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Old 28-07-18, 09:51
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Default Is Emmet Wilmott?

This pedigree:

https://www.geni.com/people/John-Wis...00024007238871


shows John Wise dying January 1563/4. His eldest son, Thomas, is eighteen years and 4 months. His second son, John apparently married Emmet Vavasour. John junior presumably was 17 or younger at the time.


Sidenham is in the parish of Marystowe - roughly equidistant from Launceston and Tavistock. IE, west of Dartmoor.


"My" John Wise is of Totnes, ie east of Dartmoor. He is shown in modern pedigrees as son of John d Jan 1563/4.


Unfortunately, his wife predeceases him and is not named in the baptisms of their children. However, he is a grandfather when he dies in 1602, and his daughter Ellnor married in 1574.



Willmett Wyffe of Mr John Wysse was buried 8 March 1573/4.


"My" John has lands in Dawlish and Dittisham - both near Totnes.


Surely, he cannot be the son of John d 1563/4, though he might be a cousin.



And has anyone found Emmet as a variant of Wilmott?
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Old 28-07-18, 09:59
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Here is the Sidenham branch in 1620.

https://archive.org/stream/visitatio...goog#page/n377


Tellingly, there are no signatures, nor is Thomas' pedigree continued forward, so this family were only important by virtue of their wives, which is where the information must have been found. When my John died, he was immensely wealthy but a merchant, not a gentleman!
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Old 28-07-18, 10:13
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Could John have been married twice?
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Old 28-07-18, 10:34
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Oh, he was. As soon as Wilmott died, he married Elizabeth.

But Elinor must have been born by 1560. Totnes records start in 1558. If the eldest children were baptised there, there are at least three baptised prior to 1558. Which means John must have been born some time prior to 1540 and so older than Thomas Wyse, son and heir of John.
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Old 27-05-21, 21:18
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I was planning to start a new thread asking about Emmota and Willmett Wyse, but then came across this old post, so will add my comments here.
Family trees posted on Ancestry and elsewhere identify them both as being daughters of men named Richard Vavasour. but in Willmett’s case I think that is this is fanciful . I would be delighted to be proved wrong, but provide here what I think can be accepted as credible.
The most complete source of information for Emmota, (or Emmet) is a book named “Col. John Wise: His Ancestor and Descendants”, published in 1918. The tree it provides starts from one Oliver Wise, living at the time of the Norman Conquest, and goes forward to about 1900. About half way down there is a John Wise, married to ‘Emmota, d. Richard Vavasour “of Hazelwood”’. It shows 4 sons: William (1560–1626, married to Frisweda), Samuel (married to Wilmote, who was mayor of Totnes in 1630 and died in Nov 1633), Henry and Christopher.
The only original source I have found for Willmett is in an article published in 1890 in “The Western Antiquary, vol. IX, page 191, which reads:
1573, May 13, “Willmett the wife of Mr. John Wisse” was buried and on 6 November the same year, Mr. Wise marries Elizabeth Smythe, widow, and during his mayoralty in 1574, his daughter Elizabeth was baptized.
This John Wise (also spelled Wyse or Wyess) was definitely not the same one that married Emmota, but was John Wise ‘the Elder’, governor of the merchant guild at Totnes for 20 years and mayor of Totnes in 1574 and again in 1587. He was probably born on 2 Oct 1541 and had at least two sons by Willmett, named Christopher (c. 1566–1628) and John ‘the Younger’ (d. 1621), plus several more sons and daughters by Elizabeth. John the Elder died in 1602 and his Will is available online (PROB 11/100). Both Christopher and John the Younger served terms as mayor of Totnes, and their Wills are also online (PROB 11/155 and PROB 11/140). John the Younger’s had a son named Sampson, (c. 1612–1678) whose granddaughter Elizabeth married Dr. William Chadder of Totnes, and whose 3 daughters – Mary, Dorothy and Sarah – have many descendants living today, including myself. Willmett is my 9xGreat-Grandmother.
Several trees on Ancestry and other websites identify Emmota’s father as Sir Richard Vavasour (1495–1563), married to Lady Margaret Hodgson. He was born at Copmanthorpe, and died at Birkin (both in Yorkshire), while others claim that Wilmet was also a Vavasour. One names her parents as the same as those of Emmota. Others state that she was Emmota’s niece, with a father also named Rychard (1513–1563), married to Dorothy Clapton.
But a book named “The Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi in the City of York” published in 1872, states that this Rychard was born in Birkin in 1513 married Dorothy, daughter of John Clapton Esq. but died without issue. Dorothy then remarried Thomas Appleyard, alderman of York, and died in 1587.
I have found no evidence that Willmett’s maiden name was actually Vavasour, and think this attribution is due to a false identification of Willmett with Emmota. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.
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Old 28-05-21, 10:39
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Thank you for that useful information.

