Mollie's claims, checked in the Holbrook-Low Colonial Tree

From the Holbrook-Low Colonial Tree (trees/holbrook-low-colonial-tree.html, version of early October 2026), kept as written so nothing is lost when the tree page is retired. Each claim in Mollie (Holbrook) Pfeiffer's family typescript that the tree checked, with what the records say and the verdict. The full claim-by-claim review is Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer's typescript: a claim-by-claim review; this list is the tree's own summary, and each verdict is on the person's page.

People are given with their archive page ID in backticks. Tiers in brackets: [D] documented, [C] compiled, [I] inference, [T] tradition, [Q] unproven, [F] family record. "Frances" is Frances Fairchild Holbrook (b. 1931), from whom the tree is drawn.

Confirmed

• Richard Warren (Richard Warren). Mollie: Richard Warren died in 1628 (p. 34). Records: Confirmed (Morton, New-Englands Memoriall, 1669).
• Thomas Low (Thomas Low). Mollie: Thomas Low came from Polstead or Boxford, Suffolk, married Margaret Tod in 1630 and came in Rev. Nathaniel Rogers's company (pp. 70-72). Records: The Polstead marriage and Groton and Boxford baptisms exist; their identity with the Ipswich man is a probability. The Rogers company link is supported by a 1641 Ipswich grant.
• Abigail Proctor (Abigail Proctor). Mollie: Abigail Proctor was a daughter of John Proctor Sr. and sister of John Proctor, executed at Salem in 1692 (p. 102). Records: Confirmed by her own depositions of 1673 and 1679.
• Thomas Emerson (Thomas Emerson). Mollie: Ralph Waldo Emerson is a kinsman through Thomas Emerson (p. 109a). Records: Confirmed (compiled): about a fifth cousin once removed of Harriet.
• Thomas Low (Thomas Low). Mollie: Seth Low and Rufus Choate descend from Thomas Low; George W. Cable from the Boremans (pp. 86, 91). Records: Confirmed (compiled). Choate also descends from the Varneys and Proctors.
• Job Tyler (Job Tyler). Mollie: Charles A. Dana and Edith Roosevelt descend from Job Tyler through Hopestill (p. 142). Records: Edith Kermit (Carow) Roosevelt: supported by the Tyler Genealogy. Dana: not found.

