Isaac Leet Ancestors in England

I am trying to establish with a reasonable degree of certainty the English ancestors of Isaac Leet, the early immigrant to New Jersey and ancestor to Daniel Leet.  Other entries in this blog provide background to my quest.  I've been reading James Oliver Goldsborough's book "Misfortunes of Wealth," which includes information about (Major) Daniel Leet and his descendants.  Page 289 shows a picture of Newington, which was Eliza Leet (Shields) house.

In "The Family Face," Michael Leete speculates that the immediate English ancestor to Isaac Leet was Gregory Leete (1627-1672) of Badby.

I've just started to explore the English church records recently made available through Ancestry.com.  I found this record.

Name:	Margret Leete
Marriage Date:	Feb 1639
Parish:	St Mary, Newington
County:	Surrey
Borough:	Southwark
Spouse:	George Benor
Record Type:	Marriage
Register Type:	Parish Register

Could this be a connection?  I didn't have time to research Gregory of Badby.

BUT... for those Daniel Leet fans out there, was the house Newington named after the place or road Newington in England?   (There is a Newington Road just a few miles from Badby village.)

Ancestry.com Tree Publication: Leete-Leet NA Ancestry in England

The tree "Leete-Leet NA Ancestry in England" has been published to Ancestry.com.  It is a private tree.  I have given read access to those on my email list.  If you would like access, please contact me at leeteleetlink@gmail.com.  Please provide a reason for access.  I will need your snail mail address and phone number as further confirmation of your interest.  This will also mean that you may get an occasional email or snail mail from the Leete Family Association.

I acknowledge that a primary source for this work is "The Family Face," written by Michael J. H. Leete.  I have, to the best of my understanding, translated his words on the North American Leetes and Leets ancestry to Ancestry.com tree format.  I have, of course, added primary electronic sources and other materials made available since the writing of that book.

This is a work in progress.  Updates will be ongoing and I won't announce each change.  I will discuss anything major here.

2012 Ancestry.com Improvements and the Future

The new version of Ancestry.com provides improvements that have led to a change in my tree management strategy.  The new version allows Family Tree Maker trees to be "synchronized" with on line Ancestry trees.  Additionally, security controls have been improved:  easier to use and good quality.

My new strategy is to begin publishing all The Leete Family Association trees where I have made significant progress.  This doesn't mean they are complete or error free.  In fact, I'm hoping publication will speed the process of vetting the information and adding to it.

The trees are all "private."  However, with reasonable ID and justification, I will permit you to either read or edit a tree.  (There will eventually be several hundred.  I have about releasing about 50 in the near future.)

I may have said this in another blog entry, but I will say it again- the Leete-Leet web site, https://sites.google.com/site/leeteleetgenealogyna/, will provide stories, e-books, and memoirs that integrate the experiences and records of the Leets and Leetes of North America.  Thus, the Leete Family Association will provide a multi-dimensional portrait of our family.

We have to find a way to finance the Leete Family Association's work; I have voluntarily put in hundreds, if not thousands of hours over the past four years and have paid the membership dues, etc.  Therefore, it may be necessary to provide some of this material in "e-book" form, with some kind of merchandizing arrangement with Amazon.  Your thoughts on this?  Use the comment section below.

Michael J H Leete, where are you?

Michael J H Leete of England wrote the definitive contemporary work on the Leets and Leetes, called "The Family Face."  I consider him to be the overall chief of the Leete/Leet genealogists. The work I have been doing is to electronically merge The Family Face with The Descendants of William Leete and add all the web information that has been made available.  In addition, I am trying to update all trees to current.

In order to verify some of my translation work, I've emailed Michael.  I have received no response.  Does anyone know how to get in touch with him?   Thanks,

The "dirty" trees on the internet

I just wanted to put in a word on the difficulty of taking information from the ancestry.com databases.  The bottom line:  very few trees are checked for consistency.  And they are a mess.  For example, John Leete of Islington is listed with two wives, Jane Horneby and Anne Shute.  (Anne Shute is the wife of John of Dodington.)    So we are on a mission to "get it right" for the Leete clan.

Isaac Leet (1646-1686) ancestry

Isaac Leet's ancestry has been a tough nut.  Michael Leet, in "The Family Face" speculates that Isaac's father is Gregory Leete of Badby, Northamptonshire.  But extant information can't link Gregory to the primary Leete lines in Cambridgeshire.  (I do understand that boundaries and names of places change.  If you look at the English map, Badby isn't very far from a number of towns that have confirmed recorded Leetes.)

One thing for sure:  all the entries in the genealogy databases and trees that link him directly to Gov William Leete and his father are very wrong!

