William Earnest 1610-1677

William Earnest

b. 1610? d. 1677?

m. Katherine Collier 1650?

Lived in Isle of Wight County, Virginia

Origin and Death unknown

William Earnest, perhaps the most elusive member of this Earnest heritage. Most information regarding him and his life is seemingly restricted to hearsay with several conflicting narratives about his life. It can be extremely difficult trying to filter through the falsehoods and legends on the best of days so I'm going to explain each of the legends I've found and how they can be proven false. I hope to eventually write a Part 2 to this history of William Earnest, explaining what truths I can find regarding his mysterious life. Until then, enjoy!

The False

John Earnest of Roanoke

One of the most prevailing myths about William is that he is the son of a John Earnest who sailed to the Lost Colony of Roanoke. You can find this theory even on reputable Genealogy websites like Geni.com, despite the fact that this theory is virtually impossible.

You see, Geni (and many other sites) list John Earnest's birth date in 1587; and while that could in fact be a legitimate birth year for anyone, the fact is that these websites claim that this John Earnest was a part of the Roanoke Colony - which makes this birth year completely ludicrous. Here's why:

There are detailed records kept of who participated in the voyages to Roanoke, who stayed, and who left. John Earnest is listed as an adult male colonist in 1587, the year he was supposedly born according to Geni & other websites. You can read the list of all the colonists HERE.

Obviously no one can be an adult in the same year they were born, but we can assume that this is a simple clerical mistake and that 1587 is simply the only year we reliably have showing John Earnest alive, regardless of age. But if we make that assumption, then we encounter multiple new problems with John's identity - both as a Roanoke Colonist and as the father of William Earnest. 

If John was already an adult in 1587, then we already have a problem with his supposed connection to William as the universally claimed date for William's birth is in 1610. That would put John Earnest as being a fairly old or middle aged man before William was ever born. If John was just barely an adult in 1587 (let's say 20) then by 1610 he would have been 43 (at the youngest) by the time of William's birth. This isn't an impossible scenario to work with, but it does become more unlikely as the age gap increases.

But here we have another problem, this John Earnest was a member of the LOST Colony of Roanoke and is one of the men who never returned to England and whose fate is a complete mystery. The Roanoke Colony was confirmed to have disappeared by 1590, still 20 years before William's birth. The case for John Earnest being William's father has gone from acceptable truth, to unlikely possibility, to near impossibility, in a matter of moments. Frankly, the only ways in which John and William could be father and son are:
1. William's birth date is far earlier than claimed;
2. John, a famously missing man, secretly returned to Europe and lived a secret life with a new family;
3. William was born in America and the Roanoke colonists secretly joined the new colonists decades after going missing;

Either William is the key to solving the mystery of Roanoke or John Earnest is simply not his father as the legend suggests. 

The Shipwreck

There is a story that can be read on Ancestry.com that carries a different version of the parental John Earnest and the Roanoke Colony. The story is available through the link, but to recap it says that John Earnest and his family were shipwrecked off the coast of Virginia on the way to the Roanoke colony but that William Earnest and his brother were the only two of their family to survive. The story explains that John Earnest originally came from Germany and was an immigrant to England himself.

There are of course multiple problems with this story. The first is the pesky problem with dates. The story provides no dates for these events and they do not fit within any historical narrative that I could uncover. None of the ships travelling to the very short lived colony at Roanoke are described as being shipwrecked, which automatically puts this story's credibility on the low end. Then we encounter the problem of existing records which state matter-of-factly that John Earnest did indeed arrive at Roanoke with no records indicating that he ever left the colony. Thus, it would have been impossible for this John Earnest to have died in a shipwreck prior to or after arriving in the colony. But here's another kink against this wild story: according to colony records, this John Earnest listed in Roanoke did not have a wife or any children. In fact, he is the only person bearing the Earnest surname in the entire colony. 

