"It is reasonable to suppose that Edmund was eldest son, named for Hester's father Edmund Sherman, but dead before Hester made her will; yet Elizabeth Barker of Nayland, co. Suffolk (five miles from Stratford, where the Dr. John Ward family lived), in her will 1627 named her gr. child Edmund Ward. It should be considered as a possibility that Andrew Ward m. (1) a Barker, mother of Edmund; and that Edmund returned to England, not being of 'this place' when Andrew made his will; and this theory would explain Hester's will not naming him, even if he was then living."
