England Births and Christenings, 1538 - 1975 for Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, England, shows a Christening date for William Armisteed, son of Anthony Armisteed. The date is Aug 3, 1610, which indicates he was probably born a little earlier that year. I've mentioned Kirk Deighton several times in previous posts and included maps indicating the location. The Christening took place at All Saints Church, Yorkshire, England.
This is a copy of the record as it is listed on the FamilySearch website. The citation is at the bottom of the page above. Record of William Armisteed's Christening.
My cousin, Claudia, was fortunate enough to make a trip to England a few years ago and took several photographs of the old church. Yes, I am very jealous and I have this little plan hatching in the back of my mind that someday soon Kay and I are going to make a trip to England so I can visit that church. Anyone like to come along?
So just how old is this church where my ancestor was christened? A church is mentioned in a survey made in 1086 which may have been located where the present church is located. The existing north arcade is c1150-1175. Additional alterations and additions were made in the 1300s, and again between 1425-50. Extensive rebuilding took place in 1849. The stained glass is Victorian. (Information from the website at: http://spofforthandkirkdeightonparish.co.uk/kirk-deighton)
Please be sure to read the captions under these pictures to see what Claudia had to say about them.
Claudia had this note about the church: "The church was locked and we had to walk into town (two blocks) and call the man to let us in. He was on his way our of town but when Graham told him we had come all the way from Texas, he came and let us in. As we were walking up to the Church, he turned to me and said, 'So you are Armisteads then'? We must be famous."
All photographs courtesy of Claudia Brown.
From Claudia Brown, "All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, England: Picture of the iron gate at the front of the Church. The people in the picture are my sister, Brenda Neve Rumbellow and her husband Graham. I was fortunate to be able to meet them in England and Graham, an English citizen, took us on this tour to the Church. Claudia Brown, September 2009."
"All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, England: View of the church from the front walkway. The caretaker told us that the Clock face had been replaced and the old one was in the churchyard. When we talked to him about the baptism of William Armistead in 1610, he said that the baptistery font in the Church was the new one, circa 1874, (don't you love the antiquity of this place?) and that the original font was placed on top of the old clock face in the Churchyard."
Claudia mentioned above about the baptismal font. This is a picture of the old font from William's 1610 baptism sitting on top of the old clock face. That is pretty awesome to think William Armistead was christened from that font.
All photographs of All Saints Church are the property of Claudia Brown.
As I have noted previously, William was the first born of Anthony and Francis Armistead. Marriage records indicate William Armistead, Yeoman, and Anne Ellis, spinster, from Giggleswick, were married in 1632. From the records I have seen, I believe William and Anne had four children: William, John, Anthony, and Francis. It is quite possible there were other children born that did not survive. The dates of birth and possibility of other children are up for speculation because, as we will see, this couple immigrated to the British Colonies in America a few years later and many records from this early period in the colonies have been lost.
Just a short 28 years after Jamestown was founded in 1607, and at the age of 25, William Armistead made the decision to emigrate and live in the fledgling colony that would eventually become the state of Virginia. In 1635 there was a population of less than 5000 in the entire colony, mostly in the 6 counties along the James River. William decided to head to Elizabeth City County, which had only been established the year before and had probably less than 500 colonists in the entire county.
The Virginia Colony had gone through some very difficult times during the first 28 years, which I will get into later, and it seems to me there would have been a lot of reasons for not going. Not the least of these would have been the possibility that you would not survive the ocean voyage from England. From the records it appears William made the trip in 1635 and then Anne came over alone in 1636. She was a brave and devoted wife to make the trip alone. I found in the records that many wives were afraid to make the trip, and I can't blame them. Many wives refused to leave England, and families were split when the husband went on alone. "One wife refused to follow her husband preferring to be, 'a living wife in England than a dead one in the sea'." (1)
The page below lists Anne and the date she sailed to the colony from England. I do not know if she had a child with her when she came. It appears to me that small children may not have been listed.
In the list above Anne Armestead is the fourth one down. It shows her arrival in 1636 and she was sponsored by her husband, William Armestead. (Both spelled with an "e" instead of an "i". This list is from the book Early Virginia Immigrants by George Cabell Greer.
