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Thomas Fuller of Dedham MA, and Wortwell, Norfolk, England
Member Krista posted the following ancestry from her grandmother back to immigrant ancestor Thomas Fuller of Dedham MA, and Redenhall with Harleston, Norfolk, England, where he appears to have been a son of Rafe (Ralph) Fuller, and a relation to the Mayflower Fullers who are thought to descend from Robert Fuller the Butcher, of Redenhall parish. My comments follow [John Robb].
Ethel Burnham Fuller (b. 1903; d. 1953 in Sanford, Maine)
Edward Hall Fuller (b. 1874 in Newton, Massachusetts; d. 1932 in Sanford Maine)
Horace B. Fuller (b. 1836 in Dedham, Massachusetts; d. 1899 in Boston, Massachusetts)
Timothy Filler (b. 1806 in Dover, Massachusetts; d. 1882 Lincoln, Maine)
David Fuller II (b. 1764 in Dover, Massachusetts; d. 1824 in Dedham, Massachusetts)
Lt. David Fuller (b. 1731; d. 1805 in Dedham, Massachusetts)
David Fuller (b. 1704; d. 1777 in Dedham, Massachusetts)
Thomas Fuller (b. 1662; d. 1734 in Dedham, Massachusetts)
Thomas Fuller (b. 1619 in Redenhall, England; d. 1690 in Dedham, Massachusetts)
Rafe (Ralph?) Fuller (b. 1584; d. 1649 Redenhall, England)
I don't know whether you've examined the Register articles which contain the Redenhall data for this Fuller family, which includes the Mayflower Fullers, Edward and Samuel and their families, and other related Fullers who came over later, Edward's son, Matthew, your Thomas Fuller of DedhamMA, Giles Fuller of Dedham and HamptonMA, and Robert Fuller of SalemMA, but in case not, I've set forth below the evidence I find there which appears to pertain to your line. It's important for serious genealogists to try to run down the best sources for all their important data, and while my source for the data below isn't the original records themselves, it's the next best thing - a presumably careful transcription, published in the leading scholarly journal of its day. It's also important to cite ones sources, so I will preface the following entries with the note that all have been extracted from ~The Register~ (aka ~The New England Historical and Genealogical Register~) 55(Oct1901):410-414 (and I've appended the specific page numbers in curly braces to each entry), and that the items I've transcribed literally below were themselves transcribed (though I don't know how literally) from the parish records of Redenhall, Norfolk, England.
Marriages
1581. Thomas ffuller and Margaret Ashby, Oct. 28.
William ffuller and Alice Linge, 25, November. {412}
1608. John Noakes and Anne ffuller, 7, July.
Rafe ffuller and Elizabeth Eliot, 3 day of Nov. {413}
Baptisms
1584. Garthred ffuller, dau of William ffuller, bap. 17 May. {411}
Raphe ffuller, son of William ffuller, the younger bap. 8 Nov. {411}
1609. ...
William ffuller, son of Rafe ffuller and Elizabeth his wife 15 Aug. {411}
1610. Thomas ffuller son of Rafe ffuller and Elizabeth his wife, bap. 13 Oct. {412}
1617. John ffuller, son of Rafe ffuller and Elizabeth his wife, bap. 6 Apr. {412}
1619. Thomas ffuller son of Rafe ffuller and Elizabeth his wife bap. 20 Jan. {412}
1624. Rogger ffuller son of Rafe ffuller and Elizabeth his wife, 12 June. {412}
Burials
1621. ...
A child of Rafe ffuller, unbaptized, 7 of January. {414}
1625 ...
Rogger ffuller, son of Ralphe, Feb. 16. {414}
1649 ...
Rafe ffuller buried July 12. {414}
The only other Ralph Fuller in these records was baptized 4Nov1565 to John Fuller. Thus, presumably, all the records about for Rafe, Ralph, etc., pertain to the same man. There were burial records for a number of Williams who might have been your Ralph Fuller's father, but it's impossible to sort them out just from these records. You will also note that Ralph and Elizabeth had an earlier son named Thomas, who presumably died in infancy, yet there is no burial record for him. This isn't unusual: burial records in these old parish records tend to be hit or miss, even when the baptisms and marriages seem to be complete. That's true in the Massachusetts vital records too.
The scholarly convention is to use the exact spelling of a name when referring to a particular instance of it in a records, but otherwise it's perfectly acceptable to use the standard spelling instead. Thus, the father of your Thomas is best referred to as "Ralph" and not "Rafe". Also, the "ff" construction at the beginning of a word was simply the old way of writing a capital "F", and there's no need to render that literally as "ffuller", even if you are referring to a particular record. Most scholarly transcriptions these days translate "ff" to "F" silently, without making a big editorial point of it.
