I've been trying to figure out who Richard's father was. Several pages show, with no support, that Nicholas Lankford and Katherine Guiney were. They were from Gouchester, Virginia, not Mass. They had a son there in 1685. Further, they continued to live in Gloucester, VA and had other children there after 1687, so they would have had to travel from VA to Mass, had their son, and left him as a newborn. Makes no sense.