On the website "Understanding Your Ancestors", Leslie Albrecht Huber described a trip to the colony this way: "The technicalities of leaving England were bewildering. Emigrants needed licenses and passports (then a document that allowed one to 'pass the Port'). After 1634, they also had to have certificates of good conduct from their local minister and agree to take a loyalty oath. Then the emigrant had to locate a ship. Since transatlantic voyages were still uncommon, finding one could involve a lot of searching and negotiations." (2)
Writing about the voyage itself Huber said, "Shipwreck, though greatly feared, wasn't the most notable danger. Of the nearly two hundred voyages to New England in the 1630s, only one ended in disaster. Even then, most of the passengers survived. More threatening in reality was sickness. Severe seasickness or dysentery plagued some passengers. Fatal diseases were sometimes brought on board and spread quickly through the passengers in the small, confined spaces. One ship, for example, arrived with small pox distributed among the passengers." (3)
In my blog a couple years ago I wrote about the difficult and dangerous trip that my Meixner ancestors made in 1881. This trip was nearly 250 years earlier than that. The ships were much smaller and were very susceptible to storms at sea and to disease that bred on ship. However, according to Huber in her blog, "...overall the trip to New England, although frightening and uncomfortable, was relatively safe - safer than immigration to the New World would be during the mass migration of the 1800s." (4) I think the key word there is "relatively" safe. It was still very dangerous but maybe not as dangerous as in the 1800s. (See Huber's blog at http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/wea/default.aspx It is a very good site.)
Let's explore other reasons for or against going to the new colony. One reason can be found in the marriage record which indicates William Armistead was a Yeoman, meaning he owned land. As the first born son, he also stood to inherit land from his father. It seems like he had things going pretty good in England, so why leave? By 1635, Anne had most likely had their first child, so he probably had a young family under his responsibility as well. So why would he head out in 1635, leaving his family behind for many months to try to make it in this new colony. Maybe it was ambition, or pride, that made him want to head out and make it on his own. Possibly the opportunities were few as far as expanding his land holdings in Yorkshire. Despite the bad things going on in the colony, there were undoubtedly reports coming back of thousands of acres of fertile land and of the great opportunities for acquiring land. The use of headrights gave a person of means an ability to expand his land holdings rapidly. (More on headrights later.) Or maybe it just came down to William being the adventurous type. There could be many reasons, including events taking place in England, that may have influenced his decision. One issue causing friction in England was religion, other issues were "widespread unemployment, bad harvests, and political turmoil". (5) I don't know all the pros and cons, but obviously the pros won out. I would say my top guesses for why he decided to go would be ambition and opportunity.
In the book Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer writes: "The great majority of Virginia's upper elite came from families in the upper ranks of English society. Of 152 Virginians who held top offices in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, at least sixteen were connected to aristocratic families, and 101 were the sons of baronets, knights and the rural Gentry of England." He goes on to say in a footnote: "Gentry Families included Armistead, ...". (6) (His list includes several other family names that I did not include here.) I think it is interesting that Fischer has found in his research that the Armisteads were of Gentry stock. I have thus far stated they were from the Yeoman class, because that is what the records stated. Obviously William Armistead was well established to be able to come to the colony and start on his own and his descendants did go on to hold top offices in the colony. One estimate I saw stated 75% of colonists were indentured servants or in some way indebted when they arrived in the colony. (7) The cost of the trip was expensive and there was limited opportunity to get started on your own. In addition to the cost of the passage, you had to bring your own food for the trip and also provisions to last until you could obtain land and raise a crop. In the case of the 75% listed above, they could not afford to pay for their passage but were brought here by others. In 1618, The Virginia Company set up rules for the "headright" system. Because so few could afford the cost of the trip, the Virginia Company had to come up with a way to encourage immigration to the colony and they needed workers. The headright system consisted of a provision stating anyone settling in Virginia, or anyone paying to bring someone to Virginia, would receive fifty acres of land per person. Or said another way, fifty acres per "head". (8) This is where "headright" came from. The indentured servants, of course, had to work off the cost of the trip by signing agreements to work for a certain number of years for the person who payed for their passage. This could range from 4 or 5 years to 10 years.
I think it is safe to say that William Armistead was very well established and recognized the opportunity available if he was brave enough to make the trip to the colony. I feel certain he understood he would be one of the elite or ruling class if he made the trip. It was a big risk but that risk could result in big gains for him. Later I'll show where William brought many people to Virginia and acquired significant land using headrights.
Before I move on, I want to step back and give you a little more history of the Virginia Colony.
