I was having a telephone chat with Chuck Carpenter
the list master in Florida. Chuck made the comment
"there were a LOT of Carpenters" in the Wilts, Berks
and Hampshire area prior to the 1638 move to
Massachusetts Bay. I later took off the shelf my Amos Carpenter
and attempted to estimate the number of male descendents of
Rehoboth William by 1699. A total of about one hundred
seemed correct. My understanding of English demographics is that the English
population grew fairly uninhibited from Plague lows from
1500. The population of Enland by 1600 had once again reached the number
of the 1350 pre-Plague population. This is hard to believe, but all
the experts insist on it. A conclusion drawn from this is that, if there
were just a single Carpenter propagating in
the Wilts, Berks and Hampshire area about 1499, his total number
of male descendants by 1599 would have been about one hundred, a
number no different from the Massachusetts Bay total in 1599. My own
survey of church records of circa 1599 in Surrey, Wilts, Berks and Hampshire
seems to indicate a number of about one hundred families, or even fewer.
If you perchase any of the CD Rom versions of English records, you will
quickly
notice surnamed Carpenter family can only be found in select places.
Thus the data, when at least superficially reviewed, points to one or two
original
male ancestors for Carpenters for year 1499 in the area specified.
I think you can replicate this reasoning for the greater Bristol Estuary
Carpenters (Homme Carpenters etc.) A hundred families by 1599
may even be an over estimation for them. That group also
seems statistically descended from a single male anscestor.
BC