Holbrook line: George Haile, maybe ours

 Full disclosure:  I have not yet found anything other than geographical location and name patterns to prove that this connection is truly ours.  But it does seem plausible, and even if George turns out to be an uncle or cousin rather than a great grandfather, his history is interesting enough that it deserves a blog post.  As usual, one of the difficulties is that the name is spelled several different ways.  Another is that some of the earliest records are gone.  (And for me, some of the books I need to refer to for this man are not available to me at the moment.  Hint:  I need to make a trip to The Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library.)  

There is some confusion about where and when George was actually born, mostly because his parents are not confirmed.  I've found several men born in the right time frame, but none seem to have been born at what is believed to be his birthplace, in Kent, England.  There is a William and Rose Bond Haile of King's Walden, Hertfordshire, England, who was born on July 13, 1601, and most trees that are available are saying that these are his parents.  However, none of his alleged children carry those names forward, so I'm a little suspicious of that identification.  Also, neither of those locations is reasonably close to Bristol, Somersetshire, England, where he set sail from in 1620.

He came to Virginia as an indentured servant, but I've not been able to determine who his master was, nor whether he was indentured in England or only after he arrived in Virginia.  And it gets murkier, because some claim he married Mary Elizabeth Blood in 1620, in Bristol, and some say it was 1626, and in Virginia.  Others agree that his wife was Elizabeth, but do not attempt to date the marriage.  Obviously the correct documentation has not yet been found.  (And there's always the possibility that he married one woman in 1620, lost her to death, and married again in 1626.) Still others think that our George came a bit later, and the boy or man who immigrated in 1620 was a different George.  

George's children are believed to be John, Thomas, and Nicholas,  with Audrey and Ellin sometimes listed as well.  George must have acquired land because he sold 300 acres in 1651, to Thomas Mallett.  Four years later, he was in court where he was ordered to pay the estate of Thos Coggin, deceased, 300 pounds of tobacco.  From this comment, it seems likely that he raised tobacco, although tobacco was a form of currency at the time and he may have merely owned it.  

George was "above 60 years of age on July 22, 1661, when he was exempt from the levy. Two lines below that, in "Northumbria Collectanea 1645-1720", there is a reference to Mr. Nich (Haile), who "wanted satisfaction of Walter Price for entertaining his runaway servant, January 11, 1668/69.  While this doesn't prove a father-son relationship, it does indicate that the two were in the same general location during the same time period.  

George died November 6, 1671 near Reedville, in Northumberland County, Virginia. If he was the George who arrived in 1620, he lived through some extremely trying times as the native tribes tried to drive the colonists from the continent.  There were periods of warfare, the threat of wild animals, and diseases like swamp fever and malaria to combat.  George would have been 70 years old, perhaps older, when he died so his outlived many of the people who came on the same ship with him, whenever that was.  

Obviously there is a lot of work still to be done with George.  We need his will or estate papers, and would love to see an inventory.  We'd love to figure out just who his parents were, and how his wife or wives were.  And we'd love to know details about his every day life.

The (supposed) line of descent is:

George Haile-Elizabeth

Nicholas Haile-Mary

Mary Haile-Charles Merryman

John Merryman-Martha Bowen

Martha Merryman-Alexis Lemmon

Alexis Lemmon-Rachel Stansbury

Sarah Lemmon-Abraham Hetrick

Isaac Hetrick-Elizabeth Black

Mary Alice Hetrick-Louis Stanard

Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook

Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen

Their descendants