Family:William Gillett and Abiah Pye (1)

Ever since the publication of the will of Rev. William Gillett, Rector of Chaffcombe, Somersetshire [ NYGBR 41:282-83], Jonathan and Nathan Gillett of Dorchester and Windsor have been considered his sons, although there have been some nagging doubts. In 1979 George E. McCracken published additional information which makes the identification solid [ TAG 55:170-73]. McCracken suggested that Jonathan, Nathan and some of their siblings were born before 1610, when William Gillett was instituted at Chaffcombe; but we only have scattered Bishops' Transcripts for some of the years after 1610, and there is a ten-year gap when several Gillett children could have been born. Jonathan was probably older than Elias, who was baptized on 11 February 1611/2 and so could well have been born at an earlier residence for the family. Nathan, however, need not have been born until 1613, and he could have been born at Chaffcombe, next after Elias, during a period when neither the parish register nor the Bishops' Transcripts survive for that parish. ^S1

1.   Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995)
   "Jonathan Gillett".
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Mahler, Leslie. Various English Wills Relating to New England Colonists, in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   162(2008):113-14.

   'Work coordinated by Burton Spear in the 1990s located a marriage license dated 18 September 1609 for William Gillett, clerk and curate of Kingstone, Somerset, and "Habiathia" Pye of Donyatt, Somerset.' citing Somerset Record Office, as cited in Burton Spear, ed., Search for the Passengers of the Mary & John 1630