Person:Henry Best (1)

Identity

The identity of the Henry Best who married Grace Bothies is not certain. He may have been the Henry Best who was baptized 20 Apr 1544, son of Richard Best, as claimed by Pitman in 1952^[4] (possibly following an earlier assertion, since he provides no evidence in this article). Or he may have been the Henry Best who was baptized 3 Dec 1553, son of Henry Best and (presumably) Margaret Maud.

Evidence in favor of him being Richard's son is that Richard lived in Ovenden, while Henry Best lived in Warley (about 3 miles away) at the time of the baptism of his son Henry. Evidence for him being Henry's son is that both Henry, Sr. (buried 1572) and Henry, Jr. (died 1628) were of Holdsworth. This latter fact and the respective ages of the two Henry's (84 vs. 75 in 1628), argue for the husband of Grace Bothies being the son of Henry Best.

1. ↑ Crossley, E. W., trans. The Parish Registers of Halifax, Co. York. (Yorkshire, England: Yorkshire Parish Register Society, 1910)
   1:81.

   Baptism December 1553:
   'Henry filio Henrici Beste de Warley iii'

2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Index of wills in the York Registery. (Worksop: Yorkshire Archaelogical Society, 1885)
   p. 8.

   'Aug. 5, 1628 [probate date]. Best, Henry, Holdsworth in Ovenden. No [death] date.'

3. ↑ Shaw, Russell Franklin. The English Ancestry of Abraham Shaw of Dedham, Massachusetts (1590-1638), in American Society of Genealogists. The Genealogist. (New York: Association for the Promotion of Scholarship in Genealogy)
   10(1989):92.
4. ↑ Pitman, H. Minot. Abraham Shaw of Dedham, in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   106(1952):51.

   The author claimed (without providing evidence, but this might have been asserted previously) that Henry Best, father of Bridget Best 'was the son of Richard Best of Ovenden, probably the Richard who was buried 8 Nov. 1551 and whose mother probably was Johanna "nuper relic of Richard" Best who was buried 6 June 1544.'