Richard Warren

BIRTH:  Probably around 1585 in co. Hertford, England.
MARRIAGE: Elizabeth Walker, 14 April 1610 at Great Amwell, co. Hertford, England, daughter of Augustine Walker.
CHILDREN: Mary, Ann, Sarah, Elizabeth, Abigail, Nathaniel and Joseph.
DEATH: 1628 at Plymouth.
yDNA HAPLOGROUP:  E-M35 (E-FTC19215)

Richard Warren's English origins and ancestry have been the subject of much speculation, and countless different ancestries have been published for him, without a shred of evidence to support them.  Luckily in December 2002, Edward Davies discovered the missing piece of the puzzle.  Researchers had long known of the marriage of Richard Warren to Elizabeth Walker on 14 April 1610 at Great Amwell, Hertford.  Since we know the Mayflower passenger had a wife named Elizabeth, and a first child born about 1610, this was a promising record.  But no children were found for this couple in the parish registers, and no further evidence beyond the names and timing, until the will of Augustine Walker was discovered.  In the will of Augustine Walker, dated April 1613, he mentions "my daughter Elizabeth Warren wife of Richard Warren", and "her three children Mary, Ann and Sarah."  We know that the Mayflower passenger's first three children were named Mary, Ann, and Sarah (in that birth order).

Very little is known about Richard Warren's life in America.  He came alone on the Mayflower in 1620, leaving behind his wife and five daughters.  They came to him on the ship Anne in 1623, and Richard and Elizabeth subsequently had sons Nathaniel and Joseph at Plymouth.  He received his acres in the Division of Land in 1623, and his family shared in the 1627 Division of Cattle.  But he died a year later in 1628.  The only record of his death is found in Nathaniel Morton's 1669 book New England's Memorial, in which he writes: "This year [1628] died Mr. Richard Warren, who was an useful instrument and during his life bare a deep share in the difficulties and troubles of the first settlement of the Plantation of New Plymouth."

All of Richard Warren's children survived to adulthood, married, and had large families: making Richard Warren one of the most common Mayflower passengers to be descended from.  Richard Warren's descendants include such notables as Civil War general and President Ulysses S. Grant; President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and Alan B. Shepard, Jr. the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon.