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The
first Raynors
to come to America were Thurston Raynor,
his wife, Elizabeth,
their five children, and Thurston’s ten year old nephew, Edward
Raynor. Residents of Elmsett, in the
County of Suffolk, they left Ipswich, England in April 1634
aboard
the ship, Elizabeth, and arrived in Boston three months later. They
settled first in Watertown, Massachusetts, and in 1636,
along with some other Watertown families, they went to Wethersfield, Connecticut,
where Thurston Raynor
was listed among the first settlers.
In 1641, Thurston Raynor and his family and several other families from Wethersfield moved on to settle Rippowams, the area now known as Stamford, Connecticut. Three years later, in 1644, Thurston Raynor once again uprooted his family and joined with twenty-two other Rippowams families in following their religious leader, Rev. Denton, to Long Island where they settled Hempstead, in the western part of the Island. Sometime between 1646 and 1649, Thurston Raynor and his family left Hempstead and moved east, to the young village of Southampton on the south shore of Long Island. Edward Raynor, Thurston’s nephew, who accompanied Thurston and his family on the voyage to America in 1634, and remained with them in Watertown, Wethersfield, Rippowams, and Hempstead, stayed behind in Hempstead when Thurston, his wife and children moved on to Southampton. In Southampton, Thurston Raynor was a large landholder and bcame prominent in the affairs of the village. He died there in 1667. Dr. Stuart
P. Howell
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Do
not put much stock into signature spelling variations. I have many
old documents from 1761 – 1825, etc. In the same family, you might
find RANER, RYENER,
REYNOR,
and RAINER.
If the signer could not write his name, then the scribe used his own judgment. I've even seen RHEGNIER. Robert, our first known family member signed his will REYNERE. That is the only time I have ever seen an "e" on the end. In general, though, RAINER and REYNER show up in early documents. By the time the Revolutionary War was over the spelling that was most often used was RAYNOR or sometimes RAYNER. Gerald Van
Sise Raynor,
(Edward Raynor Branch) |
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