Corrected

• Capt. Richard Blackmer Holbrook (Richard Blackmer Holbrook). Mollie: Richard B. Holbrook gave up a captaincy for the gold rush and reached California in 1850 (pp. 7-8). Records: He was at home in Plymouth on 27 Aug 1850 and reached California on 4 Mar 1851 (1894 necrology).
• Richard Warren (Richard Warren). Mollie: Richard Warren's wife was the "widow Elizabeth (Jewett)"; he may descend from the Norman de Warennes (pp. 30-35). Records: His wife was Elizabeth Walker, married at Great Amwell in 1610 (her father's will). No de Warenne descent is known.
• Samuel Rider Jr. (Samuel Rider). Mollie: Sarah Bartlett married Samuel Rider "(1)" of Yarmouth (pp. 46-48). Records: She married his son, Samuel Rider Jr. (1662 certificate, NEHGR 79:316).
• George Ellis (George Ellis). Mollie: George Ellis was born 21 Jan 1749 (p. 33). Records: Born 10 May 1747 (Middleborough VR).
• Caleb Low (Caleb Low). Mollie: Maj. Caleb Low was one of Washington's aides and present at André's execution; Capt. David Low was a brother of Nathan (p. 78). Records: Caleb was a militia major in Col. Wade's regiment, July-Oct 1780; nothing makes him an aide. David's service is confirmed, but he was a first cousin.
• Mary Lamb (Mary Lamb). Mollie: Mary Lamb was a daughter of Caleb Lamb and Mary Wise; Thomas Lamb came in the Winthrop Fleet and outlived his son Caleb (pp. 92-94). Records: Parentage supported. Thomas Lamb died in 1646, when Caleb was not quite five; he could not have outlived him.
• Mary Tompson (Mary Tompson). Mollie: Mary Tompson, wife of Joseph Wise, was a daughter of Rev. William Tompson of Braintree (pp. 96-100). Records: She was the daughter of John Tompson, gent., and Alice Freeman of Northamptonshire (TAG 13, 56, 87).
• Abigail Varney (Abigail Varney). Mollie: Thomas Varney (b. 1682) married Abigail Proctor, and their daughter Abigail (b. Oct. 4, 1733) married Caleb Low (p. 101). Records: Abigail Proctor married Corporal Thomas Varney (d. 1692); their son Thomas married Abigail Cogswell; Abigail Varney was born 14 Oct 1713.
• James Lord Jr. (James Lord). Mollie: One James Lord, son of Robert the marshal, was Lucy's father (pp. 103-106). Records: There were two James Lords; Lucy was the daughter of James Jr. (b. 1707).
• Patience Bigg (Patience Bigg). Mollie: Patience Bigg died 30 Jan 1702/3 aged 84 (p. 113). Records: The year and the age belong to Mary (Bate) Foster, who died 4 or 5 Jan 1702/3, aged 84. Patience's death is unknown.
• John Kneeland (John Kneeland). Mollie: John Kneeland (13) was born in New England (p. 128). Records: He was a founder of the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston in 1657, "being Scottish men"; almost certainly Scottish-born.
• Jane Hawkins (Jane Hawkins). Mollie: Jane Hawkins was banished for "supposed tendency to Quakerism" (p. 129). Records: Banished in 1638 and 1641 as Anne Hutchinson's associate, suspected of witchcraft.
• Job Tyler (Job Tyler). Mollie: Job and Mary Tyler charged John Godfrey with witchcraft and the case was dismissed (p. 136). Records: Godfrey was tried in 1665/6 on their complaint and found "suspitiously Guilty of witchcraft, but not legally guilty".
• Col. Ebenezer Tyler (Ebenezer Tyler). Mollie: Ebenezer Tyler was a 2nd lieutenant among the first to march toward Lexington (p. 140). Records: A private on the 19 April 1775 alarm; lieutenant from 1777.
• Mary Capron (Mary Capron). Mollie: Mary Capron was born in 1684 at Rehoboth (p. 143). Records: That is her sister Elizabeth; Mary was born about 1696.
• Hannah Peck (Hannah Peck). Mollie: Hannah Peck was born 19 July 1646 at Hingham (p. 154). Records: Born 25 Mar 1653, Rehoboth (VR). Mollie's pencil note is right.
• Elizabeth Ide (Elizabeth Ide). Mollie: Elizabeth Ide, wife of Daniel Read, was Nicholas Ide's daughter born 1658; Nicholas married Mary Bliss (p. 156). Records: She was Timothy Ide's daughter, born 1689/90. Nicholas's wife was Martha; Mary Bliss married Nathaniel Harmon.
• Damaris Dean (Damaris Dean). Mollie: Damaris Dean was a daughter of Walter Dean (p. 164). Records: His granddaughter, daughter of Benjamin Dean (Taunton VR).
• Capt. James Ginn (James Ginn). Mollie: Capt. James Ginn's father was William Genn (p. 165a). Records: Thomas Genn of the Choptank River, Maryland (compiled).
• Mary Millett (Mary Millett). Mollie: Mary (Millett) Riggs died in 1682 (p. 171). Records: Died 23 Jan 1694/5 (Gloucester VR).
• Harriet Phillips Low (Harriet Phillips Lowe). Mollie: Harriet's first marriage was annulled by the legislature (p. 82). Records: A divorce, by private act of 17 Jan 1860.
• Capt. Nathan Low (nathan-low-1804). Mollie: Capt. Nathan Low and his crew were left in the water for hours after the collision (p. 80). Records: The 1874 papers say the steamer's boats picked them up; he died a week later of the exposure.
• Wybra Hanson (Wybra Hanson). Mollie: Every ancestor came from England, Scotland or Wales except one Dutch woman, Wybra Hanson (p. 187). Records: Within this tree, broadly so: the one Scot found is John Kneeland; Philip Delano was born at Leiden of a Walloon family; the Genns came by way of Virginia.

