Notes |
- Some say George immigrated with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630 but there are no records confirming. We received the following after Tom Yarington's request to the Keyser Society for more information:
Friday, December 12, 2003
"Gentlemen; Mr. Yarrington has asked me about the arrival of George Keyser (correct spelling, as attested to by a sample of his signature which has survived) in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. My information indicates that George arrived there sometime before 1638 when he appears in the official records of the colony in connection with a court case. I too have a copy of Banks' book and, indeed, it does NOT make any mention of a George Keyser or anyone with a similar sounding name. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, does any other known source on this period. That George Keyser should arrive without any record of his transit or arrival is, I understand, not all that unusual as the known records for those times are far from complete.
In addition, it is alleged that some persons emigrated under assumed names for various reasons, not all of which are nefarious. I do not know the origin of the assertion that George Keyser was on the Winthrop fleet, but Leon Keyser in his Keyser Families of New England does make this assertion. He cites Banks' book as his source but, as I have said, this is groundless. At least until new arises, we cannot know for sure that George Keyser was NOT on the Winthrop fleet but we certainly do not know that he was. In any event, we do know that he did emigrate and we do know, at least beyond a reasonable doubt, that he came from Leighton Buzzard, England.
His father, George Keyser Sr., lived and died in that hamlet, but it is reasonably certain that he was not born there. The Keyser name seems to have come "originally" from southern Germany. The name and its homonyms well known in Germany to this day and many other members of this clan emigrated to North America over the centuries. It is not even certain that George Keyser Jr. was the first "Keyser" in North America as I have seen references to another Keyser in the immigration records for Virginia for the 1620s.
I hope that this information is of some use to you. Best wishes to you both.
Geoff B. Geoffrey R. Browning"
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=greysteel&id=I35239
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