John Adams, of Barton St. David - Fake ancestors

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I was investigating this line due to an Adams in England who did a DNA test and matches my haplogroup DF100/CTS4528. This Adams Family claims to be related to the American President Adams which would have meant he was descended from the royal Stewart Family too. However, someone pointed out to me that the tree is a fake one. My haplogroup was previously P310 and after the Big Y test on www.familytreedna.com is was revised to the new DF100/CTS4528. The Stewart Family was indeed said to also be P310. Therefore, on a DNA basis, the tree might be correct but please see this information which says it is not. http://lanvallayhistoire.eklablog.com/histoires-c931258/16?noajax&a... so the Genitree should end with this Profile and not go back further.
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-277#Disproven_Ancient_Ancestry
Origins

Henry Adams (1583-1646) was born in Barton St. David, Somersetshire, England. He was the youngest of 4 children of John Adams* (1555-1604) also of Barton St. David, and Agnes Stone* (___?-1615/16).
"Gentleman" Henry Adams (1582-1646), a farmer and maltster, was descended from English yeomen who had lived in Barton St. David for centuries.[citation needed]
Henry was a farmer who held land by the old English system of copyhold from the lord of the manor of Barton St. David about the year 1608 in the village of Charlton Mackrell on the river Cary in the heart of English Somersetshire. [17]

He was a maltster and, presumably, a husbandman like his father and grandfather before him. The earliest record of him is in 1604 when he was executor of his father's estate and the next on 19 October 1609 when he married Edith Squire in Charlton-Wachrell, Co, Somerset.

Only 2 other records (in England) have been found in which his name is mentioned: in 1609, when he was co-executor of the will of his brother John and an original parchment bond found in the Diocesan Registry showing that in 1614 he was living in Barton St. David. It contains the only known signature of Henry. At some time between 1614 and 1622 he moved to the adjacent parish of Kingweston where his youngest children were baptized, the last in 1629, and where he probably lived until his emigration in 1638.
President John Quincy Adams dissented from this opinion of his father that Henry Adams came from Devonshire. After giving the matter particular and thorough investigation, both in this country and in England, he published it as his conviction that Henry Adams was from Braintree in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. “The statement in the Alden Collection,” he says, “that the first Henry came from Devonshire was received the collector of epitaphs from my father; but I believe it was not from Devonshire but from Braintree in the county of Essex, thathe came. My father supposed that he formed part of the company that came with Gov. Winthrop in 1630, most of whom were from Devonshire. But at the time my father formed this opinion, Gov. Winthrop’s Journal had not been published.” Winthrop’s Journal, I. 37, says, “1632: 14 Aug; The Braintree Company which had begun to settle down at Mt. Wollaston by order of Court, removed to Newtown. These were Mr. Hooker’s Company.” [18] Hooker himself arrived in Sept. 1633, but his Company, which was mostly made up from Chelmsford – perhaps also from Braintree and other neighboring villages of Essex county, - had arrived the year before. Hence it appears highly probably that Henry Adams from Braintree in Essex joined Hooker’s Company and arrived in Boston in 1632. Dr. James Savage, author of the Genealogical Dictionary of early first-comers of New England, concurs in the opinion of President John Quincy Adams.[19]
Disproven Ancient Ancestry
The "Ap Adams" story is one of the most embarrassing nineteenth-century forgeries. It first appeared in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 7 (Jan. 1853) [wrong reference; that volume# and page publishes an abstract of Adams' will], claiming descent from a landed Adams family at Stoke-Gabriel, co. Devon. Because it claims grand ancestry, people have happily quoted it and copied it as gospel ("hey, it's in print, it has to be right"). Places that discuss this fraudulent genealogy include: • "Book Notices," in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 56(1902):211: referring to the pamphlet "The Ancestry of Henry Adams of Braintree, New England," by Rev. Hiram Francis Fairbanks, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1901, 8vo, pp 19.
• G.E. C.'s 'Complete Peerage,' Vol. I., page 111,
• NEHGS REGISTER, Vol. 37, pp 159-160, Mr. Jos. L. Chester produces proof of the 'forgery' of the portion connecting Henry Adams with Ap Adam.
• NEHGS REGISTER, 34:432-433 (John Ward Dean)
• NEHGS REGISTER, 31:333