Incorrect

• Thomas Holbrook (Thomas Holbrook). Mollie: Thomas Holbrook married Experience Leland, then Jane Kingman, and was "son of Sir Thomas Holbrooke of Broadway" (pp. 1-6, 11-12). Records: He married Jane Powyes at Glastonbury in 1616; his father was William Holbrooke, a Glastonbury yeoman (will, 1625). No source for a knight.
• Deacon Elisha Holbrook (Elisha Holbrook). Mollie: The line runs Thomas of Braintree > Deacon Peter (m. Alice Godfrey) > Eliphalet (m. Hannah Rockwood) > Elisha (pp. 1-17). Records: Elisha was the son of Capt. John Holbrook and Sarah Chittenden of Scituate (Scituate VR; Eastham and Barnstable records). The Leland, Godfrey and Rockwood lines are not ours.
• Sarah Mayo (Sarah Mayo). Mollie: Elisha married Mary Mayhew (b. 1742), daughter of Thomas Mayhew and Mary Witherell, with Mayhew, Skiff, Newcomb, Bayes and Wetherell lines (pp. 18-33a). Records: His first wife, Gideon's mother, was Sarah Mayo, daughter of Daniel Mayo of Eastham (will, 1754). Mary Mayhew was a real Plymouth girl born the year Elisha married.
• Edward Stephens (Edward Stephens). Mollie: A Norman "Fitz Stephens" pedigree and kinship to Col. Thomas Stevens of London (pp. 48-51). Records: Mollie herself marks the first "authority unknown". Nothing connects Edward Stephens of Marshfield to either.
• Mary [Bryant?] (Mary Churchill). Mollie: Eleazer Churchill married "Mary Doty", daughter of Edward Doty (Mayflower) and Faith Clarke (pp. 52-60). Records: The 1687/8 marriage was Henry Churchill's, to Thomas Doty's widow (MD 13:204). Eleazer's wife Mary was probably a Bryant. No Doty or Clarke descent.
• Mary [Bryant?] (Mary Churchill). Mollie: "Maybe she reverted to her ancestor, Edward Doty, and to the persistency of her ancestor Thomas Mayhew" (p. 85, Mollie on herself). Records: Neither is an ancestor: the Doty link fails at Eleazer Churchill, and the Mayhew link at Elisha's wife.
• Thomas Low (Thomas Low). Mollie: Thomas Low's father was Capt. John Lowe of the Ambrose, of the Winthrop Fleet (pp. 70-72). Records: William G. Low, who looked hardest, concluded "probably not" (1908). No evidence.
• Nathan Low (Nathan Low). Mollie: Nathan Low (b. 1742) went against Quebec with his grandfather as a young lad (p. 78). Records: His grandfather Sgt. David Low died in 1746, when Nathan was three. Nathan marched on the Lexington alarm in 1775.
• Joseph Wise (Joseph Wise). Mollie: Joseph Wise came on the Bonaventure in 1636 and descends from the Wises of Sydenham, Devon (pp. 95-96). Records: First found in 1640 as Dr. Alcock's servant; baptized at Bulkington, Warwickshire, in 1617 (NEHGR 177).
• John Fuller (John Fuller). Mollie: James Freeman Clarke descends from John Fuller (p. 109). Records: A different John Fuller, of Newton.
• Richard Foster (Richard Foster). Mollie: The Fosters descend from Rev. Thomas Foster of Ipswich, and through the Foresters from Baldwin of Flanders, Charlemagne and Alfred the Great (pp. 115-117). Records: Rev. Thomas's son Richard was alive in 1639; our Richard died by 1630. Mollie herself says she could not connect them.
• Ensign Hopestill Foster (Hopestill Foster). Mollie: Hopestill Foster (4) was fined as a Baptist in 1672-78 (p. 120). Records: Those presentments concern the Billerica Fosters.
• John Kneeland (John Kneeland). Mollie: The Kneelands descend from the Clelands of that Ilk: Margaret Wallace (aunt of Sir William Wallace), Somerville, Hepburn of Bothwell, Mary Dunbar, Mary Stewart daughter of Lord Blantyre, James V (pp. 123-132). Records: None of it holds. Lord Blantyre had no daughter Mary; Blind Harry names no Kneeland wife; no record links the Boston Kneelands to the Clelands. The source's own author would "not stand sponsor" for it.
• John Kneeland (John Kneeland). Mollie: John Kneeland built the Old South Meeting House (p. 129). Records: The 1729-30 building was built by the mason Joshua Blanchard.
• Job Tyler (Job Tyler). Mollie: Job Tyler was a son of Capt. Thomas Tyler of Budleigh, Devon (pp. 135-136). Records: That captain belongs to the 1680s-1700s. Job's origin is unknown.
• Job Tyler (Job Tyler). Mollie: "Job Tyler is as cantankerous as ever" (Mendon minutes, p. 137). Records: Not in the printed Mendon records; the real entries are his refusal of 1669 and a later note that he had "given satisfaction".
• John Read (John Read). Mollie: John Read was son of William Read and Lucy Heneage, of the Redes of Redesdale, back to 1139 (pp. 147-153). Records: Contradicted: Lucy Heneage was born 1586 and her son John died unmarried in England. John of Rehoboth's wife was a Lessie of Blyborough, Suffolk.
• William Macomber (William Macomber). Mollie: William Macomber came on the Anne and married a sister of Peregrine White (p. 161). Records: He first appears in 1638 "of Dorchester". The White marriage belongs to a William Macomber of 1764.
• Agnes Yeoman (Agnes Yeoman). Mollie: John Wheeler's wife, Ann Wheeler's grandmother, was Ann Salisbury, of the Salusburys of Lleweni (pp. 174-181). Records: She was Agnes Yeoman, married at Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1611. No Welsh descent.

