SALTONSTALL OF SALTONSTALL

[David Hepworth]

I notice that a number of postings have included the American
Saltonstall family who descended from Saltonstall of Saltonstall in
Warley Township, Halifax, UK.

Does anyone know of any comprehensive genealogical work that is
reliable on the early history of the family up to the time of the
American branch spurring off?

If you would be so kind as to provide details I would be very grateful.

Best wishes to all

David

[Tim Powys-Lybbe]

In message of 3 Feb, "David Hepworth" <da...@hepworth1955.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

> I notice that a number of postings have included the American
> Saltonstall family who descended from Saltonstall of Saltonstall in
> Warley Township, Halifax, UK.

Gosh, I hate 'UK'. I live in England and that is where this Halifax is,
much as some would regard its country to be Yorkshire.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          t...@powys.org
             For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

[WJho...@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/3/2006 3:34:29 AM Pacific Standard Time,
da...@hepworth1955.fsnet.co.uk writes:

Does anyone know of any comprehensive genealogical work that is
reliable on the early history of the family up to the time of the
American branch spurring off?

"Comprehensive" and "reliable" are inversely proportional. As one goes up,
the other goes down.
Will Johnson

[John Higgins]

The online FHL catalog lists a couple of genealogies of the Saltonstall
family that might be worth looking into. I've seen one of them at another
library. It is "Ancestry and Descendants of Sir Richard Saltonstall",
published [privately in 1897 by Leverett Saltonstall. This title appears to
be on film and thus should be available for loan to a local FHC.

[David Hepworth]

Thanks for that lead - I was beginning to think I'd posted on the wrong
group!!! LOL Let me say Saltonstall of Saltonstall, Warley, Halifax,
God's Own County, England!!! As for "comprehensive" being inverse to
"reliable" - with the records that we have over here, it is not always
the case as one goes up the other goes down - there's been some amazing
material processed on here and whilst it may have to be tweaked as more
comes to light - that usually enhances things. If we all only had the
time and money to spend working at it full time

[David Hepworth]

[JohnR]

I have a copy of the book that Tim Powys-Lybbe mentioned and it appears
to me, living in this dis-united Kingdom, that is is somewhat better
than the average family history; though the pre-American bit is only
about 5% of the whole. PM me is you want me to look something up.

John Rees

"From Hull, Hell and Halifax may the good Lord preserve us"

[spaceca...@gmail.com]

I wouldn't rely on Leverett Saltonstall's book all that much for the English Saltonstalls. There is a huge problem with the given pedigree. Sir Richard Saltonstall, who was Lord Mayor of London, is entered into the pedigree in the wrong place. There is no way he could be the 2nd son of the Gilbert Saltonstall the pedigree says he is. Nor is he the direct uncle of the Sir Richard who co-founded the colony at Watertown. The chronology just doesn't add up. If he was the 2nd (younger) son of the said Gilbert, then we also have problems with Gilbert's oldest son, Samuel, being the father of Richard (of Watertown). Richard (the Lord Mayor) was supposedly born around 1517-1521, according to the given chronology. That would mean Samuel would have to be born within 3-5 years prior to that date, to fit in. Richard (of Watertown) was born in 1586. That would mean that Samuel had married his wife Anne (Ramsden) and had Richard at around about the time he turned 65-70!!!. Anne was his first wife. Mind you, he'd married Elizabeth Ogden (his second wife), after Anne passed away (and after having his 2nd son Gilbert, by Anne), and they went on to have another 9 children. So, you can see the problem there with the chronology.

Then, we have the problem with the elder Gilbert (supposed father of Richard, the mayor). His will is given as having been witnessed and then proven in 1598. That would mean he died 3 years before his son, Richard. However, in order to have had Richard and Samuel in the first place, it would've meant he'd have to be born earlier enough to have done so. That would push his birth date back to at least 1495 and most probably 5-10 years earlier. So, he was 100+ years old when he died?!! Not very likely. It's more likely he was born sometime around 1525, in order to better fit the given ages for his son (Samuel) and grandson. An older Gilbert Saltonstall, whose will is date 1518, apparently has a son and grandson, both named Richard, between himself and the Gilbert in the above lines. Problem here is that if he was dead by 1518 and the other Gilbert was born anywhere between 1490 and 1525, it doesn't leave much room for another two generations. I'm fairly certain that the two Richard's are actually the same person, but more research will be needed to confirm that. I'd say that in order to fit in all the Saltonstalls in the right places within this tree, a few relationships are going to have to be turned upside down and changed. Otherwise, the same mistakes with this family will be repeated over and over again until someone sorts this out.

Cheers,

Carl.

[John Higgins]

You’re correct that the 1897 Saltonstall genealogy by Leverett Saltonstall misstates the relationship between Sir Richard Saltonstall, Lord Mayor of London, and Sir Richard Saltonstall, the Massachusetts colonist. They were not uncle and nephew as is commonly stated. The 1897 work was superseded by more detailed research done in the 1920s by J. Gardner Bartlett, who was able to make better sense of the many Richards and Gilberts in the family. His work, “Historical Genealogy of the Saltonstall family in England and America”, was never published (he died in 1927), but copies of his manuscript are held by a couple of libraries in New England (including the NEHGS) – and the FHL has a copy on microfilm.

The common ancestor of the American Saltonstalls and the later English Saltonstalls was Richard Saltonstall (d. 1524) of of High Saltonstall and Shelf in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire. His third son Gilbert (b. ca. 1493, d. 1545), of Hipperholme, was the father of Sir Richard the Lord Mayor. His second son John was the ancestor of Sir Richard the colonist, as shown here:

John Saltonstall (b. ca. 1492, d. 1559) of Hipperholme
Gilbert Saltonstall (1525-1598) of Rookes Hall
Samuel Saltonstall (1562-1613) of Roger Thorpe
Sir Richard Saltonstall (1586-1661), the colonist

The confusion about the relationship of the two Sir Richards arose because the 1897 genealogy confused Gilbert (d. 1545) with Gilbert (d. 1598) and assigned Sir Richard the Lord Mayor as the son of the latter Gilbert rather than the former – thus making him the uncle of Sir Richard the colonist. This genealogy is also laid out (although not in full detail) in volume 1 of “The Saltonstall Papers, 1607-1815” (Robert E. Moody, ed.), published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1972, which cites the Bartlett work and notes the correct relationship between the two Sir Richards.

Curiously the ODNB biography of Sir Richard Saltonstall the colonist, while citing both the Moody and Bartlett works, continues the error of making the colonist the nephew of the Lord Mayor. Presumably the text was carried forward from the old DNB without adequate checking by the author of the ODNB article. (The ODNB article on the Lord Mayor, by a different author, does not mention the colonist.)