A Quick Call to Action: New evidence raises the possibility that John Wathen came from Gloucestershire rather than Herefordshir, and a Wathen from Gloucestershire has volunteered to take a Y-DNA test. You can donate to the Wathen/Warthen Family Tree DNA Group Project's general fund here: https://www.familytreedna.com/group-general-fund-contribution.aspx?g=Warthen
My Recent Trip to England
Earlier this month, I had the great blessing of leading a pilgrimage to the United Kingdom to visit some of its most important Catholic shrines and historic sites. Highlights of the 11-day trip included London, Canterbury, Oxford, Hereford, Birmingham, Walsingham, Holywell, York, Durham, Lindisfarne, and Edinburgh.
A personal highlight of the trip was traveling through the West Midlands, the rural countryside where our ancestor John Wathen may have been born. Our bus full of pilgrims traveled westward from Oxford along the scenic A40 through Gloucestershire, then north through Herefordshire to Hereford Cathedral. Although I haven't been able to pinpoint John Wathen's birthplace, it was surreal to imagine that I was traveling along routes that John Wathen or other ancestors might once have taken.
At Hereford Cathedral, we visited a shrine to St. Thomas of Hereford, a pious 13th-century bishop known for his many miracles. As we knelt in prayer, I offered a quiet, somewhat half-hearted prayer that I might one day discover where John Wathen came from. It wasn't an urgent prayer—after all, there are much more pressing concerns in life than solving genealogical mysteries—but it was a sincere one.
An Unexpected Email
As we made our way north through England, I was very surprised to receive an email from a Wathen in Gloucestershire who was interested in genealogy. I regularly receive messages from Wathens throughout the United States who are researching their Southern Maryland roots, but this was the first time a Wathen from the United Kingdom had ever reached out to me.
He explained that he had come across my articles on TheWathens.com and wondered whether our John Wathen might belong to his Gloucestershire Wathen family. While researching his family's wills and parish records in Gloucestershire, he had encountered several men named John Wathen who lived during the 17th century. Could one of them be our ancestor? Could this email be an answer to prayer?
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, or Monmouthshire?
We know for certain that our John Wathen sailed from Bristol, England, in 1670, but we don't know which county he came from. Records indicate that Wathens lived in at least three counties near Bristol: Gloucestershire and Herefordshire in England, and Monmouthshire in Wales. Recent genealogists, including me, have suspected that our John Wathen came from Herefordshire because he paid for several indentured servants from that county.
John Wathen's religious affiliation also provides clues about his possible birthplace. He was almost certainly Catholic, rather than Anglican, when he died in Southern Maryland in 1705. Although there were many Wathens in Gloucestershire during the 17th century, Catholics made up a relatively small proportion of the population. Herefordshire, on the other hand, had both a significant Wathen presence and a large Catholic population. Monmouthshire had fewer Wathens but had an even larger Catholic presence.
Although I've long suspected that John Wathen came from Herefordshire, could he instead have been one of the relatively few Catholics in Gloucestershire?
Y-DNA Testing
The most promising way to establish a genetic connection between our John Wathen's descendants and a Wathen family in the United Kingdom is through Y-DNA testing. If we can find a British Wathen whose Y-DNA closely matches that of John Wathen's descendants, we'll have invaluable evidence to help trace John's ancestry. I've tried unsuccessfully for years to find a Wathen in the UK who is willing to take a Y-DNA test.
Thankfully, the Wathen from Gloucestershire who unexpectedly emailed me has offered to take a FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA test! If his results closely match those of John Wathen's descendants, we'll have good reason to believe that John was from his Gloucestershire family. A basic Y-37 test has already been shipped to him to begin the testing process.
My hope is that we can upgrade his test to the highest-resolution Big Y-700 test, but this testing is not cheap. The Wathen/Warthen Family Tree DNA Group Project needs approximately $300 more in its general fund to finance the upgrade.
If you'd like to help fund this exciting research and potentially shed new light on the origins of our Southern Maryland Wathen family, please consider making a donation here:
https://www.familytreedna.com/group-general-fund-contribution.aspx?g=Warthen
Be sure to watch TheWathens.com for updates in the coming months to see whether this new test reveals anything significant!