Person talk:Thomas Bliss (9)

Do not merge this page with Person:Thomas Bliss (5).

Who are his Parents? [22 May 2022]

Charles Arthur Hoppin, in The Bliss Book (1913), assumes that the son Thomas mentioned in the 1617 will of John Blisse was Thomas Bliss of Hartford, Conn., even though he could not find the baptisms of any of Thomas of Hartford's children in Preston Capes (he considers a possible explanation for the lack of baptisms to be that Thomas was excommunicated).

Hoppin, having allocated John's son Thomas to be Thomas of Hartford, assumes that Thomas Bliss of Rehoboth was the son of John's brother William, based on the circumstantial evidence that Thomas of Rehoboth was married and had his children baptized in Daventry, William's home town, and was considered to be of Daventry at the time of his marriage in 1614. There is no record of the baptism of Thomas son of William in Daventry, whereas there is a record of the baptism of William's son William. William (the purported father of Thomas) left no will, so there is no documented evidence that William had a son named Thomas.

Based on information from other compilers, Aaron Tyler Bliss, in the 1982 Genealogy of the Bliss Family in America (which I have not had an opportunity to read), determined that Thomas Bliss of Hartford was not from Northamptonshire. Thus, the simplest solution is that Thomas of Rehoboth was the son of John Blisse (as apparently indicated by Aaron Tyler Bliss), and that he moved to Daventry from Preston Parva before 1614. Possibly he went to assist at the forge in Daventry, after his uncle George died in 1609.

Therefore, I believe it would be correct to keep Thomas' parents as John Bliss and Unknown, and remove William Bliss and Unknown as possible parents. However, I have left the uncertainty for now, until someone who has read Aaron Tyler Bliss can confirm that this is appropriate. --DataAnalyst 22:21, 24 August 2010 (EDT)

I borrowed the 1982 book from Internet Archive and confirmed that Aaron Tylor Bliss considers Thomas Bliss of Hartford's ancestry to be unknown (probably born in Gloucestershire), and that Thomas Bliss of Rehoboth was the son of John Bliss of Preston Parva. I updated the page accordingly.--DataAnalyst 23:03, 22 May 2022 (UTC)