In 1927, Josiah Gardner Bartlett published the known, documented English origins of Henry Adams, a yeoman farmer from Barton [St.] David (just south of Wells) and next-door Kingweston, Somerset, who married on 19 Oct. 1609 married Edith Squire, from neighboring Charlton Mackrell, Somerset. See Bartlett's book ("Henry Adams of Somersetshire, England and Braintree, Mass.: His English Ancestry and Some of His Descendants" [New York, 1927]), also "Ancestors and Descendants of Jeremiah Adams, 1794-1883, of Salisbury, Connecticut, Sullivan County, New York, Harbor Creek, Pennsylvania and Vermilion, Ohio" by Enid Eleanor Adams (1974), p. 652, from which I quote:
"In 1853...an Adams pedigree purporting to show that Henry Adams, English emigrant to New England, was a descendant of one Sir John ap Adams and his wife Elizabeth de Gurnay, heiress to estates in Somersetshire, Dorsetshire and Gloucestershire, was published and has been reprinted and quoted from frequently ever since. J. Gardner Bartlett, in his 1927 history of Henry Adams, stated unequivocally that the alleged connection of Henry Adams with the Ap Adam family of Beverstone and Tidenham rested on forged evidences. In proof [the Ap Adam chart from The Complete Peerage, vol. 1 (1910), pp. 179-81] was given in the Bartlett book. It shows conclusively that the Adams line issuing from Elizabeth de Gurnay ended by an heiress in 1424, 159 YEARS PRIOR TO Henry Adams's birth! [The last male Ap Adams died in 1424, with his nephew John Huntley appar. sole heir.] Moreover, although Sir John Ap Adams acquired vast estates in Gloucestershire and Somersetshire, he never had the manor of Cherleton-Adam." Mr. Bartlett's book (1927) has numerous photographs of the Saxon church at Barton [St.] David, bonds and other documents signed by, or associated with, the real Henry Adams, his wife, and their ancestors. Miss Adams's treatment (1974) of Henry and his English background is also excellent.[citation needed]

Great research!!!

Erica Howton I thought, this might be of interest to you.

And Hello Roderick, very interesting findings. On the DNA side and also, on the "forged" pedigrees front. DNA match to the living Adams, as well as the Stewart branches...
Yet, refuted by paper- trail...
This may just be one of those mysteries, which never is completely solved, but surrounded (clouded) by a mass of speculation and supposition.

I'm a descendant of immigrant Henry Adams. Have been following this debate almost since the beginning of my genealogy days. I appreciate the nice summary posted here.

Define exactly for me exactly please the profiles to be disconnected from it's parents and unknown placeholders made? Also, the profiles to be added to the "spurious profiles" project and perhaps a copy & paste of this research in that project .... The more ways the information is specifically shared, the less the naive will be, because we've defined "where" & "what" the issue is.

Erica, it's somewhat confusing because there are actually two breaks in the line as usually given.

First, the normal modern view is that the ancestry of Henry Adams of Braintree is unknown and the name of his wife is unknown. He came from Braintree in Essex.

There is a theory that attempts to salvage part of the older line by identifying him with the Henry Adams who married Edith Squire in 1609 at Charlton Mackrell, Somerset.

Second, the ancestry of that other Henry Adams goes back to John Adams, of Barton St. David, whose ancestry is also unknown.

You can read more at Wikitree:

This Henry Adams profile tries to preserve the older idea that Henry Adams came from Barton St. David:
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-277

This Henry Adams discussion tries to figure out where to cut the older line from the ap Adams family and ends up advocating that the line be cut about Henry the immigrant.

Thanks for your comments. I hope some more Adams male descendants of both lines will see this as it would be very interesting to determine whether the supposed fake tree really was a fake tree or whether the DNA tests prove it to be legitimate. The Ap Adams line, according to the above, ended as there was only a daughter in the last generation. It's not inconceivable that a male descendant moved to another town and was lost track of. The "fake" tree may therefore still be legitimised using DNA tests!