Replica ship Susan Constant in port at Jamestown Settlement, a living history museum
JamestownShipsCC BY-SA 3.0
Uploaded by Citypeek
Warfieldian - Own work
Created on June 15 2007
In Dec of 1606 the Virginia Company sent three ships, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery, from England to North America to found a colony. After five months, the ships reached the new land, sailed up the largest river, which they named the James River after the king, located an island that they found suitable for a colony, and proclaimed the name of the island to be Jamestowne Island. On May 14, 1607, the surviving 104 men went ashore to establish the first enduring English settlement in America. (9)
Map of Jamestown Island, showing the terrain and location of the original 1607 fort. (Modern roads, causeway, and buildings not shown)
Map showing terrain of Jamestown Island (as it appeared in the middle of the 20th century). Indicated are the location where the 1607 James Fort was discovered (in 1994), as well as where it had traditionally thought to have been located.
License details: This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of theU.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain. See the NPS website and NPS copyright policy for more information.
As it turned out, the location selected was much less than desirable as a site for the colony. In fairness to the leaders who selected the location they were following the Virginia Company's instructions for how they should choose the proper site. But even with all the hardships to come the settlement survived and as William M. Kelso says in his book Jamestown, The Buried Truth, "The American dream was born on the banks of the James River." (10) This is a wonderful little book that I recommend you read. Also, I recommend you go to Virginia and visit Jamestown (as well as Williamsburg and Yorktown, etc.). Mr. Kelso is the Head Archaeologist of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project. He and his group have made some amazing discoveries on Jamestown Island and have re-written much of what was thought about Jamestown. If you visit the site be sure to allow plenty of time to see the original site and all the archaeological digs going on plus the museum. Also, go next door and see the reconstruction of the three ships that landed there. (That last item is something I did not do and now regret.)
Model of original Jamestown Fort.
Archaeological digs on the Jamestown Fort site.
Jamestown Church and graveyard.
Photographs property of Moody Meixner. Taken Oct 11, 2011.
Description: View of Jamestown Island today looking toward the statue of John Smith by William Couper [1] which was erected in 1909. The Jamestown Church, circa 1639, is in the left background.
Date: 13 May 2007
Source: http://www.army.mil/-images/2007/05/13/4008/army.mil-2007-04-25-132212.jpg
Author: NPS Photo
Additional colonists arrived in Jamestown over the next two years, but conditions at Jamestown remained severe. In Jamestown People to 1800, Martha W. McCartney writes about a study of tree-ring data from a bald cypress tree near Jamestown Island, conducted by the University of Arkansas. In the study they concluded there was a severe drought that lasted from 1606 to 1612. This was the driest period in that area for hundreds of years. This condition created problems for the Native Americans as well as the colonists. By the winter of 1609-1610 things were so bad that this period became known as the "Starving Time". (11) By spring only sixty of 215 colonists that had arrived there survived. (12) This little group decided to abandon the settlement and sailed a short way down river toward the Atlantic. Fortunately, (though the demoralized group that was fleeing might not have seen it that way) they met supply ships and new leadership on their way to the colony so they turned back to the Jamestown Settlement. After the arrival of the new supplies, Jamestown seemed to be rejuvenated. Other hazards plagued the colonist, however, but more colonist continued to come. By 1622 the colonists' rapid encroachment into the surrounding areas, which were Native American territories, created a volatile situation that culminated with the natives attacking the colonists on March 22nd. As a "result...more than one-third of the colonists lost their lives." (13)
Never-the-less the colony survived and continued to expand in to other areas along the James River and along the Chesapeake Bay. Most of the other areas afforded a better environment for living and farming than Jamestown Island did, but Jamestown continued to serve as Virginia Colony's capital even as new colonists started settling in other areas. In 1619 a new governor of Virginia arrived, named Sir George Yeardley. He implemented a subdivision of the colony into four large boroughs that spanned the James River. Each borough was allowed to send two delegates or Burgesses to Jamestown to serve in an assembly. Designated as the assembly's sergeant-at-arms was the provost marshal of Jamestown. "On July 30, 1619, delegates or Burgesses from 11 of the colony's 12 communities gathered in the church as members of the New World's first legislative assembly." (14) Representative government in America began on that day. Governor Yeardley and his six councilors were also present. By 1623 the governor and his council were convening regularly as a judicial body. The assembly could not change the laws that were set down for the colony's governance but they could draft laws that then became subject to approval of the monarch. Local courts were in place by 1625 in two of the boroughs. In 1624 the Virginia Company's charter was revoked and the Virginia Colony became a colony of the Crown. After that the monarch appointed the governor of the colony and his councilors and the governor appointed lesser officials.(15)
"In 1634 the colony was subdivided into eight shires or counties. It was then that James City, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Henrico, Warwick, York, Isle of Wight, and Accomack counties were formed, replacing the four corporations (boroughs) that were established in 1619. There were 4,914 settlers in the Virginia Colony in 1634, and new immigrants were arriving constantly." (16) Each county had a court with justices of the peace, a sheriff, a clerk, and others like constables and tithe-takers. Local life revolved around the county seat and that is where the Burgesses were elected. (17)
Map of Elizabeth City County. This county no longer exists. It was merged into Hampton City several years ago.
