph Whitcomb (1714–aft. 1796) m. Mary ____ (d. aft. 1749); Reading, Mass.; Ellington, Tolland, Conn.
7. Mary Whitcomb (ca. 1747–1830) m. 1763 Joseph Wood (1741–1810); Ellington, Tolland, Conn.; Dalton, Mass.; New Berlin, N. Y.

Sources

Attention is directed to the research of Robin Bush, in Search for the Passengers of the Mary & John, 1630, vol. 26 (Toledo, Ohio: Burton W. Spear, 1997), 61-73, for the English generations. Bush establishes that Thomas was a brother of John Whetcombe, mercer of Sherborne, Dorset, whose will of 1598, from PCC 76 Lewyn, was abstracted ibid., vol. 18 (Toledo, Ohio: Burton W. Spear, 1992), 150. Their further ancestry has not been determined.

Robert Charles Anderson, George Freeman Sanborn Jr., and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634–1635, 7 vols. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999–2011), 7:326-31, provides a useful biography of John Whitcomb, together with a bibliography of standard sources. Among the printed genealogies of John’s family, the most reliable general treatment is Charlotte Whitcomb, The Whitcomb Family in America: A Biographical Genealogy with a Chapter on Our English Forbears by the Name of Whetcombe (Minneapolis, 1904). Whitcomb often ignored families whose connection with John was not easily documented, however, and the follow-up work by Mary Anne R. Shepherd, John Whitcomb and Frances Coggin 350 Years Later, 2 vols. (Del Mar, Calif., 1981), contains numerous errors and no documentation. The maiden name of the younger Jonathan Whitcomb’s wife continues to be a point of contention. Her placement in the Josselyn family is accepted by Edith S. Wessler, comp., The Jocelyn–Joslin–Joslyn–Josselyn Family (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1961), 83, but not T. W. Harris, Notes on the Josselyn Family, of Massachusetts, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 2 (1848): 306-10, at 307-8, or Elizabeth French, Genealogical Research in England: Josselyn, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 71 (1917) 17-33, 227-57, at 256. The last three generations of this line are developed most fully by Austin W. Spencer, Joseph⁴ and Elizabeth (Wheeler) Whitcomb of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and Some of Their Descendants, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 169 (2015): 121-30, 245-55.

Related surnames

13537. Cogan · 27073. Pope · 1693. Wheeler · 211, 419. Wood