Preserving our Past for the Future

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Annual Review with Jeanette Holiman Stewart

Forty-three thousand plus names, almost twenty thousand photos, 2,000 stories and over 200,000 records!  

That is the total to date of the items Jeanette has loaded into the Hollyman Tree at Ancestry.com web site over the past six years.  Most days of the year, when not visiting grandchildren with her husband Jim, playing with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Henry, she is keyboarding away adding leaves to the ever expanding Hollyman Tree.

Below, Jim and Jeanette Holiman Stewart at
Indian Shores, Florida

Conceptualized by Joseph Parker, Lynn Royal Holliman, Tina Peddie, Glenda Norris, Jeanette and this writer, today the extended  Hollyman families (and all our various spellings) have a tremendous resource to discover their ancestors and many branches of cousins.

Others have joined Jeanette's committee - Denise Keeter Goff, Sue Jones, Allen Holleman, Chris Holliman and more.

"Adding names to the Tree is often detective work.  Names can be similar or the same in any locality.  In recent generations I have to deal with multiple marriages or relationships within a life-time which means children by multiple partners. It can be so confusing so one must be careful. 

I note adoptions when the evidence is there. If a long time relationship, but not confirmed legally, I will include a note.  Also, now we have same-sex marriages; one I will list as spouse.

Right, Barb L. Holliman, Glenn's wife, and Jeanette sharing lunch along the St. Petersburg waterfront.

I love the search, finding a gem; its exciting finding fresh lines I have never heard of.  Connecting various branches is fun when family lines click together!  Some branches are just floating; later on we find a record that defines such. 

Some branches are so fascinating - public speakers, educators, naturalists for example, such cool families in the 19th century when the country was younger and poorer.  So many have done remarkable things.

And we have so many soldiers in the Tree.  I am so proud of the service Hollymans (various spellings) and allied families have done to preserve our country.  They may have been simple farmers, but they performed exceptional service for the nation."


We are so grateful for her service to our extended family.  To contact Jeanette directly, email her at htreekeeper@outlook.com. - GNH

When We Were English, Part 60

by Glenn N. Holliman

Distant Cousins Unite at Holyman Sites in England....

In the last article in this space, we published information on the positive DNA analysis that demonstrated that Glenn N. Holliman of Pennsylvania, USA and Lindsay Holliman, Braybrooke, UK share a common male ancestor.  Both Lindsay's and Glenn's paper trails lead back to Buckinghamshire.  On June 18, 2014, both distant cousins, their wives and local historians visited Holyman sites of earlier centuries.

Below, Glenn and Lindsay swap information at the Long Crendon Manor House in Buckinghamshire, England.  Lindsay's great, great grandfather, John Holliman (1831-1907) worked at the house, which was first constructed in the 12th Century.

Below the exterior of the manor house, located only 3 miles from the Holyman farm in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire.  Lindsay's great grandfathers were born in Cuddington, and in the 1790s, a multi-great grandfather, James Holliman relocated to Long Crendon.

Below, Lindsay discusses 'grave' matters in the St. Nicholas parish church cemetery in Cuddington with the warden, who was doing lawn work.  Twenty years ago Lindsay found, still readable, one of the stones of Mary Holliman, which read 'In memory of Mary, widow of James Holliman, who died 28 day of May 1817, age 77 years'.  She was a first cousin, 7 times removed.  Unfortunately time has now erased her name from her gravestone.  Many great grandparents of American and English Hollimans (and various spellings) are resting in and around the church.

Below, at the Cuddington Crown Pub, left to right: Anne Holmes of Buckinghamshire whose genealogical skills have opened up exciting new understandings of Holliman family history; Lindsay Holliman; Caroline Stonham, the owner of the Holyman's Farm today and an accomplished geographer; Barbara Holliman, wife of Glenn Holliman, and Madeleine Holliman, wife of Lindsay.

Next post, more on the English roots of the American Holymans (Hollimans et al)....