This is a Virginia highway map that I have marked up to show where Jamestown Island is located, the upper left green circle, and the James River, circled in the middle, and Elizabeth City County where is was (it is no longer in existence) and the Chesapeake Bay.
So this sets the stage for William Armistead to leave his home in England and come to the Virginia Colony and settle in Elizabeth City County. I get excited when I think about William and Anne Armistead heading to the new world. This is another defining moment in my family story, just as Frank and Theresia Meixner's decision to leave the Austrian Empire in 1881 was a defining moment. Just think, these Armistead ancestors, William and Anne, are two of only 5,000 people that were there at this point in time. They were part of the original settlers of Virginia and America. My Armistead ancestors were participants in settling America, and participants in the new government in America.
The Armisteads are on the list of qualifying ancestors for the Jamestown Society, so if you are interested in joining the society you need to show how you are related to the first Armistead and you can become a member. Here is the address: http://www.jamestowne.org/
So a new life begins in the Virginia Colony for William and Anne. How will this new life go?
References:
(1) http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/ia/settingSailToNE.aspx UnderstandingYourAncestors.com by Leslie Albrecht Huber, © 2006, 2007, 2008. All rights reserved.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways In America, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989, pg. 216.
(7) Ibid, pg 227.
(8) http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/va4_headrights.htm
(9) Kelso, William M., Jamestown, The Buried Truth, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville and London, 2006, pg. 14-15.
(10) Ibid, pg. 1.
(11) McCartney, Martha W., Jamestown People to 1800, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 2012, pg. 5-6.
(12) Kelso, pg. 20.
(13) McCartney, pg. 12.
(14) Ibid, pg. 9.
(15) Ibid, pg. 10.
(16) Ibid, pg. 12.
(17) ibid, pg. 12.
In the list above Anne Armestead is the fourth one down. It shows her arrival in 1636 and she was sponsored by her husband, William Armestead. (Both spelled with an "e" instead of an "i". This list is from the book Early Virginia Immigrants by George Cabell Greer.
On the website "Understanding Your Ancestors", Leslie Albrecht Huber described a trip to the colony this way: "The technicalities of leaving England were bewildering. Emigrants needed licenses and passports (then a document that allowed one to 'pass the Port'). After 1634, they also had to have certificates of good conduct from their local minister and agree to take a loyalty oath. Then the emigrant had to locate a ship. Since transatlantic voyages were still uncommon, finding one could involve a lot of searching and negotiations." (2)
Writing about the voyage itself Huber said, "Shipwreck, though greatly feared, wasn't the most notable danger. Of the nearly two hundred voyages to New England in the 1630s, only one ended in disaster. Even then, most of the passengers survived. More threatening in reality was sickness. Severe seasickness or dysentery plagued some passengers. Fatal diseases were sometimes brought on board and spread quickly through the passengers in the small, confined spaces. One ship, for example, arrived with small pox distributed among the passengers." (3)
In my blog a couple years ago I wrote about the difficult and dangerous trip that my Meixner ancestors made in 1881. This trip was nearly 250 years earlier than that. The ships were much smaller and were very susceptible to storms at sea and to disease that bred on ship. However, according to Huber in her blog, "...overall the trip to New England, although frightening and uncomfortable, was relatively safe - safer than immigration to the New World would be during the mass migration of the 1800s." (4) I think the key word there is "relatively" safe. It was still very dangerous but maybe not as dangerous as in the 1800s. (See Huber's blog at http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/wea/default.aspx It is a very good site.)
