The Annual Meeting with Jeanette Holiman Stewart

Our Annual Review
by Glenn N. Holliman

Jeanette Holiman Stewart is the keeper of the amazing Hollyman Ancestry.com tree.  For the last four winters she and I (photograph on the right) have gathered in her Florida home and reviewed our activities the previous year.

Check her Hollyman Ancestry Tree and you will discover the work that she and other genealogists in the family have accomplished.   Here are the numbers for what are now many years of achievement.


People - 54,931
Photos - 25,808
Stories - 2009
Records - 250,332    

If there be anything you wish to know about the family in the USA, contact her through the Ancestry site.  You do not need to be a member to review the Tree and can send her a message concerning an ancestor.  Odds are she will have information for you.

The Passing of Robert Hollyman-Mawson
(1948-2019)

Our time together this year was joyous and sad.  Sad because we lost a talented Hollyman genealogist, Robert Hollyman-Mawson of Bangor, Wales.  Bob died last fall after years of ill health.  Many of you had exchanged emails with him in the past decade.

Left, Bob in 1965 as a young sailor in the British Royal Navy.  He was very proud of his service.

In January, I flew over to Wales and with the kind permission and encouragement of his surviving daughter who lives in Canada, took possession of his worldly goods.  There were boxes of personal items now saved and to be delivered to his daughter when I return from England in June 2020 on the Queen Mary.  There are also seven boxes of genealogical materials saved for scanning and sharing on the www.bholliman.com virtual archives.  

It will be summer (coronavirus permitting) before I can return with the materials and begin posting them for Hollyman genealogists to utilize.  We all are grateful to his daughter for making this possible.

America and Australia Connect

A much more joyous event was receiving an email last month from Michael Hollyman of Australia.  Mike and I now have been trading emails and information back and forth for several weeks.  Working closely with Mike, I hope to begin sharing information on the Hollyman families of New Zealand and Australia via this blog.

Most intriguing is evidence Mike shared of DNA evidence that the Hollymans of Somerset, England and Wales indeed are related to the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire Hollymans from which most American Hollimans (various spellings) descend.  Over the years, Bob Hollyman Mawson and I had fretted about closing this gap between these two branches.  

A significant portion of Mike's information was collected and published by his late father, K. J. (Jim)  Hollyman of New Zealand and his Welsh genealogical partner,  Dennis Hollyman.   More on all this in later writings!

Genealogy is the recording of transitions.  It is a sorrow to lose Bob, and we salute his work in serving our family history.  We thank his daughter for allowing us to do so. - GNH

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The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 7

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our 5th Stop

 The Lathbury School of Thomas Hollyman

May 18, 2019

The day was getting long toward 5:00 pm when we arrived at Lathbury, a 16th and 17th Century school and church not far from Sherington.  We know from a history of Sherington that Thomas Holliman, the father of Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691, matriculated here in 1596, probably about 15 years of age.

The school closed a century later and the stones were used to restore the church and acquired by others in the village.  Today, a raised mound of dirt and a few markers occupy the space where my 8th great grand father would have studied the classics.

Below on the site, left to right, Kathleen Holliman, Dr. Jim Holliman, Rob Fenske, Mary Holliman Fenske, Becky Holliman Payne, Glenn Joiner with his wife, Kathy, behind him, and finally Susan G. White.

Murals from the Middle Ages still hold to the surface of the 13th Century church adjacent to the now vacant school site.  No doubt Thomas Hollyman worshiped here often and gazed at the then visible paintings.

The lane to Lathbury was narrow and our careful driver took some time to back up.  This photograph is from Sherington and one can see the size of the coach.  Many  English village streets such as in Lathbury are narrow, often only one lane.  This photograph shows a considerably wider street.

 It had been a long day and after a ride back to Moreton in Marsh, we dispersed, had supper and called it a day, because the Sunday would be filled with more stops and another step back in history!

The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 5

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our travelogue of Hollyman ancestral sites continues....

Our Third Stop – The Swan Hotel

Bedford, Bedfordshire

May 18, 2019

On Saturday, May 18^th after visiting the former St. Mary’s church and the location of Thomas and his son Christopher’s home, we crossed back north over the River Ouse, observing the sculling boat as we walked to the historic Swan Hotel for lunch.

The above photo of the Swan Hotel, constructed in 1794, shows in the lower left corner a statue of a soldier from the Boer War, 1899-1902.  The hotel fronts the River Ouse.