Unproven

• Mary Waite (Mary Waite). Mollie: Mary Waite was a niece of Rev. Nathaniel Ward, author of The Simple Cobler (pp. 107-108). Records: No record found; unproven.
• Robert Lord (Robert Lord). Mollie: Nathaniel Hawthorne descends from Robert Lord through Miriam Lord (p. 106). Records: Miriam Lord married Richard Manning in 1776; her descent from Robert Lord is likely but not traced.
• Mary Foster (Mary Foster). Mollie: Mary (Foster) Thompson was a daughter of John Foster and Jane of Roxbury (p. 114). Records: Unproven: John married Jane Lindsey in 1750, about five years after Mary was born. She may be John's daughter by an earlier wife.
• Robert Peck (Robert Peck). Mollie: Joseph Peck was 21 generations from John Peck of Belton (p. 155). Records: The visitations she cites have no Beccles branch; unproven above Robert of Beccles.
• Thomas Genn (Thomas Genn). Mollie: James Genn the surveyor taught George Washington surveying and was of our family (p. 166). Records: He led the 1748 survey Washington joined (Washington's diary). The teaching is possible, the kinship unproven; he was not a direct ancestor.
• Capt. James Ginn (James Ginn). Mollie: Capt. James Ginn brought two slaves to Bucksport and freed them on 12 May 1803 (p. 167). Records: No record found. 12 May 1803 is the date the Bucksport church was formed in his unfinished house.

Tradition

• Capt. Gideon Holbrook (Gideon Holbrook). Mollie: Gideon came from Wellfleet to Manomet as a boy with his uncle Naaman and inherited Naaman's house, built before 1714 (p. 7). Records: Not yet confirmed. Naaman Holbrook of Plymouth is in the records; his relationship to Gideon is unknown.
• Elizabeth (Callender?) (no page yet). Mollie: Banfield Capron married Elizabeth Callender, of the Callendars of that Ilk (pp. 143-146). Records: The 1817 family account says only "one of Callender's daughters". No Scottish link.
• Major Nathan Low (Nathan Low). Mollie: Major Nathan Low's second wife drowned herself in a spring (p. 79). Records: Hosmer says only that she died a few years after the marriage.
• Mary Foster (Mary Foster). Mollie: Mary (Foster) Thompson was said to be "half French and Indian" (p. 119; Mollie rejects it). Records: Nothing in the records supports it.