The First Four Generations: What the Records Show About the Bouldins

Hello, cousins and fellow family historians. Welcome to this first anchor post in our continuing exploration of the Bouldin family line. We begin on firm ground: the 1624/5 Muster of Elizabeth City records Thomas Bouldin as a member of the Virginia household and gives his arrival year as 1610 aboard the Swan. Two patents issued in January 1624 also document land held by Thomas and Mary as Ancient Planters. Our family’s arrival in Virginia is not simply a story passed down through generations. It is recorded history.[1][2]

The guide for this first stretch of the journey is Katharine E. Harbury’s “The Bouldin Saga,” published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin in December 2007, and her expanded online version, “CORRECTED BOULDIN GENEALOGY: THE FIRST FOUR GENERATIONS.” Harbury’s careful work provides the foundation for the account below. It corrected earlier family traditions, established William Bouldin I as the first proven American ancestor in this line, and described his proposed connection to Thomas Bouldin I as probable but still unproven. I am grateful for her work and follow her distinctions here.[3]

A simple guide to the evidence

As we move through the records, I’ll use four labels to show what kind of ground we are standing on:

• Proven / Documented: Supported by primary records or Harbury’s analysis of those records.
• Strongly Supported: Supported by multiple lines of evidence and the leading interpretation used by Harbury and later researchers.
• Working Hypothesis: The most probable reading of the evidence, but without the direct paper trail required for proof.
• Speculative / Open: A plausible possibility, but without a direct supporting record.

These labels help us tell the story with both confidence and care.

Before Virginia: Warwickshire roots and an English possibility

The surname Bouldin is thought to have a locative origin, associated with Bouldon in Shropshire, recorded as Bolledone in the Domesday Book of 1086. Working Hypothesis, strong: this is a promising explanation of the name’s origins, rather than a proven route connecting every person who bore it to our family.

For the line relevant to this post, the documented story becomes clearer in the early 1500s, in the Barford and Sherborne area of Warwickshire. There, family records place Bouldins among yeomen and farmers. The landscape of their lives may have been shaped by work on the land, parish ties, and the inheritance customs of the time. It is a lovely glimpse of the English roots behind the Virginia chapter.

Thomas Bouldinge of Barford died in 1562. His will, dated 7 January 1562 and proved at Worcester on 13 July 1563, names his wife Annis and their children, including a son Thomas. That son later married Eleanor Aston. His will gives us a documented family connection and a personal name to follow through the next generation.[4]

Working Hypothesis, strong: a Thomas Bouldin, baptized at Barford on 26 September 1585, is the leading candidate for the Thomas who sailed to Virginia in 1610. Researchers including Harbury regard the identification as very likely, but a direct paper trail connecting the baptized boy with the immigrant has not been established. A younger son in a yeoman family might have found a way to make the passage across the Atlantic. That possibility gives us a human setting for the journey, though it remains an explanation rather than a recorded fact.

Thomas Bouldin I and the Virginia records

Proven / Documented: The 1624/5 Muster of Elizabeth City lists Thomas Bouldin as head of household, age 40, and records that he arrived aboard the Swan in 1610. The muster is one of our strongest early records because it places Thomas, his family, and his reported arrival in a specific Virginia community.[1]

On 20 January 1624, Thomas received a patent for 200 acres as a “Yeoman & Ancient Planter.” One hundred acres were for his personal right; the other 100 acres had been assigned to him by Richard Birchett through an indenture dated 19 January 1619.[2]

“Ancient Planter” was a term for colonists who arrived before Sir Thomas Dale’s departure in 1616 and met other requirements, including three years’ residency. The free land dividend was associated with having paid one’s own passage. Thomas appears on the Order of Descendants of Ancient Planters approved list. This status is not an inference from family tradition. His patent calls him an Ancient Planter, and the record documents his landholding.

Mary’s land, status, and open question

Thomas’s wife Mary also received a patent in her own name, dated 12 January 1624. It granted her 100 acres as an Ancient Planter and described the land as adjoining her husband’s property in the Strawberry Bank and Deep Creek area of Elizabeth City. The patent identifies her as Thomas’s wife and calls the grant her “first personal dividend.” Mary also appears on the approved Ancient Planter list.[2]

Proven / Documented: Mary held land and Ancient Planter status in her own right. That record deserves to be seen as her own achievement, not merely a detail attached to Thomas’s story.

