I was recently contacted to provide assistance in identifying the origins of Andrew Everest of Maine, York, who was associated with a John Twisden. They originated from Kent, England. The probable ancestor of Andrew Everest would have been recorded in this deed: Everest v Everest. Plaintiffs: Agnes, late the wife of John Everest.Defendants: Thomas and Richard Everest. Subject: Land in Chiddingstone, Kent. 1544-1547. ( C 1/1118/42-430).

THE GODFREY CONNECTION

1.Thomas Godfrey – ca. 1485- 1545.
1.1. Peter Godfrey – ca. 1510-10 March 1566/7 – resided in Lydd, married Joan Epes.
1.1.1. Thomas Godfrey – ca. 1553-17 Feb 1623 – married 1st: Mary Partridge (1578) at Benenden, dau. of John Partridge of Iden; 2nd: Elizabeth Pix.
1.1.1.1. Sir Peter Godfrey – 1580-1624) – from ist marriage, designated as the sole executor of father’s Will, dated 1621; narried Dorothy Wilde (died 1644),daughter of Sir Thomas Wilde of Canterbury, Kent.
1.1.1.1.1. Edward Godfrey.
1.1.1.2. Sir Thomas Godfrey – 1586-1664, from 2nd marriage. In 1640, the manor of Heppington in Nackington, Kent were conveyed to him. Order made with the consent of the parties – the beneficed clergy of Romney Marsh and the Earl of Winchelsea, Sir Edward Hales, Thomas Twisden, Thomas Godfrey and others – concerning tithes within the liberties of Romney Marsh (Kent/Sussex). 1636 Jan 31 (PC 2/45/7570). Thomas Twisden was of the gentry side of the Twisden family.
The Wilmington/American Branch:
1.2. Oliver Godfrey – b. ca. 1515.
1.2.1. Oliver Godfrey of Wilmington – b. ca. 1545, married Elizabeth Toye. (Probably Tye, of Seale/Farningham).
1.2.1.1. Governor Edward Godfrey – b. 1584, married Elizabeth Oliver, daughter of William Oliver of Seale, Kent, and Isabel Reade (b. 1574), dau. of Robert Reade. Legal abstracts from the John Whitgift Foundation record a 1590 property covenant involving William Oliver, confirming Isabel was 16 years old at the time of their marriage.

In his 1634 Last Will and Testament (proved in 1635), William is recorded as “William Oliver of ffaulne (Fawke) within the parishe of Seale in the County of Kent yeoman”. The Fawke estate was a substantial piece of land located near Knole Park in Sevenoaks, bridging the parishes of Seal and Sevenoaks. William specifically includes a bequest to his daughter Elizabeth Godfrey and her husband Edward Godfrey. Because Edward was actively living across the Atlantic in New England by 1630, the inclusion of the couple in this 1634 document definitively tied the American governor back to the Oliver family of Seal and, consequently, the Godfreys of Wilmington.

Winifred Lovering Holman, “Descendants of Andrew Everest of York, Maine”, 1955: “Before 1640,” grants of land, in what is now York, were made by Edward Godfrey, at which time “Andray Evrit” had six acres. Many authorities qualify the date of these grants as “probably before 1640,” so we are uncertain as to the year that Andrew first owned land there. (Mass. Archives, 3: 238; I, Me. Hist. Soc. Coll ., 9: 378; 11, bid., 4: 127). By 1646, other deeds confirm he had a fully established farm and marshlands in York. By 1650, he was a settled, respected member of the community, which is why he was called upon to witness the property deed between Edward Godfrey and George Parker, on 18 July 1650, another witness being John Twisden. ((York Deeds, 14: 432).

