This John WEST left a detailed will that doesn't help trace his ancestry. He was buried at St Aldates, Oxford, England. From his monumental inscription, at the time of his death 08 Jan 1695 [OS] he was aged 79 years.This monumental inscription interestingly mentions that he was a Gentleman Pensioner, a ceremonial bodyguard to the King; he was appointed in 1674 probably sponsored by his brother-in-law, John KIRKE. The current Axe Keeper of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms informs that he held this post at the coronation of James II but has no other information.

He bought the manor of Hampton Poyle, Oxford, England in 1648.

The London link; he married a distant cousin of mine, Mary KIRKE, at St Andrew Undershaft, City of London, 11 Sep 1638 but the parish register provides no other helpful information. The Kirkes were a prosperous merchant family. They had lived in Dieppe and Mary and her brothers were born there but in 1638 their trading was mainly in wine and salted cod between London, North America and southern Europe. In the late 1620s and in the 1630s the Kirke family lived on Lime Street, Bishopsgate, London, England. In the Act of Parliament for her naturalisation in 1651, her husband John WEST is mentioned as a gentleman of London.

So John WEST presumably came from a well-to-do family with links to London, possibly Oxford. From his monumental inscription at St Aldate's Oxford, England, he must have been born about 1615.

Any ideas how to track his ancestry?