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Thursday, November 13, 2014

THE QUESTION OF ROBERT HASTINGS PT2

My next stop in trying to find a clue to the identities of Robert Hastings' parents
was at FamilySearch.org Historical Records Collections, specifically the Massachusetts, Land Records, 1620-1986 for Essex County. Robert Hastings had married his wife there in 1676 and died there in the town of Haverhill so I looked for transactions that might
have been made between him and whoever his father may have been.

I found these entries under Hastings in the Deed index (grantee) 1640-1799 Had-Pix







Among them were transactions where Robert received or bought land from his father
in law James Davis.Some, like the following one, call him Robert Hastings Jr.




Others just refer to him as Robert Hastings. And to complicate matters further, my
ancestor had a son named Robert, and in later transactions the son is called Jr and
my ancestor Sr.

It's possible my 7x great grandfather Robert Hastings' father was likewise named
Robert Hastings. It's also possible there could have been another older relative, such
as an uncle or cousin in the area with the same name and my ancestor was called
Robert Hastings Jr to differentiate him from the other. But I think I can say with
some certainty that his father was not Walter Hastings of Cambridge, Ma.

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