There is one very speculative possibility, based on the Isaac Leete family tradition.  That is that Isaac is the son of "the other" William Leete.  In the 1613 Visitation, John of Dodington recorded his son, William, who was "half a year and more" of age.  (By the way, it is reasonable to suggest that Gov William Leete was born in 1612.  In fact, Michael Leete, in his records, does just that!)  Now this John was the son of Thomas Leete and his second wife, Dorothy Warde.  But the Visitation mentions another son of Thomas also name John.  This 2nd John's mother was Thomas's 3rd wife, Maria Slade.  He was born in 1575, whereas the first John was born in 1570.  He is called "John of Islington"

John of Islington had a son, William, born 5 Aug 1613.  And there lies the confusion in the published genealogical records.  Two Johns with the same father but different mothers and two Williams with essentially the same birthday.  William Leete definitely existed:  somewhere in the Family Face Michael mentions a gravestone with that date in Oakington.  

I'm working on this second William, reading and rereading Michael Leete's discussion.  Any help? I'm just wondering, given the Isaac Leete family oral tradition, could it be possible that Isaac's father was this second William?  The birth dates of father and son are right.    

Isaac Leet (1646-1686) and his spouse Elizabeth

I'm hoping I can get some definitive information on Isaac Leet's spouse.  The Isaac Leet referenced here is the immigrant in 1686 to Hunterdon, NJ.  This Isaac is not descended directly from Gov William Leete.  In fact, that should be a topic of another blog entry.

The question is his spouse, Elizabeth.  Here are the research notes I have on her:
"Elizabeth OWLE, b. prob. in England, d. aft. 1696 New Jersey; md. 1st, Isaac LEET who died bef. 1688; Elizabeth (Owle) Leet md. 2nd, ca. 1688 to John CHADWICK, b. ca. 1642 Rochedale, England, d. between 1689 & 1695 in New Jersey; Elizabeth (Owle) Leet-Chadwick md. 3rd, ca. 1695-1696 in New Jersey to John DIXSON.
**NOTE: Elizabeth Owle Leet was the mother of Mary Leet Chadwick by her first husband, Isaac Leet. John Chadwick ADOPTED Mary Leet after his marriage to Elizabeth (Owle) Leet. Thus Mary's maiden name is really LEET and not CHADWICK.  


Most of what I know about Elizabeth Owle and the Owle connection comes through my ongoing study of the WOLVERTON/WOOLVERTON family. There are many questions raised about Elizabeth Owle, who is better known for her reported marriages to Isaac Leet, John Chadwick and John Dixson. The best understanding I have concerning Elizabeth Owle is through a chart that was supplied by A. J. "Jim" Wright of San Jose, California. His information came from another fine researcher, Nora Wolverton of Indiana. No primary sources have been found to show that Elizabeth's maiden name was Owle, and Nora Wolverton is not sure where she got that name from.


 from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gohrpage/owle.html


In the Family Face the name for Elizabeth is Elizabeth Nebb or Neff.  I don't know how that came about.  The footnote suggests from an article in the Leete Legacy.  Investigation is required.

The last entry is mine.  The preponderance of evidence is that her name was Owle.  So where did the other name come from?

Misfortunes of Wealth

The title is of a book by James Oliver Goldsborough.  It describes his own family from the Revolutionary War to the present, through his own ancestors, starting with Eliza Leet, daughter of Daniel Leet.  From that point, of course, the Leet name is (only) a middle name of some of his ancestors.  BUT, I have a secret in an epic story that won't be a secret once I tell it.  It starts in western VA/W Va/Pa/OH/NY contemporaneous with the beginning of the "Misfortunes of Wealth" and leads south and west.  All the Leet and Leete branches crossed at a point in time and place, and arguably impacted the course of history, for the family and the continent. But I do need to close some gaps, starting with Cruttenden, Crittenden, Chittenden.

Crittendens, Cruttendens, or Chittendens?????

I think somewhere I've given the scoop about the 6 or 7 more or less ancient Leete or Leet lines in North America that are derived from John of Eversden.  One of these lines is Isaac Leet, who immigrated to Hunterdon, NJ in 1686 or so.  In family trees and genealogy his line has often been mixed into and confused with the Gov William Leete line.  It's been a trial to pull all apart.  My question here involves the ... and this is really the question: involves the Crittendens, Cruttendens, and or Chittendens.  I've seen these three names and more given to the same person!  Can anyone help out.  It seems that the Cruttenden name seemed to morph to Crittenden, and yet the Isaac Leet line is full of Crittendens, from Virginia, not Guilford.  Help!

It's been a long time, but now I'm ready to roll

I've been working.  So now comes the dump.  I'll be putting trees on line and on the family web page and begin to ask questions to clarify some things I haven't been able to resolve.  I'll announce family trees and stories here, but you will usually find them on our web site,   You will need to let me know at leeteleetlink@gmail.com if you can't access the reports as I link them here.  I'd advise subscribing using the function on the right side of this blog.  Note that every post has a comment area associated with it.  You can post answers to my questions or ask questions yourself.  Here we go...