Dear List,

I came upon something I thought interesting. The immigrant Malachi Browning (1601-1653), an early setter of Martha's Vineyard, was son of William Browning of Essex and his wife Dorothy Vernon. Dorothy seems to be a bit of a mystery, but in fact its clear that she is daughter of William Vernon of Maldon and Little Beeleigh, Essex (a. 1545-1605). William is discussed in the History of Parliament online:

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/me...

There is reference to his Will in this piece, including a reference to his daughter Dorothy. What is more, when I found the Will on Ancestry:

http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=CanturburyPrer...

The spidery court hand explicitly refers to Dorothy as wife of William Browning.

It seems that we have a clue here as to the Vernon family from which Dorothy comes. It states in the HOP page that these Vernons derive from the Vernons of the Peak in Derbyshire. The Visitation of Essex, 1617, makes her a descendant of Vernon, Griffith and Stackpole. Among her ancestors if one follows the Visitation, is William the Lion, King of Scotland and the Saxon kings of England.

Dave Drabold
http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/~drabold