I should also mention that I found the town where the Ap Adams paternal ancestor you will see here on Geni originated from, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dol-de-Bretagne, has a menhir which in German is called a Hinkelstein, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkelstein-Gruppe https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir same as in the Asterix and Obelix books. Also, the same ancestor as the Stewart royal family, which I already knew when my haplogroup was still called P310. Of course I was delighted that the Stewart Family had a Menhir (Hinkelstein) in their home town as my surname is Hinkel (old Franconian for a young hen) and it can't be excluded that the surname could mean a person who dwelled at the Menhir! So I hope the fake tree was no fake :)

The Dol de Bretagne menhir, estimated weight is 125 to 150 tons

In 549, the Welsh Saint Teilo was documented as coming to Dol where he joined Samson of Dol and to this very day the fruit groves which they planted remain and are known as the groves of Teilo and Samson.[1] Legend has it that while there he was assigned by King Budic II to subdue a belligerent winged dragon, which he was said to have tamed and then tied to a rock in the sea off Brittany.[1] He is reported to have stayed in Dol for seven years and seven months so must have left in 556 or 557.

Dol-de-Bretagne is reputed to be the origin of the royal House of Stewart who became the monarchs of Scotland and later England and Ireland; a plaque in Dol commemorates that origin. The Stewart monarchs descend from the Seneschal of the Bishop of Dol and his son, Flaad Fitzalan, who arrived in Britain in the army of William the Conqueror. Flaad's grandson, Walter Fitzalan, was appointed the 1st Steward of Scotland by David I of Scotland. Malcolm IV of Scotland later confirmed the honour bestowed by David and made the office of Steward of Scotland hereditary in Walter's family. In the fourteenth century, Walter Stewart (so named for his family's hereditary possession of the office of High Steward of Scotland), a descendant of Walter Fitzalan, married Marjorie Bruce, daughter of King Robert I of Scotland. Their son became King Robert II, and their descendants the royal House of Stewart.

Dol figured prominently in the formation and evolution of the Duchy of Brittany. Nominoe, the ruler of Brittany attempted to establish a Patriarch for the Breton church in a move to give it autonomy, and thereby strengthen his rule and further secure his independence from the Carolingian Empire. It took centuries for Rome to recognize the Archbishop of Dol. However after the formation of the Duchy of Brittany in 939, the Archbishop of Dol often wielded great political power and was even at one time Regent to a young Duke of Brittany. Dol Cathedral is a significant building in an eclectic mix of styles. The diocese was suppressed in 1801.

In June 1173 Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester, laid siege to Dol-de-Bretagne and captured the settlement as part of the Revolt of 1173–1174 against Henry II of England. Henry II, supported by an army of 20,000 mercenaries retook Dol-de-Bretagne the same year.[2]

For what it's worth, we should clarify that belonging to P310 or DF100/CTS4528 is not proof that someone is descended from the Stewarts.

These are very ancient groups. People who belong to the same group have very distant common ancestor, but usually not as recently as the 10th century when the earliest known ancestors of the Stewarts appear.

Along the same lines, are you sure that the Stewarts belong to DF100/CTS4528? Looking at the Stewart DNA project, it looks like the Stewarts who originated in Dol belong to group L21 (and likely to its subgroup CTS2501).

L21 and DF100/CTS4528 are separate branches of P310, at least according to the 2015 ISOGG tree. That would push back your common ancestor with the Stewarts even further.

Maybe you have access to more recent research?

Angus Wood-Salomon I've disconnected John Adams, of Barton St. David that you curate from fake parents John ll Adams of Fenne & Catherine Adams

I will be adding "placeholder" parents & tag them to this discussion, appreciate everyone's help in keeping the lines to the better known facts. If merging a duplicate in please select the "unknown" parent pair if there is a tree conflict, this is the purpose of placeholders, and also please visually inspect to ensure no fake grand parents are added in.

Can someone tell me about this profile ? The notes don't seem right ...

Alice Adams

Place holder parents of John of Barton St David:

John Adams' father

Please feel free to request management / improve notes & citations

One other concern I have is about geography. It's easy enough to understand that the Adams family at Barton St. David might have been a cadet branch of the ap Adams family. And it's an interesting idea that immigrant Henry Adams might have been descended from the Adams family at Barton St. David, but the geography makes me cautious.

The circumstantial evidence that immigrant Henry came from Essex is very good. I don't know of anyone who seriously disputes it. But how likely is it that he was born on the other side of England, in Somerset or Devon? And, why jump to the conclusion that he was born in Somerset or Devon when there are Adams families right there in Essex?