A wedding reception was going on at one end of the restaurant, but we found tables and began chatting about what we had seen already.  Here are photographs of the lunch and some of our cousins, but not all, who were on the trip with us.  My apologies for the omissions as the camera failed to 'snap' everyone.

Allen Holleman of Raleigh, North Carolina shared a meal with new found cousins and friends, Di and Rod Holliman of Cheltenham, England.  Allen coordinated our 2016 Hollyman gathering in Isle of Wight, Virginia.

Right, Glenn Joiner, of Winter Garden, Florida, a descendant of Uriah Holliman, 1820-1862, of Alabama. To Glenn's left is Jim Holliman of Marion Junction, Alabama, a retired Auburn professor and cattleman.  Both these cousins share James Grantson Holliman, 1750-1836, as a common great grandfather.

  

Far left, cousin Mary Lippo from New Jersey joined a table of Texas cousins. Clockwise behind Mary is Marcia Holliman of San Antonio, Texas, founder of the city’s ballet company and Rob and Mary Ann Holliman Fenske also from Texas.  The young man is Marshall Cocke, formally of Oklahoma and now of San Antonio.  He is a grandson of Marcia.

Children and grandchildren of genealogist Walter O. Holliman, a descendant of James Grantson Holliman, shared a table.  Above, left to right, Paul and Teresa Holliman and their daughter Kimberly, from the Los Angeles area.  Far right is Ann Holliman Krueger, an international teacher now resident in Sicily. 

Below beginning left clockwise, Elisabeth Ahrens, Alison Marlowe, Matthew and Bryan Holliman (obscured).   In the back ground is a wedding reception.  Cousins on the right identified in the former photograph.

Above foreground is Dr. Jim Holliman and wife Karen of Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Jim is the son and grandson of genealogists Dr. Rhodes B. and Cecil Rhodes Holliman.  Background is Susan G. White (in a white sweater) and her friend Diane Gilkenson, traveling together exploring Gallier and Holliman ancestral venues.  The stories of Susan’s dynamic ancestral Virginia grandmothers have been published in the blog: http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com. 

Just to prove I was along on the trip, I include a picture of my sister, Becky of Tennessee, and moi from Newport, Pennsylvania.  Our father was Homer Bishop Holliman (1919-2018). He descended in order from Ulyss, John Thomas, Uriah, Cornelius, James Grantson, Samuel, Richard and finally Christopher (1618-1691) and his father Thomas of Sherington and Bedford.

Let’s close with a photograph of the English swans (all owned by the Queen) swimming in the River Ouse under a Horse Chestnut tree in bloom.

Next Article, we venture further back in time to Sherington, Buckingshire to learn more about Thomas and his father, the first Christopher Hollyman!

The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 4

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Second Stop – St. Mary’s Parish,

Now the Albion Archaeology Centre

Bedford, Bedfordshire

May 18, 2019

Thomas Hollyman, most likely born in the early 1580s, grew up in a wealthy home in Sherington, Buckinghamshire, some 10 or so miles from his adult home of Bedford.  The second son (of a third son), he inherited 40 pounds but no land, when his father died in 1589.  His parents were Christopher and Margaret Lee Hollyman of families from Cuddington and Dinton, Buckinghamshire.

Did his inheritance eventually fund an apprenticeship in Bedford?  We know from Anne Holmes’ research that Thomas worked as a cordwainer or leather maker before he took a lease-hold on the Blue Boar Inn, on Cauldwell Street, several hundred yards to the west of St. Mary’s Church.  Later his son-in-law, Barnabas Crash, seems to have gone into business with him.

As a cordwainer, he must have fashioned shoes, leather garments and harnesses for horses.   Undoubtedly his second son, Christopher, was exposed to this occupation, and perhaps supported himself as a leather worker when he arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1650. 

Below, Elisabeth Krueger Ahrens and her mother, Anne Holliman Krueger, daughter of Walter O. Holliman (1927-2003) who did so much to research and capture the stories of the Holliman and allied families in the USA.  Both Elisabeth and Anne are international teachers.

The files in this photograph's background are of archaeological investigations in the Bedfordshire area, research often required before new construction in the United Kingdom.  This picture was taken in the interior of St. Mary's Parish which held its last service in 1975 and in 1991 became a research centre.  

Did Thomas curse his fate? 

