I do not have the Shropshire Burials Index CD, but I was wondering if someone who does could do a search for the 1636 burial record of a Katherine Garner (or Gardner) somewhere in Shropshire. I did not find such a record in the ancestry.com database. There is one in the IGI, but it is unsourced and therefore unsubstantiated (and useless).
Patrick
Thanks, Martin for the information: I suspected as much, but wanted to make sure. I had already checked the Gardner entries for the three unpublished Shrewsbury parishes that David had supplied me.
In regard to John the settler, there is actually some indirect evidence I've developed since, independent of the discredited documents you mentioned, that leads me to believe that John of Virginia is in fact the John of Shrewsbury, but no proof. I have been able to at least eliminate almost every other John Garner that was christened in England around 1633 or so of which I am aware (he gave a deposition in 1633 in which he said he was thirty years of age "or thereabout"). in the meanwhile, I've concentrated on the Garner lineage post-1650, where I am on solid ground.
At the least, John Garner's wife, Susannah Keene, has a definite Shropshire lineage, howbeit further back (12th century). But that is the subject of a upcoming Journal article.
Thanks Patrick. Am pleased for you to hear of these other developments. The trouble of course remains that so many registers start to late, others are not in IGI, and so one cannot say that what is available is exhaustive.
Bit more Patrick. I assume that you noted that the registers of Holy Cross, Shrewsbury (the Abbey) are lost, for burials, between 1601 and 1678. Also BTs are missing 1635-1659.
I've learned that the Bishop's Transcripts for St. Chad's go back only to 1631. I assume they were included in the database of the Shropshire Burial Index CD, assuming they added anything at all. But your larger point is well taken: one's information cannot be exhaustive considering the gaps in the records. But one can only work with the records that are available and narrowing the parameters of my search according to what I do know about John Garner of Virginia, the John of Shrewsbury was the only one of the list of candidates who matched. Not proof, but that as far as I am get on that problem at present. I may never know for certain where he came from.
My next step will be to join the Garner DNA project and see if DNA testing can shed any light on this. My hope is that I can find a match for a common male ancestor with an English participant who can trace his ancestry back that far.
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Nothing, Patrick, under any variant or surname or forename including anonymous. (One can search by descending sequence of years, so this is quite easy). The SBI does not cover the three unprinted parishes of Shrewsbury at this time.
I ought to say that, with the discrediting of the 1631 Will and so-called Henrico County record, there is nothing as I see it to link John the settler with Shropshire.
And, by the way, your article in the Journal might have given the impression that I passed you to on to David Austerberry. Not so. He contacted me - we used as children to live in same street - because he had pursued your enquiry from when you called at SFHS Helpdesk at Archives, had much to report, but did not have your address.