There exists a clear record of a "Richard Nottingham of Ratcliffe(, overseer)" in 1609. He was named (as father-in-law!) in the will of Arthur Pett.
VIRGINIA GLEANINGS IN ENGLAND. (p.) 316
Arthur Pett, master of Ship Unitie of London. Will 30
August 1609; proved 19 March 1609-10. Sick aboard the Ship
Blessing of Plymouth, Captain Robert Adames of Limehouse,
master, now riding at anchor before St. James Town in Virginia.
Mother now wife unto Richard Nottingham of Ratcliffe. Brother
William Pett. Brother William Welch. Wife Florence Pett.
Daughter Elizabeth Pett (under 10). Wife Florence Pett and
Thomas Johnson of Ratcliffe, mariner, now master of the Lyon
of London now riding in this port of St. James Towne, execu-
tors. Father in law Richard Nottingham, overseer. Witnesses:
Thomas Johnson, Robert Addames, William Milward.
Commissary of London, register 21 (1607-1611), folio 235.
[Arthur Pett was a member of the Virginia Company under the sec-
ond charter, in 1609. He was probably a member of the Kentish family
of Pett, so closely connected with English naval affairs in the i6th and
17th centuries.
The ships Blessing, Unity and Lion were in Sir George Somers* fleet.
which left Plymouth for Virginia on June 2, 1609, was scattered by
a great storm, and some of the ships wrecked on the Bermudas,
while those named reached Virginia.
This will shows that the Captain Adams, of whom there is a notice iu
Brown's Genesis, II, 812, and who made seven voyages to Virginia be-
tween 1609 and 1614, and was afterwards in the service of the East India
Company, was, as Mr. Brown suggests. Captain Robert Adams.]
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This has interesting implications for the tree as currently constructed. If "Richard Nottingham of Ratcliffe" married Arthur Pett's mother, both of them must have been considerably older than indicated here.
It also becomes unlikely that Arthur Pett's mother was the same woman who married (John?) Watson. Perhaps we have a chain of marriages here, something not exactly unknown under rugged frontier conditions.