Her maiden name is unknown. Harbury raises the possibility that Mary had previously been the widow of Richard Birchett, or another early planter. She may also have arrived independently, perhaps as an adventurer or among the early women at Kecoughtan. Speculative / Open: no record names her as Birchett’s widow, so we should hold that possibility gently, without turning it into a fact. The question remains part of the work ahead.

William in the muster and the first proven American ancestor

The muster lists a William in Thomas’s household and notes that he was “borne in Virginia.” Proven / Documented: this William was born in Virginia and did not qualify for Ancient Planter status.

Harbury identifies William Bouldin I, born about 1624 to 1630, as the first proven American ancestor in this line. He later lived at Bohemia River in what was then Baltimore County, Maryland. His will, dated 26 August 1671, refers to Mary Thwaite and to sons William and Thomas Thwayte, who were born in his house in Abingdon Parish, Gloucester County. Harbury also describes a childless marriage to Rachel, whose proposed surname Lewis is not proven.[3]

Working Hypothesis, strong: the Virginia-born William in Thomas’s household is quite likely the same William Bouldin I. The placement in the muster, the age and timeline, naming continuity, and Harbury’s assessment of other candidates support this reading. But the direct paper trail linking the two Williams has not been found. Harbury states that DNA testing will be needed to prove or disprove the connection. We honor her conclusion by keeping this identification promising, but not certain.

What DNA adds, and what it cannot settle

The Bolling Family Association DNA project places Thomas Bouldinge, identified with the 1610 Swan immigrant, in Y-DNA Group 2. The project reports close matches among testers and a shared paternal ancestor within roughly four to nine generations. It associates the group with descendants of William and Thomasin Nash Boulden of Cecil County, Maryland, including lines connected with Col. Thomas Bouldin. The reported haplogroup is R-M269.[5]

This is meaningful evidence of close relatedness among participating American descendants. Strongly Supported: Group 2 supports a shared Bouldin paternal-line connection among its testers. It does not, by itself, prove the English paper-trail connection or establish that the William in Thomas’s muster household became William Bouldin I. Nor does it establish a direct link to a specific English tester. DNA is a valuable, living part of our research, but it answers some questions more readily than others.

The next branches: William II and his children

Harbury’s account follows William Bouldin II, born about 1664 to 1666 in Abingdon Parish, Gloucester County, and his wife, Thomasin Nash. Their children included Richard, Elizabeth, who married Biddle, twins William III and Alexander, Col. Thomas, who married Ann or Nancy Clark, and James. Harbury’s reconstruction of these generations draws on Maryland wills and inventories, parish registers, and Virginia records, correcting earlier confusion in the family line.[3]

Proven / Documented: these generations provide the next well-supported branches of the family tree. Many later descendants served in the Revolutionary War or held public office. Their stories carry us onward from the earliest colonial records into the family history we will explore in later posts.

Our shared record

As we continue, we can hold both things together: the firm documentary ground of Thomas and Mary’s Virginia records, and the honest open questions at the English-to-American boundary and in the proposed link from Thomas to William I. That is not a weakness in our family story. It is what careful family research looks like: records, considered interpretations, and questions that invite the next generation to take part.

Please read, correct, and share what you know. Cousins who have taken or are considering Y-DNA testing may be able to contribute to the ongoing work. You can explore the family records index, follow new posts in the blog archive, or contact us with a source, a memory, or a question. Our family tree is a shared journey, and every well-supported detail helps make the record richer for those who come after us.

The line reaches further back than Virginia, of course. Before Barford, the trail points toward a small place in Shropshire called Bouldon, near Craven Arms, and south Shropshire sits close enough to the Welsh border that our family has long wondered whether our beginnings lie on the Welsh side of it. That question is open, and it is worth asking carefully. If you are on the English or Welsh side of the family, in Warwickshire, Shropshire, or the Marches, we would very much like to hear from you.

Notes

1. “1624/5 Muster of the Inhabitants of Virginia, Elizabeth City,” in John Camden Hotten, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality; see also the Virtual Jamestown abstracts.
2. Thomas Bouldin patent, 20 January 1624, Patent Book 1, p. 43; Mary Bouldin patent, 12 January 1624, Patent Book 1, p. 42. Abstracted in Nell Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers, Vol. I.
3. Katharine E. Harbury, “The Bouldin Saga,” Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin, December 2007; expanded online as “CORRECTED BOULDIN GENEALOGY: THE FIRST FOUR GENERATIONS”.
4. W. B. Bickley, Pedigree of the Bolding Family of Warwickshire (Birmingham: privately printed, 1898).
5. Bolling Family Association DNA results; see also the FamilyTreeDNA public project.