Where did Richard Warren come from?
The question
Richard Warren came on the Mayflower in 1620. He is the father of Mary (Warren) Bartlett, wife of Robert Bartlett, through whose daughters Rebecca (Harlow) and Sarah (Rider) the Warren line reaches Phebe (Stephens) Ellis twice. His marriage in England is known, but his birth, parents and birthplace are not, and every published ancestry for him has failed or lacks evidence. The lead now being tested is a Richard Warren made free of the Drapers’ Company, the London cloth merchants’ guild, in 1609/10.
Trail
- 1 Oct 2026Called “of London” in 1620
Mourt’s Relation (London, 1622), the earliest printed account of the colony, lists the exploring party of 6 Dec 1620 and names “three of London, Richard Warren, Steeuen Hopkins, and Edward [Doten]” (Dexter ed. 1865, p. 44; archive.org: mourtsrelationo00dextgoog). Nathaniel Morton’s New-Englands Memoriall (1669) names “Mr. Richard Warren” among the Compact signers and records his death in 1628 (Nathaniel Morton, New-Englands Memoriall (1669)). “Of London” says where he lived by 1620, not where he was born; Mollie’s “born probably in London” reads too much into it.
- 1 Oct 2026Married at Great Amwell, 1610
The Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, register records that Richard Warren married Elizabeth Walker on 14 April 1610 (Doree, The Parish Register and Tithing Book of Thomas Hassall of Amwell, p. 157; Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, parish register, in Doree, The Parish Register and Tithing Book of Thomas Hassall of Amwell (1989)). This is the earliest record of Richard himself. Davies notes that “no baptisms of any children of this couple are recorded in the Great Amwell parish registers” (Edward J. Davies, "The Marriage of Richard Warren of the Mayflower," TAG 78 (2003): 81-86).
- 1 Oct 2026Augustine Walker’s will names the daughters
Augustine Walker of Great Amwell, yeoman, made his will on 19 April 1613: “I give & bequeath unto my daughter Elizabeth Warren wife of Richard Warren Sixteene pounds … and unto her three Children Marey, Ann and Sarey Warren Fower pounds” (Will of Augustine Walker of Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, yeoman, printed by Davies, TAG 78 (2003): 85-86). Davies showed that these are the passenger’s first three daughters, in the same order as in the 1627 cattle division, and that Mary’s age at death (1683, “in her 73d yeare”) and Ann’s deposition of 1672 (“aged sixty yeares or therabouts”) fit births about 1610 and 1612. Caleb Johnson, Robert Charles Anderson, the Mayflower Society and Pilgrim Hall accept the identification. The same review set aside the “widow Elizabeth (Jewett)” of the Devon pedigree, who was the wife of a different Richard Warren, of Greenwich, and was 15 in 1629.
- 1 Oct 2026Elizabeth’s family and a London draper
Elizabeth was baptised at Baldock, Hertfordshire, in September 1583, “Elizabeth daughter of Augustine Walker” (Baldock, Hertfordshire, parish register). Her sister Dorothy married, second, Simon Adams, “Citizen & drap[er] of London,” at St Martin Ludgate on 23 Sept 1599 (WikiTree: Freeman, Ellis, Nye, Warren, Walker, Bartlett, Churchill and Bryant profiles), and Simon Adams the elder was the overseer of Augustine’s will. The London Roll index of the livery companies has Simon Adams made free of the Drapers’ Company on 22 Jan 1596 (entry DREB53), and he had been baptised at Great Amwell in 1571. So the Walkers had a direct link to the London cloth trade.
- 2 Oct 2026Every published origin reviewed
Still standing, none proven: a Warren family at Therfield, Herts, suggested by Caleb Johnson (the review on the colonial tree gives a Richard baptised there 9 Nov 1589, son of John); a Richard baptised at Newport, Essex, 22 Sept 1583, son of Richard and Joan (Hadsley) Warren (L. W. Throop, California Mayflower Quarterly; the register entries exist); and a Richard baptised at Rickmansworth, 12 Aug 1576, son of William (WikiTree contributors). Set aside as other men: St Albans 1585 (that Richard stayed and was buried there in 1638), St Peter Cornhill 1579/80 (a cutler buried in London in 1624), and Ware 1579 (buried a week after baptism); also the Norman de Warenne descent. No standing candidate has any record tying him to Elizabeth Walker, Great Amwell or London. Caleb Johnson: “countless different ancestries have been published for him, without a shred of evidence to support them.”
- 2 Oct 2026The Drapers’ Company freeman of 1609/10
A hand search of the London Roll found “Richard Warren … New freeman, Co Draper,” by servitude to Edward Dobson (DRML4603), indexed under 1609; Throop dates the freedom about 14 Feb 1609/10. He then took apprentices of his own: Henry Mellyn in 1610 and Nicholas Simpkins on 3 Mar 1612/13, each for nine years. Simpkins took his freedom on 3 Mar 1623/24, still under master Richard Warren (DRHT3600, DRLL1623, DRLL1624). No apprentice was bound to this Warren after March 1613, and no transfer of his apprentices was found. [Inference] A draper keeping his own household in London in 1610-1613 fits a man who married in April 1610 and had daughters about 1610-1613, and taking no apprentices after 1613 fits a man who later left London; but it fits one who died or stopped trading too. A freedom entry names the master the boy was bound to, living or not, so the 1624 entry proves nothing either way. If the draper is the passenger, the Therfield candidate is out: he would have been 20, and the City required a man to be 24 to take his freedom.