The nephews and nieces of his mother, Margaret Lee Hollyman, were on the rise socially and financially.  Margaret’s brother, one Thomas Lee, married Eleanor Hampden who inherited Hartwell House, now a National Trust property which I will write about later.  

The Lees were rising and the Hollymans declining. Thomas Lee died a knight in 1626.  Our Thomas Hollyman, Lee's nephew, mended shoes and served ale at a Bedford Inn.  

One can imagine the envy felt by Thomas.  Unlike he, one of his sisters, Ursala, inherited well from her grandmother of the same name, Ursala Yates Lee.

 Above, Anne Holmes inside St. Mary’s Church, now an archaeological office, discussing the history of the building while the Albion manager, center, looks on as does Jim Holliman, right, of Alabama. 

Did his mother Margaret help support Thomas and get him started as an inn keeper in Bedford?  We do not know.

What impact did the English Civil War, which began in 1642 and did not end until 1652, have on the family?  Did our Christopher (1618-1691) serve in the Parliamentary forces which were supported by the Hampden family? 

Bedford citizenry were generally pro-Parliament and Anti-Royalist.  Young John Bunyan, a Bedford resident, and later a charismatic preacher and author of ‘Pilgrims Progress’, served in the Cromwellian forces. Christopher’s younger brother, Steve, later associated with Bunyan's Meeting House services.

Or did Christopher join the King’s army? 

We know the priest at St. Mary’s, Dr. Giles Thorne, from 1630 to 1671, was arrested by Parliament and jailed for four years in 1640s.  This royalist was accused of ill vices such as maypole dancing and praying for the King!  St. Mary’s was the Hollyman family’s parish.  

Also Christopher’s grandfather, an earlier Christopher Hollyman (d 1589) served as a member of Queen Elizabeth’s Guard, an elite royalist honor probably obtained through Lee family connections.

The interior of St. Mary's in 1851, now lined with files and books, but the monuments and stained glass windows remain.

What we do know is our Christopher along with his spinster sister, Judith, left Bedford in early 1650 and arrived in Virginia in May 1650.  Did they flee the chaos of civil war?  Had Christopher fought on the losing side, as King Charles I was beheaded in January 1649? Had his father, Thomas, died and why leave an elderly mother (age 60 or so) to cross the ocean?

The Birth and Grave Sites of Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691, have now been Visited by Descendants

In April 2016 at the Hollyman gathering in Isle of Wight, Virginia, Billy Joe Holleman, owner of some of the original plantation of Christopher (d 1691) took our group to what is believed to be the original burial plot of the Hollymans of Virginia.  There we assembled and asked ourselves, is this the final resting spot of the immigrant who left England in 1650 and with his sister Judith braved the Atlantic and settled in the New World founding our American family?

Below Susan White, center, in April 2016 with Holleman cousins at the possible grave of Christopher Hollyman (1618-1691) in Isle of Wight, Virginia.  This site, cleared for us by Billy Joe Holleman, is part of the original plantation of Christopher.

 And below three years later, the same Susan White, left, talking with Dr. Jim Holliman, Di Holliman (back to camera) and Tony Pryce, English friend and guide at the burial site of Thomas and Helena Hollyman, Christopher Hollyman’s parents, and one block from where Christopher was born in 1618 in Bedford, Bedfordshire.

 This picture, taken in May 2019, represents an odyssey of discovery taken full circle from the birthplace in England to grave site in Virginia of the ancestor who dared to come to America and founded our family in the New World.

Next blog, a lunch break at the historic Swan Hotel in Bedford.

The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Second Stop – St. Mary’s Parish,
The 17th Century Church of the Thomas Hollyman Family

Now Re-purposed as  the Albion Archaeology Centre

Bedford, Bedfordshire

May 18, 2019

Approximately 3/4ths mile south of St. Peters de Merton, across the River Ouse, is St. Mary’s Church which is one of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in Bedford.  Even before the 1066 Norman Conquest there was a church on this spot.  The four-stage tower has been a major landmark to travelers for more than one thousand years.

It may have been founded by King Alfred the Great’s son, Edward the Elder, circa 915, when Bedford was a key stronghold in the Viking wars.  For fifty generations it was the center of community life. Tens of thousands of town folk were baptized, married and buried here, including our Hollyman families.  

  

In the 12^th Century a hermit took up residence in the Church for whom King Henry II made a grant of a penny a day for food which was passed to the religious recluse under his cell door.

