John Martin, of Piscataway - John Martin of Piscataway

The curator is on hiatus. If your proposal is that John of Piscataway has "parents unknown," I'd support that as better evidence than presented for Isaac as father, and disconnect them from each other, with a "link back" and this discussion to substantiate in other ways (such as DNA test studies).

I'm going to mention this as It is not shown here. There is the book "The Martin Family in America" circa 1937 with the research of Betty Jane Cunningham Hamner, Unfortunately it does not give sources except the Devonshire Visitation and reference to the "Trelawny Papers" found via Familysearch from Archive.org.
This John Martin Tree shows a connection between two Martins one in Maine and one in New Hampshire/Maine. Not clear if John is in one or the other.
It does dispute that Isaac was part of the New Hampshire family.
Nothing iron clad proof.

I need to add this. The book has this mistake It gives the wrong ancestry of John's wife (H)Esther Roberts which casts a shadow on her research, Perhaps she was relying on others for that part.

Apparently the most recent work done on this family is the 1987 revision from Mohler, Louise M. The Martin Family of America: Descendants of John Martin and Esther Roberts. Washington, Pennsylvania: L.M. Mohler, 1987. Print. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/866090227

From http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=8&p=locali...

The below information was provided by Harman Clark.
"The parentage of John Martin has NOT been ascertained. While the published "ancestries" do not rival Marvin's Van Horn, or the fradulent Dutch publication on Schenck, there are some elaborate, but totally undocumented, elaborate pedigrees for the Martin family. Once in print these suppositions and speculations get republished and repeated, and find their way into the IGI and various family group sheets.

One of these was a "Genealogy of the Martin Family" by Charles William Francis, published in 1918, which suggested that John was a s/o an Isaac Martin, said to have been an early inhabitant of Rehoboth. There is, however, nothing to connect this John Martin with any family of Rehoboth, or with any other ancestors, for that matter. That relationship is discredited and disregarded.

Louise Martin Mohler at one time subscribed to conclusions reached by one Betty Jane Cunningham Hamner, whose charts Louise reproduced in her "The Martin Family of America, Descendants of John Martin & Esther Roberts" (1983, with subsequent revisions). That connected John with a Richard Martin of Poulehurst, under a chart entitled "The Visitation of the County of Devon." ... Mohler's more recent revisions [I presume this is the 1987 edition cited above] no longer subscribe to this, and she now states that John Martin's ancestry is not known. ...

... One of the features of the Libby-Noyes-Davis work is in its cross-referencing, but there is none here. It seems clear that they did not consider any relationship nor connection of (7) John (who removed to Piscataway, NJ.) with Francis or the Devon Martin/Martyn family. While Ms. Hamner and Mrs. Mohler at least attempt to tie John to a family in the same general geographical area, as contrasted with Charles William Francis' looking to Rehoboth and Plymouth, there seems to be no documentation or real justification for the conclusions in either case. Esther was the d/o Thomas Roberts, one of the early settlers on Dover Neck, NH. Her mother was Rebecca, maiden name unknown but often erroneously given as Rebecca Hilton, for which there is no documentation or logic. Whatever the maiden name of her mother, "Hilton" is probably the least likely."

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So it appears, please correct me if wrong:

- the link to Isaac of Rehoboth is unlikely
- the link from Isaac to other early New England Martin arrivers is unlikely
- there is not, so far, another viable candidate for parents of John of Piscataway

I would urge everyone to take a close look at the book I cited when I opened this discussion, “Notices: Genealogical and Historical, of the Martin Family of New England, who settled at Weymouth and Hingham in 1635, and were among the first planters of Rehoboth (in 1644), and Swansea (in 1667); With Some Account of their Descendants,” by Henry J. Martin, Boston: Lee and Shepard, New York: Charles T. Dillingham, 1880.

For some reason it rarely appears in searches for our John Martin, but it can be downloaded as a light but legible PDF file at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2004/20040331001no/200403.... Charles W. Francis mentioned it in his Preface (calling it incorrectly “Martin Genealogy of New England”) but failed to cite it in his chapter about “Early Settlers of America,” parts of which (see Francis’ page 15) are nearly verbatim replicates of Henry J. Martin’s comments about similar subjects. Perhaps someone can succeed, where I have failed, to find compelling evidence to support HJM’s assertion that Isaac Martin must have begat John of Piscataway. And perhaps explain why Francis’ book, rather than HJM’s 358-page work which was published several decades earlier, is nearly always cited as the source of the “John was the son of Isaac” idea.

