The English ancestry of Reinold and Matthew Marvin of Hartford, Ct ...

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The English Ancestry of
the Clergymen that, we cannot doubt, ministered the rites of
the Church to our ancestors during the century and more
that they resided in Ramsey.
As the Parish Records of St. Michael's Church do not
go back to the time when Matthew left England, it is
useless to attempt to fix the period when the first Marvins
appeared in that Parish, but they were certainly there about
the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the adjoining
Parishes of Harwich and Dovercourt we have also found
a branch of the family, who had houses and lands there
as early as 1530; several of the Ramsey Marvins owned
lands in Dovercourt, and one at least, had land in Suffolk,
as will be seen from their Wills. We know that the Har-
wich branch were also closely allied with Suffolk families,
the daughters having married there, it may be, before the
father removed to Harwich, and in the ancient city of Ips-
wich, in Suffolk, a few miles to the northward, which dates
from Saxon times or earlier, we find two families of our name
in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Early in that century there was also a prominent family
bearing our name in Wiltshire, which resided there for
nearly three hundred years, but no relationship with them
has been discovered.
By the kind assistance of Mrs. B. F. Goodrich, of Cam-
bridge, Mass., whose husband was a descendant of Matthew
Marvin, and who traces her own descent from his elder
brother Reinold, we have been enabled to cause a careful
search to be made of the Registers of the old Church of
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