I've seen quite a few cases where an immigrant from East Anglia (Essex) is said to have been born in the West Country (Somerset, Devon). There are enough of these to make it looked like there was some kind of mass movement of Puritans to East Anglia.

If that were true, I think someone would have noticed. I've been searching for some reference in the academic literature for several years no , but haven't found anything yet.

Of course, ministers often served parishes far from their birthplaces but the average person seems to have stayed close to home. At most, moving to the nearest large city.

I've found a few cases where an immigrant from Essex was thought to be from Devon based on guesses that turned out to be wrong, but so far I haven't been able to find a single case where an Essex immigrant can be proved from reliable sources to have been born in Devon.

Has anyone else looked into this pattern?

Yikes, is the wife fake also? You guys gotta help more in pointing this out!

From http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-258

Furthermore, there is an internet fantasy claiming that John Adams was the husband of Margery Squire, an alleged daughter of Thomas Squire of Podington, Bedfordshire or his alleged brother John. Once again, there is no evidence to support this supposition.

J. Gardner Bartlett's 1927 genealogy, Henry Adams of Somersetshire, England and Braintree, Mass., gives exactly one record that mentions John Adams: "John Adams of Barton David, born probably about 1500 to 1505, is named in the Muster Roll for the tithing of Barton, Somersetshire, 1539... and he is credited with supplying a 'bowe.'"[1]

Bartlett goes on to state that Robert Adams and widow Alice Adams appeared on a subsidy list in Barton David in 1543. Bartlett assumes that Alice was the widow of John and the mother of Henry Adams, b. 1531: "The subsidy rolls for the reign of Henry VIII for Somersetshire are few and in a generally decayed state, rendering examination difficult and somewhat inconclusive. Those for 1542 and 1543 are badly damaged, especially in a section comprising Barton, but there can still be read the name of Robert "Adamps" and Alys Adams, widow... The Alys Adams above named may be the widow of John(1) Adams, of whose death and the settlement of whose estate no record has survived...."[2]

====

I need more eyes, please.

Should Margery Adams be merged into Alice (unknown), or separated?

Because it looks to me like there was a "different" John Adams, died 1542, who married Margery

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-13736

And who was "not" the parent of Henry of Barton St David -- who is listed as the father of Henry the Immigrant.

Justin

This is the page I was looking for - what John Adams thought his origins to have been of

https://archive.org/stream/historyofbraintr00adam#page/113/mode/1up...

(Henry the Malster is referred to elsewhere in this same book).

So - the Adams of Braintree & Quincy thought of themselves of "independent Freeman / yeomen of England.".

I don't know if this precludes or excludes Devon origins or not. "The Braintree Company" of Dr Hooker's that gave it's name to the New England town in fact moved on to the New Haven Colony without leaving any colonists.

Erica,

Just about every modern work on the Adams family includes some part of this story. John Adams' father believed that his great grandfather came from a gentry family in Barton St. David. He even erected a monument to his ancestor's memory saying immigrant Henry Adams came from Devonshire.

John Adams himself did some investigating and decided his father was wrong -- that the family came from Braintree and that they were yeomen, not gentry. If I remember correctly, Adams even wrote to his father about that.

It's been suggested that John Adams lied about his ancestors being yeomen in order to provide a basis for the kind of populist rhetoric quoted in your link. People can come to different conclusions about that, but my opinion is that it's much more likely that people will deceive themselves into believing that their ancestors were gentry than that their ancestors were farmers.

Nowadays, we can only go by the records we can find. The problem with finding Henry's ancestry is the same old story. There are dozens of records all around England for men named Henry Adams who were about the right age to be this Henry but none of them stand out. Many of them have children whose names match the names of the children of this Henry, but none of them match the full list very well.

So, the Henry from Barton St. David is just as good a guess as any -- if we don't worry too much about geography and children's names.

I think you'd need to use "contact manager" for the descendants & curator for his profile? I'm not a descendant (some sort of great uncle's ancestor?) -- I think I have a direct line to the un related Adams of Newbury. Without substantial evidence to support my "feel," i will tend to incline to East Anglia for the daughter colonies pushing the forest frontier (Braintree is daughter of Boston) and the west counties for the coastal areas on a longer north / south axis.

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