An aside: I am a 1st cousin 2x removed of Charles W. Francis. I grew up in La Porte, IN where he was a member of the generation before mine. My grandfather, H. H. Martin, and his father wrote two of the chapters in Francis’ book. Mr. Francis taught school for several years and spent the rest of his career as a post office clerk (i.e., he appears by no means to have been a trained historian or professional genealogist). Nevertheless, the parts of his book that have been checked against available documents have all proved to be accurate (personal communication from Dr. Roderick Guerry). But in my opinion it does not seem wise to assume that he did much if any original research into the history or genealogy that preceded the personal recollections that form the bulk of his otherwise highly commendable work. Or that the conclusions he drew from reading his sources of that early history were necessarily valid.

Incidentally, apparently accidentally omitted from Erica Howton’s quote from a 2003 posting on an Ancestry.com Message Board is the following paragraph (which appears in the original Harman Clark quote between the one that ends with “.. Mohler's more recent revisions [I presume this is the 1987 edition cited above] no longer subscribe to this, and she now states that John Martin's ancestry is not known. ...” and the final one which starts with “... One of the features of the Libby-Noyes-Davis work…”

“Although it is not the ‘final word’ there is the respected ‘Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire’, by Sybil Noyes, Charles Thornton Libby and Walter Goodwin Davis, originally published 1928-1939, and now in reprints by Genealogical Pub. Co of Baltimore (1991). The John Martin who was in Dover, and m. Hester (Esther) Roberts, and then moved with his family to Piscataway, NJ. is found on page 463 as ‘7 John’.. He is one of four John Martins given separate numbered paragraphs. The Francis Martin (referred to in Ms. Hamner's chart as ‘Uncle Francis Martin’) is in a separate paragraph on page 462, with no connection made with (7) John. One of the features of the Libby-Noyes-Davis work is in its cross-referencing, but there is none here. It seems clear that they did not consider any relationship nor connection of (7) John (who removed to Piscataway, NJ.) with Francis or the Devon Martin/Martyn family. While Ms. Hamner and Mrs. Mohler at least attempt to tie John to a family in the same general geographical area, as contrasted with Charles William Francis' looking to Rehoboth and Plymouth, there seems to be no documentation or real justification for the conclusions in either case. Esther was the d/o Thomas Roberts, one of the early settlers on Dover Neck, NH. Her mother was Rebecca, maiden name unknown but often erroneously given as Rebecca Hilton, for which there is no documentation or logic. Whatever the maiden name of her mother, "Hilton" is probably the least likely."

@Richard Harvey Martin

So I've disconnected John of Piscataway from Isaac Martin & Margaret Martin

I've edited out the references to John as Isaac's son in their profiles, which BTW have no mention of a son "John" from Pope's Pioneers etc.

I've made "placeholder" unknown parents for John of Piscataway so he cannot be merged back easily into the Isaac line:John Martin "of Piscataway's" father & John Martin "of Piscataway's" mother

Then I'll make sure Rebecca (unknown) Roberts is showing as not a Hilton.

I'm now working on disentangling {Unknown} Roberts from the Hilton's. Found this on a blog, would appreciate more sources to back the points made:

http://www.jeaniesgenealogy.com/2013/01/thomas-roberts-of-dover-new...

"Rebecca It is "traditionally given that the wife of Thomas Roberts was Rebecca Hilton, sister of Edward and William Hilton". What does that mean?  I cannot find anywhere anything other than that statement when looking for detail on the wife of Thomas Roberts.  The baptisms of the children of William Hilton of Witton cum Twamsbrook, Cheshire are recorded in the parish records.  His children include Edward, William and Richard who all immigrated to New Hampshire.  There is also a son John, and daughters Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth.  There is no Rebecca. There is no known date of birth and there is no known date of death.  There is no record of their marriage. They did not even name a daughter after her and interestingly only one of her five children named a girl Rebecca.   Everything that is written about her is pure conjecture and not fact.  I'm not even sure her name was really Rebecca.
 
"While we are on this Hilton topic, the father of the Hiltons was not Roger Hilton, it was William. "

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Also tagging the Hilton's mentioned for that clean up:

Capt. Roger Hilton , Ellen Hilton (Mainwaring) William Hilton, Sr. Edward Hilton

And to fix Gov. Thomas Roberts, I display name.

Roland Henry Baker, III maybe it's time to apply some Chadbourne Family Association knowledge of the Hilton's to Geni?

Wow! What an interesting discussion – thanks for inviting me. It is an honor to be invoked as a representative of the circle of friends of Maine i.e. the Hiltons :)

Jeanie (from the URL above) is a friend of mine and we work on genealogy project together. She is spot on about her point that the wife of Thomas Robert is completely unknown and certainly not a Hilton. The timing and associations are all wrong as she so astutely points out. I won’t repeat her arguments because I think she states the case clearly.

