Beeks line: John Bloomfield or Blumfield, died about 1639

 Once again, there's not a lot of information about an immigrant ancestor, and what little there is seems to be conflicting.  So what else is new?  I'm going to give the barest of information here, because an ancestor deserves to at least be acknowledged, and perhaps someday more will be found about him.

John Bloomfield or Blumfeild or some combination close to those names was born about 1583-85, probably in Woodbuiry, Sussex, England.  His father may be another John Bloomfield, but I doubt if he's the Sir Henry Bloomfield I've seen on some trees.  At least, I've not found documentation for this claim.  But he may be some relation, as at least they were in the same county at the same time.  

It's believed that John's wife was named Elspeth or Elizabeth, although once again, I can't find records.  They were probably married about 1610 because the oldest of their five known children was born about 1611, with the last born about 1619.  John may have remarried to someone named Ann, because I'm finding her name mentioned as a wife also; again, I've not found any actual records.

Robert Charles Anderson's Great Migration Directory shows him as having arrived in Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1637, when he would have been in his early or middle fifties.  His son Thomas arrived at about the same time.  It also shows that he was made a freeman at some point.  

Sadly, John didn't live long in the New World.  He died in 1639-1640 in Newbury.  (Many trees say he died in Woodbridge, New Jersey but that town was not yet established, and his will is abstracted in "The Probate Records of Essex County", by the Court of Assistants of Boston.  The brief abstract of his will that I've found leaves the house and grounds to his son, Thomas, who was also in the colony, and his "lame" daughter was to have the overplus of the goods not disposed of.  Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the will or of his inventory, but at least this indicates that he had a few things of value to bequeath.  Since no wife was mentioned, he may have been a widower by this time.

This is as much information as I have been able to locate.  He was in Massachusetts Bay Colony for only a few years.  If he was a freeman, as Anderson indicates, then he was a church member also.  He would have been an active part of his new community (Newbury was formed in 1635).  He lived at a relatively good time in the colony's history, as there were few tensions with the native Americans at this point.  He may have succumbed to the elements, or to one of the many illnesses that the pioneers of the earliest days had to battle.  We just don't know. 

We can honor John for his willingness to come to the New World, and for the efforts he made to give his family a better life within a Puritan framework.  

The line of descent is:

John Bloomfield-Elspeth

Thomas Bloomfield-Mary Waters or perhaps Withers

Mary Bloomfield-Jonathan Dunham

Benjamin Dunham-Mary Rolph

Jonathan Dunham-Mary Smith

Samuel Dunham-Hannah probably Ruble

Jacob Dunham=Catherine Goodnight

Samuel G Dunham-Eliza Matilda Reese

Margaret Catherine Dunham-Harvey Aldridge

Cleo Aldridge-Wilbur Beeks

Mary Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger

Their descendants