When We Were English, Part XVIL

by Glenn N. Holliman

Somerset, England...A Home for Hollymans

In the late Fall 2011, Bob Hollyman-Mawson of Wales arranged a visit for my wife and me to call on Fred Cooper, related by marriage to the Hollyman families of Somerset, England.  For the past few articles, I have been giving a tour of the area and reproducing some photos I took of locations where Hollymans lived.

In the house below lived in the 19th Century a family named Hollyman.  Today, still occupied, the white stucco, thatched roof home in Clevedon is bracketed by roses and protected by a stone fence.

Our genial guide for our tour of Greater Bristol, England was Fred Cooper, a devoted genealogist who has catalogued hundreds of his wife's ancestors.  Below in his Bristol home, Fred shows some of his research to Barbara Holliman.

Below, Fred relaxes in an English pub after a morning of sharing with two Americans his knowledge of Hollymans in  Abbots Leigh and the Gordano Valley, a picturesque part of Somerset where the Bristol Channel serves as a water bridge uniting England and Wales. Thanks to Fred's kindness and an introduction by Bob Hollyman-Mawson, American and British cousins were brought closer together.

Our thanks to both for a greater understanding of our U.K roots.





Next article back to the States for some more amazing Holliman cousins....

When We Were English, Part XXIV

Back to England for More Research!

by Glenn N. Holliman

As I have written in earlier posts, in the spring of 2010, my wife and I did considerable research on the Holyman family in the Tring, Hertfordshire and Cuddington, Buckinghamshire areas of England.  The two villages are approximately a dozen or so miles apart, and in the 15th to 17th Centuries contained families named Holliman (Hollyman, etc.)

A highway leads from Cuddington, Buckinghamshire through the English countryside.  The Rt. Rev. John Holyman and other Holymans were born in Buckingham, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire in the 1400s and 1500s.  More and more evidence suggests these persons are the ancestors of the Virginia Hollimans of the 17th Century.

As described several of these Holymans became prominent; one The Rt. Rev. John Holyman (1495 – 1558) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bristol, England and was caught up in the English Counter Reformation.  Another Holyman, Ezekiel, a great nephew of Bishop Holyman, ironically helped found the Baptist Church in Rhode Island.

Additional research by cousins in the States in 2010 revealed parish records of St. Mary’s in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England that registered a Holliman family that in the early 1600s gave birth to children named, among others, Christopher (b 1618)  and Judith ( b 1621)).  Two persons with these names migrated to Jamestown, Virginia in 1650. 

Judith disappears to history (probably married to one of the surplus males in the colony) and Christopher to marry, have six children and prosper financially.  He left a plantation of 1,020 acres at his death in 1691, and is credited with being the founder of all the Hollimans and various spellings in the now United States. 

And So to Bedfordshire
So in the spring of 2011, my wife and I sailed to England to research further the Holliman family (with its various spellings). In addition to American cousins doing considerable research, we have been assisted by a family researcher in Bedfordshire, one Peter Smith, seen below in the photo with the author in May 2011.  We are reviewing materials over lunch at the Swan Hotel in Bedford, Bedfordshire, north of London.

In May 2011, two couples met at the historic Swan Hotel in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England to review genealogical materials pertinent to the Holyman family.  John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, lunched here in the middle 1600s.  Left to right are Maureen Smith, Barbara Holliman, my wife, Peter Smith, a family historian and member of the local genealogical society, and yours truly.  One can observe that not all family history research and sharing occurs in a musty archives.  More of that later.

Peter had not found (nor did I) Holymans in Bedford before the 1609 marriage of Thomas Holyman, and the subsequent birth of his children.  Peter, in his research, however, had found a John Holman born 1560 in Woburn, Bedfordshire, approximately 15 miles south of Bedford and 15 miles north of Tring, Hertfordshire.  This John married early – 1575, but no wife is named.

While young, it may have been a required marriage as one Thomas Holiman was born in Woburn in 1576.  Two other children are recorded of that marriage – Robert, b 1581 and Joan, 1586, both born in Woburn.    Hmmm…..interesting.  Could this Thomas be Christopher Holyman, Sr.’s father?  Some believe this Woburn, Bedfordshire Thomas is an ancestor of ours.

Next posting in Woburn, Bedfordshire....