GEN-MEDIEVAL-L Archives

Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1997-03 > 0857998775


From: "Paul M. Gifford" <>
Subject: Re: de GREENE/la ZOUCHE
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 07:59:35 -0500


In article <> Shelley Parr Heilman
<> writes:

Shelly wrote:

> Yes, I do descend from Dr. John Greene, of RI. Do you know which
>lines are real and which are fabrications?

If I remember correctly, the line of the Gillingham Greenes going back two
or three generations appears to be correct. But there isn't anything to
connect them to the Greenes of Greene's Norton, except possibly a coat
of arms, but I'm not even sure on this (in any case, it was common for a
rising family to assume the arms of another family). The source for the
two turn-of-the-century Greene genealogies, giving the Greene of Drayton
line, was that book I mentioned that was published about 1680. The
father of Henry Greene of Drayton was a Thomas Greene, but before that
the line cannot be traced. There was an article on these early Greenes.

For a long time I thought I had a line from John Greene, of Warwick. More
recently I've had to erase that, so I'm not actively searching that line. I do
have a line from the Greenes of Greene's Norton, via Anne Hutchinson, and,
as I mentioned, in tracing the ancestors of another Rhode Island colonist,
Christopher Helme, I nixed a line to Mordaunts and Greenes of Drayton which
at first appeared to be valid. But, in any case, the Gillingham Greenes appear
to have had humble, local origins.

Paul Gifford

This thread: