Tracking down a 17th century ancestor of mine named James Jacobus Orme (b. Staffordshire 1643; d. Mayo 1707), who married an Elizabeth Barrow of Cork of whose Orme descendants in Ireland, England and New England I am one, of many. According to family pedigrees published in Anglo-Irish 'Landed Gentry' geneaologies James Orme was born into the Orme family of Hanse Hall, a Staffordshire estate. Yet numerous other sources cite Elizabeth Barrow (the only recorded child of Thomas Barrow Esq. of Cork) as having married a 'James Echols' of Staffordshire of the approximately same age as James Orme. And in some references this James Echols is listed as James 'Orme of Stafford' Echols. As an Orme family descendant and amateur family historian, I'm intrigued and puzzled by this 'James Orme of Stafford' Echols, and would very much welcome any further information or insights into this person and his forebears and descendants. The Echols family of Virginia appears to trace its own lineage to that same 17th century James Echols.
To further complicate matters, there are a number of unanswered questions about the actual parentage of James Jacobus Orme, which was ascribed in later UK genealogical tomes to William Orme (and his wife Anne Brudenell) of Hanse Hall, Staffordshire, though Staffordshire family records do not appear to include James among the many acknowledged documented children of William and Anne Orme of Hanse Hall. There are also record gaps and contradictions about Elizabeth Barrow and her father Thomas Barrow (Esq.) of County Cork, about whom little else is known with any certainty.
Circumstantial DNA evidence shows distant genetic relationships of mine with US members of both the Barrow and Echols families, interestingly.
