Grubb Family Tree

From a Quaker M.S. copied by John Grubb (1766-1841) from an earlier original:

 

"Ishmael married three wives. By the first he had one son and two daughters, viz John, Alice, and Elizabeth, and by the second one son and one daughter, viz Richard and Sarah--the second wife proved unkind to the children of the first but died about the 40th year of her Husband's age: wherefore he seemd inclinled not to subject them to the like inconvenience again. His daughter Elizabeth became his housekeeper, & so he remained in a state of Widowhood forty years, but she (Eliza) died a maiden at the 80th year of his age. And then he married a third, a maiden between forty and 50 on whom he settled about £150, wch two years put her in the sole Possesion of. He departed this Life abt the 82 year of his age, and abt the year 1676."

The same document says that Ishmael was a farmer and linen manufacturer of Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire and that John, his son, became a Quaker in 1676 when he was 56, putting the birth of the latter at 1620. Church records at Ravensthorpe put this account somewhat into doubt, however. There was indeed an Ishmael living there who died in 1680, who might be the Ishmael above described. There was also an Ishmael who had a daughters Alice and Elizabeth by one wife (Margaret, buried in 1631) and a son Richard by a second wife (Elizabeth, buried Nov. 3, 1640). There is also a son Ishmael by the first and a son Francis by the second (perhaps the Quaker manuscript does not mention these because they died young). On the other hand, there is no John or Sarah is mentioned.

It is unclear how these accounts can be reconciled. Perhaps John was not baptised (he was to become, after all, an Anabaptist preacher). But why then, were his putative siblings? Was it due to spotty record keeping? Another possibility is that John was the son of Henry Grubbe (b. 1683) and (m. 1605) Anne Watles. The latter couple had children baptised in 1607, 1616, and 1618.

It is interesting that Ishmael remarried late in life, as John Grubbe would do likewise.