The Redenhall parish records were evidently entered chronologically by year, and the year was written in the parish register as a heading, and followed by all the entries for that year, although the entries themselves were'nt always chronological within year. Nonetheless, they are mostly chronological, and there a couple of examples just in this compilation of Fuller records in which dates from Jan-25Mar follow entries for later months of the year. This observation, plus the fact that the records were generally chronological, as well as a few observations I've made of close intervals between baptisms of children to the same parents, convinces me that we may interpolate double-dating. Thus, the baptismal (but not birth date) of your Thomas, was probably 20Jan1619[/20], and that's exactly the way I would write it. The editorial square brackets make it clear that the Gregorian calendar year is an interpolation, and not found in the original records, and the absence of a "?" mark means that I am able to infer the double-date with confidence (if you don't understand double-dating, I'd be glad to explain it).
Thus, from the above, it appears that the parents of your Thomas were Ralph and Elizabeth (Eliot) Fuller, and that Ralph's parents were Thomas the younger and Alice (Linge) Fuller.
In addition to the parish records, your Ralph Fuller left a will, and in fact it's this will which provides the evidence linking your Thomas to Redenhall. The will leaves a bequest to "my son Thomas Fuller now in New England", or at least that's the way the abstract, published at Register 52(Apr1898):241 reads. I will include a photocopy of the complete abstract as an attachment, assuming that I can figure out how to do that in GW.
You will note that testator in the abstract is styled "Ralph Fuller of Wortwell, linen weaver". Thus Ralph was presumably a resident, not of Redenhall, but of Wortwell, and by the same presumption, your ancestor Thomas was born in Wortwell, not Redenhall. The actual parish name is Redenhall with Harleston, and the introduction to the parish records {Register 55(Oct1901):410} points out that Wortwell was an adjoining independent parish, but a parish which had no church of its own, so shared in the church in Redenhall. The Wortwell residents contributed one-fourth of the tithes for Redenhall church.
If you have any question about the above, I'll be happy to try to answer them.
Cordially,
John Robb
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Permalink Reply by Krista Ann Ellis Argiropolis on
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Hi John,
I'll post my references when I get a chance. I had a nice response to you on the other thread but when I went to post it, GW only showed the last two lines of my work, which was very frustrating. I had to post a condensed version of my work because of time constraints that day.
As far as "Rafe Fuller" goes - I had never seen the name before so I wasn't sure what it really was until you wrote it out. I knew that some names or words were spelled differently and spellings could appear differently from one record to another depending on the recorder's interpretation of the name or 'nicnames'.
One example: On my grandfather's side of the family, Brown, I have an Elizabeth Peabody who married Luther Brown in 1789 but Elizabeth was also referred to as Sarah and as Salle in two different references sources. It took me almost two years to confirm that Elizabeth/Sarah/Salle were the same person.
In all of the Fullers that I listed for you I have at least one "hard reference" source - whether it's a published genealogy work, church records, census, burial records, enlistment records, etc., of each of these sources. I believe that the three generations of David Fullers were the most difficult and confusing to track and confirm.
And yes, I have reviewed the Redenhall records you refer to and I have a couple of generations past Rafe Fuller confirmed, as well. I question much past the 1500's simply due to the integrity of the vital records from that time period. I appreciate your response and attachment. I promise to post more, as time allows. -
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Permalink Reply by John Barrett Robb on
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Krista> And yes, I have reviewed the Redenhall records you refer to and I have a couple of generations past Rafe Fuller confirmed.
I don't believe the parents of Ralph's father, William, one of several William Fullers of his period, can be determined just from the records published in the Register articles. There appear to be at least three Williams, and the parish records for the period are less than complete. After spending considerable time on the problem, I'm not even sure that I've managed to sort out the two, or three, contemporary Roberts and their families adequately, although I do believe that I've identified all the records for the conjugal family of Robert the butcher, the supposed father of Edward and Samuel of the Mayflower.
Krista> I knew that some names or words were spelled differently and spellings could appear differently from one record to another depending on the recorder's interpretation of the name or 'nicnames'. One example: On my grandfather's side of the family, Brown, I have an Elizabeth Peabody who married Luther Brown in 1789 but Elizabeth was also referred to as Sarah and as Salle in two different references sources. It took me almost two years to confirm that Elizabeth/Sarah/Salle were the same person.
I can well believe it.
Here are a couple of general rules regarding names, at least in America.
First, middle names only began to become general in the wake of the Revolution: they were quite rare before. Thus, I would be deeply suspicious of an Elizabeth/Sarah equivalence if it weren't for the date. Wars and other cataclysmic disruptions tend to spawn name elaboration. Thus hereditary surname adoption in England apparently peaked about 1350 - the time of the Black Death, when a good part of England's population was driven to the roads, and bynames like John the Miller, and Old John, would no longer suffice for people ripped out of their settled social context. The RevWar found Virginians serving at Bunker Hill, and Massachusetts townsmen fighting battles in the Carolinas, and to everyone's surprise, there turned out to be lots and lots of people with the same first and last names.
Second, spelling was phonetic until a generation or so after the Revolution, when Noah Webster's Dictionary, and the gospel of "correct" spelling, began to take hold.