Let's explore other reasons for or against going to the new colony. One reason can be found in the marriage record which indicates William Armistead was a Yeoman, meaning he owned land. As the first born son, he also stood to inherit land from his father. It seems like he had things going pretty good in England, so why leave? By 1635, Anne had most likely had their first child, so he probably had a young family under his responsibility as well. So why would he head out in 1635, leaving his family behind for many months to try to make it in this new colony. Maybe it was ambition, or pride, that made him want to head out and make it on his own. Possibly the opportunities were few as far as expanding his land holdings in Yorkshire. Despite the bad things going on in the colony, there were undoubtedly reports coming back of thousands of acres of fertile land and of the great opportunities for acquiring land. The use of headrights gave a person of means an ability to expand his land holdings rapidly. (More on headrights later.) Or maybe it just came down to William being the adventurous type. There could be many reasons, including events taking place in England, that may have influenced his decision. One issue causing friction in England was religion, other issues were "widespread unemployment, bad harvests, and political turmoil". (5) I don't know all the pros and cons, but obviously the pros won out. I would say my top guesses for why he decided to go would be ambition and opportunity.
In the book Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer writes: "The great majority of Virginia's upper elite came from families in the upper ranks of English society. Of 152 Virginians who held top offices in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, at least sixteen were connected to aristocratic families, and 101 were the sons of baronets, knights and the rural Gentry of England." He goes on to say in a footnote: "Gentry Families included Armistead, ...". (6) (His list includes several other family names that I did not include here.) I think it is interesting that Fischer has found in his research that the Armisteads were of Gentry stock. I have thus far stated they were from the Yeoman class, because that is what the records stated. Obviously William Armistead was well established to be able to come to the colony and start on his own and his descendants did go on to hold top offices in the colony. One estimate I saw stated 75% of colonists were indentured servants or in some way indebted when they arrived in the colony. (7) The cost of the trip was expensive and there was limited opportunity to get started on your own. In addition to the cost of the passage, you had to bring your own food for the trip and also provisions to last until you could obtain land and raise a crop. In the case of the 75% listed above, they could not afford to pay for their passage but were brought here by others. In 1618, The Virginia Company set up rules for the "headright" system. Because so few could afford the cost of the trip, the Virginia Company had to come up with a way to encourage immigration to the colony and they needed workers. The headright system consisted of a provision stating anyone settling in Virginia, or anyone paying to bring someone to Virginia, would receive fifty acres of land per person. Or said another way, fifty acres per "head". (8) This is where "headright" came from. The indentured servants, of course, had to work off the cost of the trip by signing agreements to work for a certain number of years for the person who payed for their passage. This could range from 4 or 5 years to 10 years.
I think it is safe to say that William Armistead was very well established and recognized the opportunity available if he was brave enough to make the trip to the colony. I feel certain he understood he would be one of the elite or ruling class if he made the trip. It was a big risk but that risk could result in big gains for him. Later I'll show where William brought many people to Virginia and acquired significant land using headrights.
Before I move on, I want to step back and give you a little more history of the Virginia Colony.
Replica ship Susan Constant in port at Jamestown Settlement, a living history museum
JamestownShipsCC BY-SA 3.0
Uploaded by Citypeek
Warfieldian - Own work
Created on June 15 2007
In Dec of 1606 the Virginia Company sent three ships, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery, from England to North America to found a colony. After five months, the ships reached the new land, sailed up the largest river, which they named the James River after the king, located an island that they found suitable for a colony, and proclaimed the name of the island to be Jamestowne Island. On May 14, 1607, the surviving 104 men went ashore to establish the first enduring English settlement in America. (9)
Map of Jamestown Island, showing the terrain and location of the original 1607 fort. (Modern roads, causeway, and buildings not shown)
Map showing terrain of Jamestown Island (as it appeared in the middle of the 20th century). Indicated are the location where the 1607 James Fort was discovered (in 1994), as well as where it had traditionally thought to have been located.
License details: This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of theU.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain. See the NPS website and NPS copyright policy for more information.
As it turned out, the location selected was much less than desirable as a site for the colony. In fairness to the leaders who selected the location they were following the Virginia Company's instructions for how they should choose the proper site. But even with all the hardships to come the settlement survived and as William M. Kelso says in his book Jamestown, The Buried Truth, "The American dream was born on the banks of the James River." (10) This is a wonderful little book that I recommend you read. Also, I recommend you go to Virginia and visit Jamestown (as well as Williamsburg and Yorktown, etc.). Mr. Kelso is the Head Archaeologist of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project. He and his group have made some amazing discoveries on Jamestown Island and have re-written much of what was thought about Jamestown. If you visit the site be sure to allow plenty of time to see the original site and all the archaeological digs going on plus the museum. Also, go next door and see the reconstruction of the three ships that landed there. (That last item is something I did not do and now regret.)
