[Phoenix]

Visitations are usually fallible, but helpful. A bit like censuses, the herald would turn up and ask personal questions. The trustworthy ones have ages for the children and are signed by whoever provided the info. Where you have two brothers providing the information, it can be very illuminating as showing what is important to each of them.

Similarly, Inquisitions Post Mortem are taken within a year or so of the death of the landowner. A jury of local men find out what land the dead man had held, and the age of his heir. Once the heir is over 24, then the ages are very approximate. But if the heir were under age, the King (or Queen) could get an additional cut, so the ages are likely to be accurate.

John of Totnes has a daughter Ellnor marrying in 1574. Realistically, she was probably born in about 1558 or earlier. Even if John were only 16 when she was born, this would put his date of birth about 1540 or earlier. You quoted a dob of 2 October 1541. It's not impossible that earlier parish registers were at some stage available. But it would clearly make him older than Thomas Wise of Sydenham.

The contemporary sources I have seen suggest that there is no link between the Totnes and the Sydenham families, unless it is several generations earlier. All the Totnes men describe themselves as merchants, rather than gentlemen. According to the Devon Archive Catalogue, there are a couple of references to men called Wyse in Totnes in the 1460s.

My gut feeling is that two hundred years ago it was felt that there was a connection, and I have family stories which were proved right by the 1841 census, so there may well have been one, but it has got to be further back in history.

Such a pity that Devon wills were destroyed.