Be careful about the ancestors of Benjamin the Burgess. Please read the following:
The Tyrrell Chart and The Ancestry of Benjamin Cave, Burgess of Orange County, Virginia
The following is a verbatim excerpt from a letter written November 23, 1968 by Mrs. Dale
M. (Dorothy) Thompson of Kansas City, MO. Mrs. Thompson, now deceased, was of the line of
Benjamin the Burgess and sought for years to determine his ancestry without conclusive
results. She has some rather negative remarks concerning the author of the Tyrrell Chart
and his claim to have determined that the parents of Benjamin the Burgess were Rev.
William Cave, Canon of Windsor and his wife Anna Stonehouse. The excerpt...
"You asked about the Tyrrell chart. Early in my CAVE researches, I kept hearing of
this genealogical chart, which seemed to be so much venerated and quoted from. Later I
learned that some early Cave-descendant, in the line of Benjamin's daughter Hannah
Mallory, had employed an English genealogist named Tyrrell to trace the family. Tyrrell
wrote a book on his own lines which is in the New York Genealogical Library, and he
appears to have been a person of some reputation, but I regret to say I think he was too
willing to please his patron. I finally got a photocopy of the chart from the Alderman
Library at the University of Virginia. It gave the long line of Cave descent from the
Conquest (which is probably as accurate as such things can be at this date, though it
names only the heir or a few brothers, in each generation, and is not by any means
complete). It brought Benjamin down from a branch of the family which lived at Pickwell in
Leicestershire, stating that Benjamin was the son of the Rev. William Cave, who was a
Canon of Windsor and a Chaplain to Charles II. This man was real enough; I have several of
his books, and one written in collaboration with Jeremy Taylor. His prefaces are
delightful, and he was a most learned man, writing mostly about early Church history. I
should like so much to claim the Rev. William Cave! ...
"The regrettable fact however, is that Benjamin the Burgess appears to have been born
in 1703 (deposition in Orange Co.) when the Rev. Wm. was 76 years old (he died in 1713)
and his wife Anna Stonehouse was dead (she had died in 1691). Presumably Tyrrell found an
eminent man whose death-date might have made it possible for him to have been
Benjamin's father, if the matter were not inquired into carefully. What I blame
Tyrrell for which condemns him utterly, is that he indicated on the chart that proof of
Benjamin's parentage was in the will of the Rev. William Cave. After years, working
through the Society of Genealogists in London, I succeeded in getting a photocopy of the
full will of the Rev. William, from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. There is not the
slightest excuse for what Tyrrell said. The will is long and detailed; he mentions
daughters, a deceased son Ralph, a bequest to families of indigent ministers - it goes on
for pages, and it is quite readable - it is not necessary to be able to read the
"Court hand" to get it all. Tyrrell simply collected his fee and made his client
happy, but I deplore his historical conscience and his common honesty."