From England to America: The Odyssey of the William and Margaret Wilcockson Family
Note: My vision of a coffee table book about Puritan William Wilcockson and his family in England and New England which I started in 2001 is no longer feasible. Instead I will post my research on my website when I have time to devote to it. For the foreseeable future, I have to focus my genealogy time on earning a living with my clients’ paid genealogy research. In the future look for profiles of William and Margaret’s nine children first; then a series of articles on the Wilcocksons, Harvies, and Blackmans in England; finally William and Margaret in Concord, Mass. and Stratford, Conn. In the meantime, all my theories are presented in my 10-part blog on the origins of William Wilcockson in Derbyshire and the September 2017 Grand Wilcockson Tour to Derbyshire. You can also read about the origins of the Wilcockson surname in a 5-part blog.
William Wilcockson was one of the progenitors of the Wilcox/Wilcoxson family in America, coming to New England with his wife Margaret and son John on the ship Planter in 1635.
Find out the true story behind their decision to emigrate from Derbyshire, England, and the circumstances that drove them to leave all that they knew in England and face a harsh wilderness in America with other Puritans and non-Puritans alike in Massachusetts and then Connecticut. Find out what their Puritan beliefs were about religion, about sex, about death, about child-rearing, about food. Step into their shoes for a day and see what their society, their politics, their education, their religion was all about. Some religion historians have called the Puritans of New England religious fanatics ~ see for yourself.
With new and original research in New England and England, Jane Wilcox dispels the myths and inaccuracies that have been spread about William Wilcockson and his family in print for more than a century and more recently on the Internet. Jane presents her theory that Puritan William was the son of tanner William Wilcockson of Biggin by Hulland, Derbyshire, and his as-yet unknown first wife. Learn how Puritan William was disinherited as the eldest son of tanner William and forced to take up another trade — weaving — to make his living. Find out the Derbyshire connections between Puritan William and his wife Margaret Harvie and the charismatic non-conformist Puritan minister Rev. Adam Blakeman/Blackman at Heage, Derbyshire.
In the book you will learn that it’s not true that:
• William and Margaret were from St. Albans in Hertfordshire
• Margaret’s maiden name was Birdsey or Hazzard.
• William died in November 1652 or 1653.
• William spelled his name William Wilcoxson.
• William and Margaret had a tenth child.