As cool as it might be to say your ancestor was part of the Lost Colony, unfortunately it simply isn't possible with the Earnests.

The Quakers

Another common story I've heard is that William Earnest himself came from Germany (though the exact location in Germany frequently changes with the storyteller). The link I posted earlier from Geni.com also carries a quotation from an unknown source which goes as follows:

"On the Neckar River in the province of Heidelberg, Wilhelm Ernst migrated down the Rhine River and joined a group of Brownest or Quakers who were banished from England. In the early 1600's England allowed them to pass through on their way to America. Wilhelm Ernst, upon reaching England be came William Earnest and came to Norfolk Va., with John Upton in 1636."

This quote is of course problematic in that it provides us with absolutely no source or citation to gauge it's accuracy. But there is information readily available in history to disprove at least part of this claim. First and foremost is the problem of dates (as usual). The quote claims that William Earnest (or Wilhelm Ernst) traveled to America with the Quakers in or prior to 1636. That date is historically impossible. The Quaker settlement did not arrive in America until 1656 (see HERE) and the Quaker Society of Friends did not even officially organize until 1647 (see HERE) so it would have been very much impossible for William (or Wilhelm) to have associated with them prior to 1636. It is possible (though perhaps unprovable) that this Wilhelm Ernst could have associated with Mennonites who did live along the Rhine in Germany in the 1630's prior to emigrating to Colonial America, however he could not have traveled with them as the Mennonites themselves did not begin coming to America until after William Penn gave them a land grant in 1683, by this time William Earnest was already confirmed to be in the Virginia Colony and presumed dead.

I should point out that I have, so far, found no evidence for or against William's presence with Colonel John Upton's company in 1636. At this point, Williams' involvement in that expedition is unknown.

Born in Virginia

I do want to point out that in many Family Trees available on Ancestry you'll find people who list William Earnest being BORN in Isle of Wight County in 1610 while being the son of John Earnest. The only way this is possible is if William was raised by Native Americans which would have been such an oddity that it would have been registered by the Jamestown Colony and placed in history books. Isle of Wight County wasn't always known by this name, originally it was called Warrosquyoake Shire (good luck pronouncing that by the way), and the first European Settlers to that area did not arrive until 1618, having stayed more to the north prior to that year. If William was born in 1610, as is universally suggested, then it would have been impossible for him to have been born in the vicinity of Isle of Wight County/Warrosquyoake Shire among European Settlers. That would have placed him in the odd position of being a clearly White European living, as a child, among the local Native Tribes, a novelty that would surely not have gone unnoticed. 

But if William couldn't have been born IN Isle of Wight County, could he have born in Jamestown instead, which was of course the primary site of European settlement in the area? No. There are records of all the children born into the Jamestown Colony in its earliest years, and there is no William Earnest listed among those children. In fact there is no William Earnest recorded in any Jamestown records prior to 1636.

The Unknown

William Earnest

To be completely honest, there is very, very little known about William that is anything more than story or legend. We have no proof of when or where William Earnest was born, we don't know when exactly he came to Virginia, how many children he had, what his religion was etc. All we have to go on (for the most part) are stories, and we just pray that we can manage to weed out as many implausible or impossible details as we can along the way.

Some unconfirmed claims that I am unable to prove or refute at this point include the following:

1. William Earnest was born in Heidelberg, Hesse, Germany. 
2. William Earnest was born in Borken, Westfalen, Germany.
3. William Earnest was born somewhere in England.
4. William Earnest came to Virginia in 1636 with John Upton's company.
5. William Earnest was born in 1610.
6. No knowledge of what ship William traveled on to come to America.
7. No knowledge of William's religion.
8. No knowledge of any marriage or family prior to William's arrival in America.

So, even though there are several large holes in the history of William Earnest there are still plenty of fascinating stories that we can disprove through historical records. There are a few things we can prove about his life though, and I hope to explain those soon.


Please keep an eye open for Part 2: The Truths!