Jonas Eaton was my 10th great-grandfather and immigrant ancestor who came from Dover, Kent, England, in 1637. In my previous post, I explained how I discovered an error in one Eaton genealogy, which stated that Jonas was a brother of William Eaton.
Why I didn't check WikiTree before digging, I just don't know. There the answer had been all along and Jonas is included among the immigrants in the Puritan Great Migration Project. and the facts are well documented, including a copy of his will. Click here to see his profile on Wikitree.
The book The Granberry family and allied families : including the ancestry of Helen (Woodward) Granberry, by Donald L. Jacobus, 1945, provides a wealth of information about Jonas Eaton, as follows:
This source also includes information about Grace's second husband, Henry Silsbee, as follows:
In an attempt to find solid evidence of his birth and parentage, I searched Ancestry (World) and found only one record of Jonas Eaton, a son of John Eaton. He was baptized August 15, 1619 in Northbourne, Kent County, England, just 5-6 miles from Staple, where William Eaton lived, and 6.5 miles from Dover, where Jonas was said to have been born, according to collaborators on Wikitree.
According to the parish records, John Eaton had another son named Matthew who was buried at Northbourne on September 22, 1619, when his other son, Jonas, would have been just a baby. I found no record of William Eaton as a son of John Eaton, in the collection. [The Tyler Collection, The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies; Kent, England, Tyler Index to Parish Registers, 1538-1874]. I found a record of William Eaton, baptized Sept. 26, 1607, at the Saint Mary the Virgin, Dover, Kent, England. He was a son of Peter Eaton, according to the record. [England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975].
I was unable to find any potential matches other than this baptism record. I found one possible match on FindMyPast.com in their Births & Baptisms dataset but this, too, only included the baptismal record. Therefore, I am unable to confirm whether or not this is my ancestor, Jonas Eaton, at this time.
Although the record says the father's name was John, perhaps but there is a change his name was John Peter Eaton or Peter John Eaton. If anyone can help provide some documentation to solve this mystery, please comment below or contact me.
The old parish church at Northbourne can be seen here:
Stay tuned for updates!