Among those resting here are our Hollyman descendants, Thomas and Helena Poynard Holliman, and undoubtedly several of their children.  Baptized here was Christopher Hollyman [1618-1691], the immigrant ancestor of most American Hollimans.

Who were the children of Thomas and Helena Hollyman?

 

Genealogist Anne Holmes provides this information:

John Holliman, 1610-1645

Ellenora Holiman, 1612-1612

Jone or Jane Holliman, 1613-?, m. Barnabas Crash in 1631

Thomas Hollyman, 1616-?

Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691 (d. in Virginia)

Judith Holliman, 1621-? (d. in Virginia)

Eleanor Hollyman, 1623-?

Stephen Hollyman, 1625-? (Member of John Bunyan’s Meeting House)

Mary Holyman, 1628-?

All the children were baptized at St. Mary’s and records indicate Ellenora and John are buried in the church cemetery.  Eight children grew to adulthood, unusual for the time when infant and childhood deaths were common.

Below, across from the now Albion Centre (St. Mary’s Church) on Cauldwell Street is a digital internet company, as a representation of 21^st Century as one can get. The Blue Boar Inn would have stood where the two buildings meet.  This is where Christopher Hollyman, our American founder, first saw the light of day.

In the 1800s, Cauldwell Street looked as drawn below.  St. Mary's Parish is at the end on the street.  On the right would have stood the Blue Boar Inn, where now late 20th Century buildings, as pictured above, fill the block.

On this site in 1618, Christopher Hollyman was born at a tavern and inn known as the Blue Boar. 

He was the fifth child and third son of Thomas and Helena, and along with his sister Judith he would leave Bedford at age 32 and immigrate to America. 

For a detailed family tree of the Hollymans of England (and tens of thousands of other Hollymans and associated families) visit the Ancestry.com site: Hollyman Tree, created and maintained by Jeanette Holiman Stewart.  Jeanette has entered over 52,000 Hollyman names (many spellings) and works closely with Anne Holmes to fine tune our English ancestry.  Jeanette’s email address is Htreekeeper@gmail.com.

Next blog, more on St. Mary's, the Albion Centre, Thomas Hollyman, his life, and the forces that may have led to his son, Christopher, immigrating to American in 1650.

The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 2

By Glenn N. Holliman

Our First Stop – St. Peter de Merton

Bedford, Bedfordshire

May 18, 2019

We were on an adventure moving back in time.  There were 29 or so of us on that chilly, rainy morning. Our bus met us at 9:15 am on Saturday morning, May 18^th in Moreton in Marsh and took us across beautiful countryside, fields green and yellow flowering horse chestnut trees in bloom and through little villages. There was a bit of rain but it did not discourage our high spirits.

We Hollimans and spouses gathered in Bedford at the spot where 410 years earlier my generation’s 8^th great grandparents, Thomas and Helena Poynard Holliman, were married.  Naturally this called for another group photograph.  This couple were the parents of Christopher Hollyman, our forefather who migrated to Jamestown, Virginia in 1650.

Above the entrance to St. Peter de Merton in Bedford, Bedfordshire. Jim Holliman of Marion Junction, Alabama and Becky Holliman Payne, Cookeville, Tennessee in the picture between the gates.

Genealogist Anne Holmes had arranged our first stop at St. Peters de Merton, a 10^th century church where we received hot tea, biscuits and a history of the parish by one of the lovely ladies who greeted us.

It was here we were transported back in time to 1609, the year and place where my generation’s 8^th great grandparents were married. 

Below the nave of St. Peter Church in Bedford, a parish over 1,000 years old!  Texans Marcia Holliman, Rob Fenske and Mary Holliman Fenske, center, and right, Alice Holliman Murphy take pictures.

Great changes occurred in that first decade of the 17^th Century. 

Queen Elizabeth, perhaps England’s greatest monarch, died in 1603 replaced by James VI of Scotland, James I as he became known in England.  His mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had lost her head several decades earlier after an attempt to replace Good Queen Bess on the throne. Dangerous business being a monarch in those times.

At the time of the marriage of Thomas and Helena, Jamestown, Virginia struggled to survive, an outpost for the London Company to which Christopher and Judith Hollyman would find a safe harbor 40 or so years later.

The new King James struggled to keep the various religious factions of England and Scotland from harming each other.  A sect of pious Protestants demanded less liturgy and more ‘puritanism’ in the nascent Church of England.  Roman Catholic terrorists led by Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the House of Commons.  Their gunpowder plot failed, and persecution of Catholics was renewed.

