Ancestors

Giles Hopkins

Giles Hopkins was baptised at Hursley in Hampshire in 1607, the third child of Stephen Hopkins and his wife Mary. He was about two when his father sailed for Virginia and did not come back, and five when his mother was buried in the same churchyard in May 1613. He and his sister Constance were raised in the village by their grandmother, the widow Kent, for four or five years, until their father reappeared, married again in London, and put them on a ship.

He was about twelve on the Mayflower in 1620, old enough to remember all of it. Bradford's passenger list names him with his sister as "2. children, caled Giles, and Constanta a doughter, both by a former wife." He shared his father's lot in the 1623 land division and appears in the 1627 cattle division in the seventh company with the rest of the household.

On 9 October 1639 he married Katherine Wheldon, the colony record reading "Gyles Hopkins & Katherne Wheldon marryed the ixth octobr 1639." They went first to Yarmouth on Cape Cod, where he had a grant, and by 1646 to the new town of Eastham, which is where the ten children are recorded. He held land, served on juries, and lived quietly for fifty years, which is the reason less is known of him than of his father.

He made his will on 19 January 1682/3 and added a codicil on 5 March 1688/9 providing for his wife "Catorne" and for his son William, who could not manage for himself. It was proved between 16 and 26 April 1690. Between his mother's grave at Hursley and his own at Eastham lies the whole of the crossing.

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Cite: Heirology, "Giles Hopkins (1607-1690)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/giles-hopkins-1607-1690-df2c47.