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Author: BevAnderson91
Surnames:
Classification: queries
Message Board URL:
http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.carver/849.1.1.3.1/mb.ashx
Message Board Post:
The person you replied to is looking for a Willis (not Wills or William) Carver from
Missouri.
There is a Wills Carver (Wills, not Willis, and not a nickname for William), b. 8 June
1785, Vinalhaven, Knox County, Maine who is a descendant of Robert Carver of Marshfield,
Massachusetts, nephew of Gov. John Carver of the Mayflower - family origins are in
Doncaster, Yorkshire. Wills Carver is my ancestor, as is Robert. My Carver line is:
Isaac, Robert, John, William, John, Caleb, Caleb, Caleb, Wills, Allison Larsdel, Fred
Allison (only the last two had middle names, the rest are single first names).
See: Carver, Clifford Nickels, Litt. B. The Carver Family of New England: Robert Carver
of Marshfield and his Descendants, Privately Printed, 1935.
There are at least three unrelated Carver lineages that I'm aware of in the US (quite
likely a lot more, too, but three that go waaaaaay back).
Gov. John Carver had no children who lived beyond infant deaths, so no one descends from
him. His brother, Isaac Carver, stayed in Leiden, Holland. John and Isaac were part of
the Separatists who left England for Holland. John came to America, was governor of the
new colony, died about four months after the Mayflower arrived (Apr. 1621), his wife
"died of a broken heart" a couple of months later, according to Wm. Bradford who
succeeded Gov. John Carver.
There was a Richard Carver from colonial New England (from England, not sure where). He
had daughters, no sons, so that Carver line daughtered out early in America.
Some 75-100 years after Robert Carver settled in Marshfield, Massachusetts, there was a
Carver line that was from southern England that settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In
correspondence with author Donna Ernst, she said that a William (Will) Carver who rode
with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh was born in Pennsylvania) has
roots with that Carver line. William/Will Carver was shot in a gunfight in Sonora, TX in
1901.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carver_(Wild_Bunch)
Quite a while back I saw an online reference (I don't remember which web site) that
had a Carver line from Georgia that started out as being spelled Garver (? not sure if the
line was from England or elsewhere) and then morphing into Carver (I don't know how
early that line came to Georgia). Unknown if that is accurate, but given spelling
variations and misspellings through the centuries, it's plausible.
So, that's four lines for sure..., and I have no idea how many more there might be.
Carver is an occupation name for a (usually) wood carver, so there are many other persons
named Carver who are unrelated.
Most likely the Carvers in Maine who can trace their ancestry to before the Revolutionary
War probably descend from Robert Carver of Marshfield, Massachusetts. Obviously,
documentation is the most important.... "Genealogy without documentation is
mythology."
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