As far as the origins of John Roberts Jeanie and I both follow Fredric Z. Saunders:
http://home.netcom.com/~fzsaund/roberts.html

It looks to me like John Martin still has too many children. I use this source for the children:

Descendants of Edward Small of New England : and the allied families with tracings of English ancestry Vol II The Robert Family.

He lists the following children only:

John b. about 1630 m. Abigail Nutter
Thomas b. about 1636 m. Mary Leighton
Hester married John Marytn of New Jersey
Elizabeth married Benjamin Heard he m. (2) Ruth Eastman
Ann married James Philbrick of Hampton, he drowned in the Hampton River in 1674, she married (2) William Marston in 1675.
Sarah married Richard Rich Feb 24, 1670 he drowned at sea c. 1690

Note this is the same list Jeanie uses and she may have gotten it from the same source. All these children have basis in evidence at we can all identify. I don’t see any evidence of these children:
William
Jane
Rebecca
Kester
Edward
Joseph

They should probably be disconnected and set to drift in GENI-space.

Robert Charles Anderson cites these sources as well:
Robert Charles Anderson. The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620–1640 (Boston, Massachusetts. New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 2015) p 385
NHPP: Provincial Papers, Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New Hamp­shire from 1686 to 1722, 40 volumes, Nathaniel Boulton, ed. (Manchester, N.H., 1867-1943) 1:128, 10:701, 40:4
Walter Goodwin Davis, The Ancestry of Lydia Harmon, 1755-1836, Wife of Joseph Waterhouse of Standish, Maine (Boston 1924) 25
John Winthrop, The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, James Savage, ed., 2 volumes (Boston 1853). Citations herein refer to the pagination of the 1853 and not the 1826 edition, even though the index to the 1853 edition continues to use the 1826 pagination. 1:394
GDMNH: Sybil Noyes, Charles Thornton Libby and Walter Goodwin Davis, Genealogical Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Portland, Maine, 1928-1939; rpt. Balti­more 1972) p 589
Wentworth Gen: John Wentworth, The Wentworth Genealogy: English and American, 3 volumes (Boston 1878) 1:503
And there is also:
John Scales, History of Dover, N.H. (1989), pp. 302-303

The Hiltons are going to be a huge project. I think I’m going to need a triple espresso for this one :)

I was hoping I'd blink twice and those extra Martin children would magically vanish. They may be leftovers from the original smerge into a Martin of Virginia family.

Will work on them after coffee.:):)

The above should have been ROBERTS children (not known to have been children of {Unknown} Roberts & Gov. Thomas Roberts, I)

I've found homes for a couple of the "children," these have been cast adrift:

William Roberts of Oyster River
Edward Roberts

Also disconnected

Joseph Roberts

Erica, while you are cleaning up John Martin's profile, there are two broken links in the Overview tab: http://marhavenmiscellany.com/John1.html and http://marhavenmiscellany.com/john1_will.html that need to be fixed or removed. Apparently the marhavenmiscellany.com website is no longer active.

I didn't realize I would be opening up such a large can of worms. Thanks for all the work you are doing. I wish I had something positive to contribute instead of just being a skeptical pest. (I also wish that the Geni in this bottle would grant my wish to locate John Martin's parents!)

"Skeptical pests" errr I mean "power of collaboration" is what sets the geni tree apart from individual trees such as ancestry.com etc. Unlike there, fix it here it's fixed for everyone (more or less, of course always a work in progress).

I've sent you a collaboration request, please build your tree out from yourself until it matches, so you can join the Martin of Piscataway tree.

I'm glad this came up to be honest. Selfishly buried in (one of the) Roberts trees is a Hill line, and may be one of mine. So the more we get this area right, the more it will also benefit me. :)

Is there any feel for John Martin being an emigre or born on this side? NH origins don't exactly make it clear.

Richard Harvey Martin the dead links have been annotated as "dead link March 2016.". The data is, I think, mostly good.

And welcome to the "big tree."

Geni says: Richard Harvey Martin is your 15th cousin four times removed!

(I actually expect a more accurate indirect path in time).

I really appreciate your contribution to our efforts.

EIH: "Is there any feel for John Martin being an emigre or born on this side? NH origins don't exactly make it clear."

My short answer is, no. We don't even have a good idea when he was born, let alone where. @Richard Harvey Martin

Thank you! Thank you! @John Martin is my 9th great grandfather and I have been fighting with the inconsistencies of Isaac being his father and that Rebecca "Hilton" was the mother of Esther. I can now mark them "Unknown"

Thank you figuring out the parents of @johnmartin has been a quest. I will now, with confidence, mark them as unknown.