A Group of Early New London Sea Captains

This is Mike writing, but writing about a sideline of some of Tam's (and Sarah's) early New England ancestors on the Boylston side. As it happens, because Lucy Foster, a descendant of those I'm talking about, married one Samuel Jerome in 1749 and among their descendants was the actress Jennie Jerome, these folks are also ancestors of Sir Winston Churchill.

Lucy Foster's great-grandfather was Captain Thomas Foster, master mariner out of New London, Connecticut. He was born about 1642, though I am not sure of a source for that date; he died in 1685.  His marriage record states that he was a "son of John Forster [both spellings seem to have been used: later descendants used Foster] of Kingsware," meaning Kingswear, Devon. You'll find many genealogies on the Internet showing him as the son of John Foster and Mary Tompkins, but they married in Salem, Mass. in 1649, so either Thomas' birth date or the identification is wrong. Nor is Thomas listed in that John Foster's will, so perhaps his father was a different John of Kingswear. Many list Thomas as being born there, others in New London; the sources seem silent though,

But Thomas, the master mariner who sailed between New London, Boston, and "the Barbadoes," is one of a group of intermarried New London sea captains. When he married Susannah Parker on March 27, 1665/66 Old Style, he married the daughter of Captain Ralph Parker, another ship captain who may also have owned several vessels. Parker was at the heart of a small maritime dynasty: his wife Susannah (perhaps second wife), was the daughter of Captain William Keeny; Parker's daughter Mary married Capt. William Condy of Boston; his daughter Susannah, as noted, married Thomas Foster, and his son Jonathan went on to become a sea captain.

I would guess family reunions of Captains Parker, Parker, Keeny, Condy, and Foster would have tended to see a lot of talk of the sea.

(The links above are to the Google Books edition of Frances Manwaring Caulkins, History of New London From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612, to 1860 (New London, 1895).