When We Were English, Part XXXVII

Additional Evidence of Buckinghamshire Roots

By Glenn N. Holliman

This article continues my series on Holliman English Roots and my 2011 revealing visit with another Holliman genealogist, Bob Hollyman-Mawson of Carnarvon, Wales.  The photo below captures Bob along the Carnarvon waterfront.  Bob has always felt the call of the sea serving aboard a British aircraft carrier in the 1960s.  During my visit to his sea port city in late 2011, we explored our families' histories.

In previous articles at this site, I have presented evidence that American Hollimans have English roots.  A quick summary of my thesis is as follows:

- Christopher Holyman, Sr., who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1650 and died in 1691, had been born in 1618 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England,  (My generation’s 7^th great grandfather)

- and that his father was Thomas Holyman of Bedford, who was schooled and raised in the  late 1500s in nearby Sherington, Buckinghamshire, and is listed in his father’s will as a second son, (If this thesis be correct, Thomas is my 8^th GGF)

- and that Thomas’s father was one Christopher Holyman whose will was administered in Sherington, Buckinghamshire in 1589, (Making this Christopher my 9^th GGF)

- and now thanks to information provided by Bob Hollyman-Mawson, the above Christopher, according to his will, died in 1588 in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, evidently Christopher’s childhood home and the location of a prominent Holyman family.

- and further in 1558, one Thomas Holyman died in Cuddington and in his will left legacies to several children, one being a Christopher Holyman!  Serious question – is this Christopher Holyman the gentle man who died in 1588 in Cuddington and whose will was proved in Sherington, 30 or so miles north, the same Christopher listed in this 1558 will? 

                                       

Right, Bob Hollyman-Mawson shows a display and photographs of his Hollyman research. He has in hand information from the original records concerning the wills of Christopher Holyman (1589) and Thomas Holyman (1558), both of Buckinghamshire, England. 


Bob is a post-graduate of the University of Wales, Bangor where he earned an honours degree in Linguistics with the English Language as well as a Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.  He is fluent in the Welsh language, still spoken by over a million persons.

Is this Thomas Holyman who died in 1558 in Cuddington my generation’s 10^th great grandfather?!

If so, then we seem to have found the missing piece of evidence tying the American Holymans to the paradoxical families of The Rt. Rev. John Holyman, Roman Catholic Bishop of Bristol, and enemy of the Reformation and Ezekiel Holyman, a Nonconformist and a founder of the Baptist Church in Rhode Island, USA!

Next posting, the quest continues....