Roger Doolittle
Sex: M
Individual Information
Birth: Abt 1555 - Shenstone, Stone, Worcestershire, England
Christening:
Death: Spring 1593/94 - Shenstone, Stone, Worcestershire, England
Burial:
Cause of Death:
AFN #:
Spouses and Children
1. *Ann ( - )
Marriage: Abt 1580
Status:
Children:
1. John Doolittle (Abt 1585-1640)
2. Hugh Doolittle ( - )
3. Mary Doolittle ( - )
Notes
General:
This material is from Dollittle's book. Roger Doolittle was cited to me as the Doolittle ancestor, by one of the two particpants in the Doolittle DNA project, who has also listed his Y DNA results at Y Search, who is haplogroup E3b. All other Kidderminster Doolittle lines that have been tested are R1b1c. The other haplogroup E3b person is most likely of the same line, though I do not know that. The adminstrator of the Doolittle DNA project told me simply that "we have no idea who these people are". He knows who they are, just not how they originated. They are either a second Doolittle family of the Kidderminster area, which depending on how the name originated in the Kidderminster area, is not impossible, or the result of a nonpaternity event somewehre along the line. "Baseborn" children took the name of their mother.
This is also the lineage of the Doolittle real estate family, of whom Dollittle smarmily said in some fairly recent newspaper ads for old photos of the Aggborough farm, that there is "no proof" linking them to the R1b1c line, which is pretty much standard Gillian Dollittle.
The hamlet of Shenstone is located in Stone parish, adjacent to Kidderminster, on the road to Bromsgrove, and Dollittle says that parish records began in 1601. Nearby is the hamlet of Hoo, also of the parish of Stone, where another Doolittle family lived. Dollittle gives three generations of this family (See John Doolittle d 1540), and says that this line is believed to have no Doolittle descendants.
Stone was a center of iron working, such as teh making of scythes (don't know if this involved iron mills or just collections of blacksmiths), but Roger's inventory suggests that he was a farmer. Dollittle says that he would have worked open fields. Presumably that was the system in that area. His inventory contains a house, "simple belongings", two beds, bedding, two coffers and a cupboard, pots, pans, bellows, thirty sheep, seven head of cattle, a nag, and quantities of rye, barley, and peas. He could have sold the wool to weavers in Kidderminster. Dollittle says that he died in the springtime during the harvest and had probably had a successful harvest the year before. Apparently he did not own land, but it doesn't sound like he was impoverished.
We apparently know about Roger's wife and children from his will. He died while they were young, having made out his will shortly before.
The will had large portions illegible. Sums of money, amount missing, were left to the two boys and ten pounds to Mary, to be paid after they came of age. Mary was to be paid earlier if she married with consent but if she married without consent she inherited nothing. Most of the executors' names are missing, except the name Kyndon. The inventory was taken by John Hill, Richard Clymer the elder, Walter Kindon and John "Dolyttell". The Stone parish records show that all these men were from local families, I guess even John Doolittle. Clymer and Hill cross with other Doolittle lines by marriage. Dollitltle speculates that maybe Walter Kindon was Anne's brother, but no reason to think he was more likely to have been of her family than another of them, or that any of them were related to her. Usually the executors of an estate were relatives of the deceased; sometimes they were close friends.