Source:Martyn, Charles. William Ward Genealogy

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In two parts. Part One provides contextual information to paint the geographical, cultural, social, political and economical landscape in which the early Wards lived, ending with the death of William Ward. Part Two is a more straightforward genealogy starting with the second generation.

Of William Ward's Origins

Unfortunately, Martyn adds nothing further to the 1851 efforts of Andrew Henshaw Ward's Ward Family. He writes (from pp 3-4):

From what part of England did he come? Who were his ancestors? These questions must go unanswered as in the case of many another of the country’s founders.

Determined efforts have been made to obtain the information. A few years ago I visited England and directed inquiries to every parish possessing a register that goes back to 1638. I followed clues in person and by correspondence in three hundred and eighty-nine parishes-- thirty-nine of England’s forty counties being represented. But to no avail!

Some of the clues were entirely without merit and were speedily discarded. They included entries of the names Deane, Elward, Everard, Harte, Warren, and Waite, the old style writing having been misread and reported as “Ward” or “Warde.”

The true Ward entries embrace the baptisms of several infants of the name William (or Gulielmus) Ward or Warde of about the right date, but it was not found possible to identify any of them with “William Ward of Sudbury.” Most of them were eliminated by finding their deaths recorded in England, or residence there after our William Ward had emigrated to America, or children of the wrong names, etc.

Three of them remain enigmas. There was disclosed no information to tell their fate: how long or where they lived, or when or where they died; whether they remained in the parishes of their birth or moved to other parishes, or emigrated. These three frequently recur to my imagination. Was one of them William Ward of Sudbury? If so, which one?

Perhaps not any of the three. The true entries of William Ward himself, his wives, and his children, may be patiently awaiting discovery in the register of a parish whose incumbent did not heed my circular appeal to consult his records, or who (quite pardonably) was unable to recognize the entries in the weird penmanship puzzles which the pages of many of the old registers present to the uninitiated.

It is possible that they are not in any register. English parish records are very far from complete. ...

The “bishops’ transcripts” of the records are similarly incomplete. ...

There remains, of course, a great deal of material in the two latter [Public Record Office, British Museum], and various other depositories that time did not permit me to inspect....

...

This volume makes no claims or assertions concerning the English ancestry of “William Ward of Sudbury.”