- 2 Oct 2026A rival Richard Warren in the cloth district
Every Warren entry of 1606-1622 in 32 printed London parish registers (about 25 City and Westminster parishes, mostly Harleian Society editions) was checked. None is the baptism of a Warren daughter. But St Stephen Walbrook has, on 1 Jan 1610/11: “Richard Warren, of Aldermary, & Hanna Gathorne, d. John Gathorne, skiner.” St Mary Aldermary lies in the cloth district around Bow Lane and Watling Street. If this man is the draper, the draper is not the passenger, who had married Elizabeth Walker nine months before. [Inference] The colonial tree’s estimate that the draper was the passenger fell from about 20% to about 15%. Its rough odds for his origin: Therfield about 5%, Newport about 4%, Rickmansworth about 1%, four unexamined baptisms of 1579-81 about 2% together, and a man not yet identified about 88%.
- 2 Oct 2026DNA
Tested male-line Warren descendants share the Y-DNA haplogroup E-FTC19215 (under E-M35): four testers, whose common ancestor lived about AD 1644 (FamilyTreeDNA Discover). A “landed family of Essex” match claimed in a withdrawn 2024 article is 19 differences at 111 markers, against FamilyTreeDNA’s cut-off of 10 for a family match. Elizabeth’s matrilineal descendants carry mtDNA H1j10a. DNA confirms the American line but points to no English Warren family yet.
- 3 Oct 2026The Drapers’ Company asked
By 3 Oct the Drapers’ Company archive at Drapers’ Hall had been asked by email about the apprentice bindings of Richard Warren, draper (Henry Mellyn, 1610; Nicholas Simpkins, 1612/13). The original entries may give Warren’s parish or the boys’ fathers, which could separate the draper from the Richard Warren of Aldermary. Warren’s own binding, about 1601-02, probably falls before the Company’s bindings books begin in 1603. No reply yet.
Where it stands
Richard Warren married Elizabeth Walker at Great Amwell on 14 April 1610 and lived in London by 1620. That this couple is the Mayflower couple rests on Davies’s argument from Augustine Walker’s will, the accepted identification, which the archive rates probable on Richard’s and Mary’s pages (Elizabeth’s own page rates her father link proven). His birth (estimated c. 1578-1585), parents and birthplace are unknown, and no proposal is proven. Whether he was the Drapers’ freeman of 1609/10 turns on whether that draper is the Richard Warren of Aldermary who married Hanna Gathorne; the colonial tree put it at about 15%, an estimate not yet carried onto the person pages. Whether the Richard Warren on the Honourable Artillery Company roll of 1612 is the same man is also open. The Drapers’ Company has been asked; no reply yet.
Next
- The Drapers’ Company’s reply on the apprentice bindings (Drapers’ Hall, London; free). Sent; waiting.
- Follow-up questions for the archivist (Drapers’ Company archive; free). Is Richard Warren in the Quarterage Book that begins in 1617, and does he pay after 1620? What does Simpkins’s freedom entry of 3 Mar 1623/24 say about his master (“late”, “deceased”, “beyond the seas”)? Did Henry Mellyn take his freedom? Do the records give the draper’s parish or wife? Dues still paid in London in the 1620s would rule the draper out; payments that stop in 1620 would be the first record tying him to the Mayflower.
- Boyd’s Inhabitants of London, family units for Richard Warren (Findmypast; subscription). These often link a citizen’s livery company to his marriage, so they may show whether the draper married Hanna Gathorne.
- The 1612 Richard Warren in the Honourable Artillery Company’s Vellum Book (Raikes, Ancient Vellum Book (1890), archive.org; free). See whether the entry gives his trade, company or parish. The archive lists him as unidentified.
- Davies’s addendum, TAG 78 (2003): 274-75, on Dorothy (Walker) Adams (The American Genealogist). Not yet read; the Adams marriage is the family’s tie to the Drapers.
- Hertfordshire registers (Findmypast or Hertfordshire Archives; these parishes are not on FreeREG). Warren baptisms at Baldock, 1570-1610, and any record of Richard and Elizabeth in 1610-1620 at Ware, Hertford, Therfield, Baldock and Royston. Davies found no baptisms of the couple’s children at Great Amwell.
- Big Y tests of male-line Warrens from the Therfield and Kelshall, Newport and Saffron Walden families, and of a descendant of Joseph Warren (FamilyTreeDNA; test fee; optional). A match inside E-FTC19215 would point to an English family; a different haplogroup would rule one out.
- Chancery suit Franketon v Walker, TNA C 2/Eliz/F2/28, which names an “Augustin Walker” as defendant (The National Archives, Kew; page check £9.92, then a quote; optional). It may show whether he is Elizabeth’s father and where he came from.