Washington Family Historical Society

Quarterly Review - Qtr 1 2003

Migration to America

Under Queen Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudor dynasty, the two main branches of the Washington family had lived in relative obscurity as country gentry in Northamptonshire and Yorkshire. Both branches of the family could trace their roots back to the "Original" Washington in Durham, England.

In 1603, with the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne as King James I of England, a number of the Washington family were knighted, perhaps because of the historic links between the Washington family as descendents of the Earls of Dunbar,  and the Scottish crown.

Sir Lawrence Washington became Registrar of the Court of Chancery and lived at Marlow on the River Thames

*mes.

Sir William Washington (b. circa 1590) married Anne Villiers, the penn

"The Elizabethans looked ahead. When Spain was dominant in Central and South America, Hakluyt (Richard) looked  to North America as the proper sphere for English-speaking settlement. It was Spain's power in the New World, with silver and gold that made it so profitable to her, that gave her the means to interfere in other countries all over Western Europe. The future of the English peoples depended on their getting a foothold in North America. Spain would have kept everybody else out if possible: already in 1572 she had sent a reconnaissance expedition to the Chesapeake - and had destroyed the French colony in Florida with a thorough massacre" - The First Colonists - A. L. Rowse.

What motivated men, women and families to take the risk of giving everything up in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and migrating to America,  has long fascinated historians. Was it really for "religious freedom"?. Was it for a new beginning? Was it for land, money or power? or was it simply the challenge?.

After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, ........

John Rolfe left his son, Thomas in England to be raised by his uncle, Henry Rolfe.John Rolfe's third marriage was to Joane Peirce, daughter of William Peirce.They had one daughter, Elizabeth, born 1620/21.  John Rolfe was dead by October 1622. 

     John’s son, Thomas married Elizabeth Washington, 13 September 1632 at St. James Clerkenwell, London but she died during the birth of their daughter, Ann, in 1633