Model of original Jamestown Fort.
Archaeological digs on the Jamestown Fort site.
Jamestown Church and graveyard.
Photographs property of Moody Meixner. Taken Oct 11, 2011.
Description: View of Jamestown Island today looking toward the statue of John Smith by William Couper [1] which was erected in 1909. The Jamestown Church, circa 1639, is in the left background.
Date: 13 May 2007
Source: http://www.army.mil/-images/2007/05/13/4008/army.mil-2007-04-25-132212.jpg
Author: NPS Photo
Never-the-less the colony survived and continued to expand in to other areas along the James River and along the Chesapeake Bay. Most of the other areas afforded a better environment for living and farming than Jamestown Island did, but Jamestown continued to serve as Virginia Colony's capital even as new colonists started settling in other areas. In 1619 a new governor of Virginia arrived, named Sir George Yeardley. He implemented a subdivision of the colony into four large boroughs that spanned the James River. Each borough was allowed to send two delegates or Burgesses to Jamestown to serve in an assembly. Designated as the assembly's sergeant-at-arms was the provost marshal of Jamestown. "On July 30, 1619, delegates or Burgesses from 11 of the colony's 12 communities gathered in the church as members of the New World's first legislative assembly." (14) Representative government in America began on that day. Governor Yeardley and his six councilors were also present. By 1623 the governor and his council were convening regularly as a judicial body. The assembly could not change the laws that were set down for the colony's governance but they could draft laws that then became subject to approval of the monarch. Local courts were in place by 1625 in two of the boroughs. In 1624 the Virginia Company's charter was revoked and the Virginia Colony became a colony of the Crown. After that the monarch appointed the governor of the colony and his councilors and the governor appointed lesser officials.(15)
"In 1634 the colony was subdivided into eight shires or counties. It was then that James City, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Henrico, Warwick, York, Isle of Wight, and Accomack counties were formed, replacing the four corporations (boroughs) that were established in 1619. There were 4,914 settlers in the Virginia Colony in 1634, and new immigrants were arriving constantly." (16) Each county had a court with justices of the peace, a sheriff, a clerk, and others like constables and tithe-takers. Local life revolved around the county seat and that is where the Burgesses were elected. (17)
Map of Elizabeth City County. This county no longer exists. It was merged into Hampton City several years ago.
This is a Virginia highway map that I have marked up to show where Jamestown Island is located, the upper left green circle, and the James River, circled in the middle, and Elizabeth City County where is was (it is no longer in existence) and the Chesapeake Bay.
So this sets the stage for William Armistead to leave his home in England and come to the Virginia Colony and settle in Elizabeth City County. I get excited when I think about William and Anne Armistead heading to the new world. This is another defining moment in my family story, just as Frank and Theresia Meixner's decision to leave the Austrian Empire in 1881 was a defining moment. Just think, these Armistead ancestors, William and Anne, are two of only 5,000 people that were there at this point in time. They were part of the original settlers of Virginia and America. My Armistead ancestors were participants in settling America, and participants in the new government in America.
The Armisteads are on the list of qualifying ancestors for the Jamestown Society, so if you are interested in joining the society you need to show how you are related to the first Armistead and you can become a member. Here is the address: http://www.jamestowne.org/
So a new life begins in the Virginia Colony for William and Anne. How will this new life go?
References:
(1) http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/ia/settingSailToNE.aspx UnderstandingYourAncestors.com by Leslie Albrecht Huber, © 2006, 2007, 2008. All rights reserved.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Fischer, David Hackett, Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways In America, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989, pg. 216.
(7) Ibid, pg 227.
(8) http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/va4_headrights.htm
(9) Kelso, William M., Jamestown, The Buried Truth, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville and London, 2006, pg. 14-15.
(10) Ibid, pg. 1.
(11) McCartney, Martha W., Jamestown People to 1800, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 2012, pg. 5-6.
(12) Kelso, pg. 20.
(13) McCartney, pg. 12.
(14) Ibid, pg. 9.
(15) Ibid, pg. 10.
(16) Ibid, pg. 12.
(17) ibid, pg. 12.