TWISDEN

1. Robert Draner, m. Mary Cooper, 25 Nov 1566, in Staplehurst, ca. 30 miles from Wilmington. Robert Draner was an established cloth manufacturer operating in the parishes surrounding Staplehurst.
1.1. Mary Draner, m. Henry Twisden, 6 Nov 1587, in Sandhurst, where the Twisdens of Staplehurst were established. Henry was contemporary to his probable cousin, Robert Twisden, who served as the curate at Staplehurst from 1580 until 1586. (Diocesan Registry Canterbury Cathedral). Mary’s brother, Ambrose Drayner of Biddenden followed his father into the wool trade as a “clothier”. His will, proved on 24 April 1621, names his “kinspeople Peter and Mary Twisden” (who were Mary Draner and Henry’s children).
1.1.1. John Twisden, bapt. 12 Apr 1590, in Staplehurst. In the 1640s, John Twisden settled in York alongside a small, tight-knit group of fellow English immigrants. Among his closest neighbours and associates was Andrew Everest (the immigrant patriarch of the American Everest family).

John Twisden’s connection to the Reade family is a foundational part of the broader Twisden/Twysden family heritage back in Kent.

The parallel, elite branch of the Twysden family (the Baronets of Roydon Hall and Bradbourne) intermarried with the prominent Reade family of Kent and London.

Most notably, Margaret Reade (daughter of the wealthy London merchant John Reade) married on 6 November 1587 into the Twisden family family. For generations, the Twisdens acted as trustees, executors, and heirs to vast estates, titles, and tithes alongside the Reades (such as properties in Hollywell and Brancepeth).

READE, OLIVER, EVEREST

1. John Reade. Parishes of Oxted, (Bursted, xvii cent.; Bearsted, xviii cent.). In 1283, William of Oxted granted to the Prior and convent of Tandridge 1 carucate of land of the fee of Roland of Oxted. ( Cal. Pat. 1281–92, p. 171; Chan. Inq. p.m. 12 Edw. I, no. 49; Inq. a.q.d. file 7, no. 3.) At the time of its dissolution the priory owned farms and rents in Oxted to the value of £11 12s. 3d. (Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 68), and courts were held there by the priors. (Manning and Bray, op. cit. ii, 387). After the Dissolution this manor appears as the manor of Bursted or Oxted. It was granted in tail-male to John Reade (L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (1), 190 (2), who died in 1545. (Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), lxxii, 81.). His son, John sold the manor in 1576 to Richard Bostock, (Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 18 & 19 Eliz.; Recov. R. Mich. 1576, rot. 1542; Donat. MS. (B.M.), 4705, fol. 78, 79).
1.1, John Reade.
1.2. Robert Reade – b. ca. 1540, d. 1590.
1.2.1. Isabel Reade – b. 1574, m. William Oliver. . Legal abstracts from the John Whitgift Foundation record a 1590 property covenant involving William Oliver, confirming Isabel was 16 years old at the time of their marriage.
1.2.2. Willm Reed* – b. ca. 1570, m. Joan Everhest, 31 Oct 1591, in Farningham: St Peter and St Pauls. Tis marriage positions him perfectly as a contemporary of Isabel, belonging to the exact same generation. Farningham is located directly adjacent to Wilmington, the ancestral home of the Godfrey family. Oliver Godfrey (the father of Governor Edward Godfrey) is buried nearby, and the family held deep ties to the Farningham parish.
1.2.2.1. Elizabeth Reed – b. ca. 1595-1600, m. Ralph Everest, 13 Apr 1620, in Dartford, 2 miles N.of Wilmington.
1.2.2.1.1. Andrew Everest, b. ca. 1621.

This places this Elizabeth Reed as a niece to Isabel Reade (and a contemporary/cousin to Elizabeth Oliver, who married Governor Edward Godfrey around the same time. Dartford acts as the major historic market town for this specific region of northwest Kent. It borders Wilmington directly and sits less than 6 miles north of Farningham. The fact that a Reed married an Everest in Farningham in 1591, and another Reed married an Everest in neighbouring Dartford 29 years later, strongly indicates a sustained, multi-generational kinship alliance between the two families operating in the immediate vicinity of the Robert Reade estate. Such marriages were the core principal by which English kinship groups reinforced the bonds within them – a mechanism carried over into the New World. In the 17th century, when individuals traveled to the American colonies under the patronage of a colonial official, they were almost always close blood kin or trusted in-laws from the official’s home district in England.
Andrew Everest – b. ca. 1621.