Of course, for the tiny minority who were not only basically literate but had also read a number of books, or who read newspapers, there were reasonably standardized spellings for a good part of the stock of common words, and some not so common, like the many otherwise obscure names to be found in the Bible. And since most of the New England colonials were literate enough to read the Bible, the spelling of names like Ephraim, and Deborah, generally came out the same, although curiously Rebecca had many variants, especially "Rebeckah", which makes me think that it was spelled that way in some published versions of the Bible.
But spelling variations weren't entirely elastic. They did generally have to sound the same - to be the close phonetic equivalents of each other. Thus, as native English speakers, we shouldn't be surprised to find "Raphe" as a variant of "Rafe". The difficulty lies in determining the contemporary vowel sounds, because, as a matter of fact, these varied quite considerably across different regions of Britain, and still do. Applying the Soundex principle, which essentially drops vowels out of consideration, is too crude an approach. For example the "u" sound is hardly ever the equivalent of any other vowel sound, and there are more complex constraints on vowel variation which can sometimes be inferred from the consonantal context.
One therefore searches for the phonetic common denominator of "Rafe" and "Ralph", but apparently there is none, although "the authorities" are divided on the subject. In the first place, it appears that the core English form was "Ralf", with the vowel sound of "Albert" or "Alfred", and this was derived from Old Norse "Radulfr" and/or the Norman "Raulf", which was, or was not, a contraction of the Germanic "Radulf". But somehow, through the magic of English phonetic transformations (think of the leap from "Berkeley" to "Barkley"), "Ralf" became "Rafe", pronounced with a long "a", i.e. "RAYf", and one of my sources tells me that this pronounciation has survived the "correct" spelling revolution, but only amongst the upper classes (presumably either as a traditionalism, or an affectation - take your pick). The "Ralph" form, we are told, came in only during the 18th century neoclassical period (e.g. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)). But if that's the case it raises suspicions that those transcriptions of the Redenhall church and probate records, with a couple of "Ralph" forms, are entirely accurate.
Incidentally, another "authority" claims that "Rafe", and sometimes even "Ralph" are nicknames for "Rafael", pronounced, as an English name, either RAFFael, or RAYFael.
As you probably can tell, I tend to be agnostic with respect to authorities of all stripes.
Regards,
John -
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Hi John, You're absolutely amazing. Many, many thanks for sharing what you know about this.
The Elizabeth/Salle/Sally Peabody thing was quite a stump to me for a couple of years but I figured it out about two years ago. I do believe, but lack the documentation, that Elizabeth's real name was "Elizabeth Sarah" - and it was shortened to "Salle". I'm about 7 years into this project, so you can imagine the frustration involved with this. The "sticking point" I have now is finding the parents of Luther Brown. (My grandfather was Louville Brown - Luther Brown would be my gr(x4)-grandfather). Do you have any information about that side of the family?
I've been noting the variances of name spellings, as I've found it helpful when seeking information from published works.
By the way, I am now wondering if we are related or what is your interest in the Fuller Family?
Again, many thanks for sharing your thoughts and work in this area.
Peace,
Krista -
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Sorry, I can't help you with the Browns - a difficult name. One of the problems I cut my genealogical teeth on involved tracking four generations of John Whites through three different New England states, when there are usually one or two in each township, so I know how it is.
If, as it appears, your Thomas of Dedham is part of the extended Fuller family of Redenhall and nearby parishes, then we are cousins by virtue of that relationship. I've just posted some more on my Fuller ancestry in response to Angela (I'm descended from Edward of the Mayflower (and his unknown wife) through both their sons, Samuel, and Capt. Matthew). -
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Ethel Burnham Fuller (b. 1903; d. 1953 in Sanford, Maine) [References: family, photos, 1910 Federal Census, 1920 Federal Census, 1930 Federal Census, Maine Marriages 1892-1996]
Edward Hall Fuller (b. 1874 in Newton, Massachusetts; d. 1932 in Sanford Maine) [References: 1880 Federal Census, 1900 Federal Census, 1910 Federal Census, 1920 Federal Census, 1930 Federal Census, WWI Draft Registration Card.]
Horace B. Fuller (b. 1836 in Dedham, Massachusetts; d. 1899 in Boston, Massachusetts) [1850 Federal Census, 1860 Federal Census, 1870 Federal Census, 1880 Federal Census, A Historical Sketch of Auburn, MA, The Fitchburg Sentinal, the writings of Louisa May Alcott (H. Fuller was Alcott's editor and owner of The Merry Museum for Boys and Girls, a magazine for children)]
Timothy Filler (b. 1806 in Dover, Massachusetts; d. 1882 Lincoln, Maine) [1850/1860/1870/1880 Federal Census, MA Town Birth Records]
David Fuller II (b. 1764 in Dover, Massachusetts; d. 1824 in Dedham, Massachusetts) [Family Trees - little references here - this one has been a tough person to research.]
Lt. David Fuller (b. 1731; d. 1805 in Dedham, Massachusetts) [Lt David Fuller by Elizabeth Dean]
David Fuller (b. 1704; d. 1777 in Dedham, Massachusetts) [Family Data Collections - Deaths]
(more to come) -
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