Totnes parish records are online.

It is impossible to tell across 450 years, but it looks very much as if the original records were in a state of considerable disorder, a mere twenty years after they were started, so the first few pages are a jumble of entries from between 1556 and 1560. It looks in addition as if several pages have been lost, and the entries only start properly in Feb 1564/5.

John has children:
Barnard bp 1566 (or possibly Leonard, as a Leonard is buried a few months later)
Eustes 1568
John 1569 (not clear if this is bp or bur)
Joane 1570
Nicholas 1572

then
Elizabeth 1574
William 1576
Samuel 1578
Rebecca 1580
Mary 1583
Richard 1585

I do wonder whether whether the Samuel who was mayor of Totnes was the son of "our" John Wise, born 1578?

I am descended from Christopher (on the assumption of virtue on the part of my female ancestors!) He would appear to be born in 1564 or earlier.

It is some time since I have looked at this, but without any marriages or references to mothers at baptism etc, I would not be confident that John was only married twice. Christopher Wise's widow was Emlyn nee Trosse. He was her third husband and she went on to marry Humphrey Speccott, and did not die until 1659.
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Old 28-05-21, 16:23
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The Will of John Wise the Elder , proved in 1602, mentions children Christopher, John, Eustace, Nicholas, William, Samuel and Richard; also daughters Mary Wise, Elenor (?) Austyn, and three more, the wives of his sons-in-law: Walter Smyth, Bartholomew Laskey and Christopher Brooking. The Will also bequeathed to Christopher the suit of clothes that he wore for his portrait by Nicholas Hilliard.
The Will of Christopher, proved in 1629, refers to his 'mother' Elizabeth (actually stepmother), his wife Emlyn, a recently deceased brother John, a brother Nicholas and a brother-in-law Bartholomew Laskey.
The Will of John wise the Younger (proved in 1621) mentions his wife, Dorothy, his brothers Christopher and Nicholas, his brother-in-law Bartholomew Leskye, and several children, including Sampson, then still not 21.

As we know, There was another family named Wise in Totnes.
The will of William Wise (d. 1626) mentions two brothers, Samuel and Richard, two sons, William and John, and 3 daughters, Anne, Elizabeth and Catherine. Correlating that with the information in the book about 'Col. John Wise' this William must have been the son of the John and Emmota Wise.
Samuel's Will was proved in 1634, and mentions his wife, Wilmot, sons Samuel and Christopher, daughters Fridiswid, Elizabeth, Rebecca and Sarah.

Since the Wills of Christopher and John do not mention their brother Samuel, it is likely that he died before them, which is why I think that the mayor in 1630 was the son of Emmota and brother of William

The real enigma in all this is the relationship of the two families. Where does John Wise the Elder and his descendants fit in the larger Wise family tree? It is hard to believe that they were unrelated, but I have found no plausible common ancestor.
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Old 28-05-21, 19:56
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Don't you think it more likely that John and Christopher left legacies to siblings of the whole blood, and William and Samuel did the same?

Unfortunately Vivian's book isn't online. His pedigrees indicate his sources. For reference, this shows the Harris pedigree: https://heraldryofthewestcountry.wor...ayne-a-niggle/


When Jennings Cropper Wise wrote his book, he would not have had access to many of the sources available to us. Christopher Wise's children appear in the 1620 visitation. No doubt their father's money made them acceptable brides. But no Wise family of Totnes appear in the Visitation (and I also note that Eustace's son, also Eustace was very, very Catholic - and had the decency to make free the slave by whom he had several children)
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Old 29-05-21, 18:53
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Your point about the importance of full brothers is very interesting. When I first went through those Wills I was not aware of two wives, so did not distinguish between full brothers and half-brothers.
Your point also about the lack of modern resources for those earlier antiquarians has also made me think hard. It now looks as though for all the data after 1564, those authors (Colby, Vivian and Jennings Wise) all relied on the same information supplied from a single archive in the possession of the grandchildren of Ayshford Wise (my GGGF’s banking partner and MP for Totnes in 1812-1818).
I am therefore willing to reconsider the tidy solution to this whole question. If Emmot was a misreading of the name Willmett, then John Wise the Elder could have been the son of John and Alice (nee Harris) who appears in all those original trees. That would then make William (married to another Wilmote) and Samuel (married to Frisweda) to be the sons of Elizabeth Smythe, and half brothers of Christopher, Eustace, John and Nicholas. That is very clean, but hard to substantiate. Maybe you knew all this when you first started this thread, and it has taken me a while to absorb it all.

btw, I downloaded a copy of Vivian's "Visitations" book some years ago, and I think it is still downloadable for free from https://books.google.com/books/about...d=GmqlIibS95IC.
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Old 29-05-21, 20:47
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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.
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