John Kitchell
John Kitchell lived in the north-west corner of Kent, in the villages of Beckenham and Hayes. Both lie a few miles south of London.
He married Joan Jordan at St George's, Beckenham, on 17 May 1596. The marriage is printed in a family history of 1917 as "John Kitchell and Johne Jordan, at Beckenham, county Kent", and a compiled database of Kent families gives the same date and church. Joan was the sister of Nicholas Jordan, Esquire.
Two children of the marriage were baptized at St Mary's, Hayes, according to the same database. Frances was baptized on 30 January 1596/7, and Robert on 25 October 1601. Robert grew up to be the first man to sign the Guilford Plantation Covenant in 1639, and a magistrate of Guilford and a founder of Newark, New Jersey.
John Kitchell disappears from the records after Robert's baptism. By about 1602 his widow had married Richard Lake, and in 1603 she had a daughter baptized at Hayes. So John probably died within a year of his son's birth. His burial is not known. In 1625 his widow's third husband called Robert "my wife's eldest son".
The family history of 1917 describes the Kitchells as "of Combe, Kent" and says its authors believed Robert to be the son of John and Joan after their own searches at Canterbury. A different Kitchell family, of Addington and the Inns of Court, appears in the 1634 Visitation of Middlesex. No record joins John to it.
Children
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "John Kitchell (b. 1571)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-kitchell-1571-c218e5.