   

Guy Fawkes pictured.  To this day the English celebrate this would be tragedy with massive bonfires all over England on November 5th.

On the plus side, the glorious King James Version of the Bible was transcribed at the same time Shakespeare wrote some of his most outstanding plays.  It can be argued these two events were the epitome of English literature, not equaled since.

What do we know of this great grandmother, Helena? 

Not very much.  It was expected that the bride’s church would be chosen for the ceremony, and it did occur at St. Peter because such is recorded in the parish register.  Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chancellor decreed in the 1530s (before he too lost his head) that baptisms, marriages and funerals were to be documented, for which genealogists have been ever grateful.

Foreground, Rob Fenske and Dr. Jim Holliman inspect the chancery where Thomas and Helena Poynard Hollyman were married.

Genealogist Anne Holmes cannot find the name Poynard in other registers in Bedford, a town then of 2,000 souls.  She did find a will dated decades before the marriage by a Thomas Poynard of Barkway in 1563, perhaps a document of our 10^th or 11^th great Poynard grandfather?   We may never know.

We do know that Helena died in 1653 and is buried outside St. Mary’s Church on the south side of the Ouse River in Bedford.  Probably she was in her early 60s, and Thomas, whose death date is not known, evidently passed away before her.

And of course, of her eight living children, two had left the family forever, migrating in 1650 to Virginia, never to return to a mother’s embrace.

We thank the good ladies of St Peter de Merton for their kind hospitality, hot tea and sharing of the history of this famous church.

Next blog, we visit the parish where Thomas and Helena had their many children baptized.

English Hollymans Known Only unto God

by Glenn N. Holliman

The World War I Battlefields of France
Part 1

The Somme

In August 2016, my wife, Barb, and I along with our Pennsylvania neighbor, Russ, visited friends in Normandy, France.  During that sojourn, Russ and I broke away for a few days and toured the British Empire battlefields of the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Ypres.  While on this sobering visit, I put on my genealogy hat and looked for any Hollyman (Holliman) graves.  

DNA testing confirmed that I am  a descendant of Christopher Hollyman (1618-1691) who immigrated to Virginia in 1650 from Bedford, Bedfordshire and a distant cousin of Englishman Lindsay Holliman.  Both of us have paper trails back to the Cuddington, Buckinghamshire Hollimans in the 1500s, and are possibly descended from the High Wycombe Hollymans of the 1300s.  So those Hollimans (Hollymans) who fought in the Great War are, one could easily argue, my distant cousins, and also most of you who are casting your eyes on this page.

I did not find any gravestones, but I found several names on monuments, and in the words of the poet Rudyard Kipling who lost his only son at Ypres, Belgium, they are known 'Only unto God' as their bodies were never recovered.  They were blasted into bits by artillery fire or ground into the mud, never found, never returned to their families or even one of the seemingly countless British Commonwealth cemeteries that dot northwestern France and southwestern Belgium.

It was at the Thiepval Monument at the Somme near Albert, France that I found the first name.  A Book of Remembrance is available at all cemeteries and monuments listing the names on the memorial or graves.

Below, the massive British memorial at Thiepval, a small village on the Somme Battlefield, contains the names of over 73,000 missing soldiers.

Below, the record book and name on the towering memorial for James Holliman, age 21 from Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire, England.  His home  was only 20 or so miles from Christopher Hollyman's domicile in St. Mary's Parish, Bedford, Bedfordshire prior to his 1650 immigration to eventual settlement in Isle of Wight County, Virginia.

This Jim Holliman died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916.  He was killed in the initial advances on German lines.  Almost 20,000, yes, 20,000 British soldiers died on this first day.  This does not count the French who were charging miles away on the right, and of course the Germans who had received an astronomical dose of cannon fire and whose trenches were invaded.  It may well be the most blooding day in the history of warfare.

Before this battle ended in November 1916 there were over 1,000,000 British Empire, French and German casualties.  The lines had only moved a few miles.  This was a four year war, 1914-1918, of attrition in which over 20 million may have died on all fronts.

The memorial wreaths at Thiepval August 2016 on the 100th Anniversary of the horrid Battle of the Somme.

Much has been written on World War I.  

Here are some volumes in my library which I can recommend on the Somme.

Next Posting, the Battlefield of Ypres were two other Hollymans (Holliman) died.