What makes Ralph Everest the ideal candidate to be the father of Andrew Everest is that his household combined both sides of Governor Godfrey’s local Kentish network. An Edward Everest born to this marriage would be tied to Godfrey in two distinct ways: (1) through the Reed/Oliver connection: Ralph’s wife, Elizabeth Reed, belonged to the same localized Reade family as Isabel Reade. Because Isabel’s daughter (Elizabeth Oliver) married Governor Godfrey, Elizabeth Reed was a close cousin to the Governor’s wife; (2) through the Godfrey/Everest neighbours: The Everests and Godfreys were already prominent, interconnected families in the Farningham and Wilmington parishes of Kent. During the Great Migration, colonial leaders like Godfrey did not recruit strangers; they brought their nephews, cousins, and trusted neighbours from Kent to manage their vast tracts of land (such as Godfrey’s 12,000-acre grant in York, Maine).

In the 17th century, wool spinning in Kent was a critical backbone of England’s domestic economy, operating as a cottage industry. Spinning was not done in factories during the 1600s; it was carried out entirely by hand inside rural family homes. : The work was predominantly performed by women, unmarried daughters (which birthed the term “spinster”), and children to supplement farming income. In the 17th century, spinning provided roughly 30% of the total income for poor families in Kentish villages

SUMMARY

*This research traces a tightly knit network of gentry and merchant-class families across neighbouring parishes in Kent and Surrey (primarily Oxted, Farningham, Sandhurst, and Staplehurst) during the reign of Elizabeth I. It begins with John Reade, who was granted the manor of Bursted/Oxted in Surrey by King Henry VIII, establishing a prominent landowning line. His grandson, Robert Reade (d. 1590), produced two key children who connect these families. The first, Isabel Reade, married William Oliver in 1590 at 16 years old. Her brother, William Reed, married Joan Everhest (an early spelling of Everest) in 1591 in Farningham, Kent.

*This Farningham marriage is critical because the parish sat right next to Wilmington, the home of the influential Godfrey family (including Oliver Godfrey, father of the future Governor of Maine, Edward Godfrey). William Reed and Joan Everhest’s daughter, Elizabeth Reed, married Ralph Everest in 17th-century Dartford, and this couple became the parents of Andrew Everest.

Meanwhile, in the nearby parish of Staplehurst, Henry Twisden and his wife, Mary Draner (daughter of a wealthy local wool merchant), were raising their own family. The local curate overseeing the parish records during part of this era was the Reverend Robert Twisden. Henry and Mary’s son, John Twisden, grew up in the exact same geographic and social orbit as the Everests. Because of these multi-generational family alliances and shared ties to the Godfreys, both John Twisden and Andrew Everest ultimately left Kent together for the New World, becoming the foundational pioneer partners who co-founded York, Maine.

The Exact Relationship of Andrew to John. From a strict genealogical standpoint, Andrew Everest and John Twisden were not direct blood cousins through their paternal lines, but they were intimately connected through a web of maternal marriages, geography, and baptismal kinship.

Here is exactly how they relate:
*The Shared Reade-Everest Root: Andrew Everest’s mother was Elizabeth Reed. Her parents were William Reed and Joan Everhest (Andrew’s maternal grandparents). This firmly places Andrew within the Reade and Everest family dynamic of Farningham/Dartford.
*The Shared Godfrey/Oliver Matrix: Andrew’s great-aunt, Isabel Reade, married into the Oliver family. The Oliver, Reade, and Everest families were structurally aligned with the Godfrey family of Wilmington.
*The Connection to John Twisden: John Twisden’s father (Henry) and mother (Mary Draner) lived and operated within this exact same localized Kentish gentry and merchant network. While John Twisden carried the Twisden surname, his family relied heavily on the same legal, religious, and social circles in Kent as the Reades, Olivers, and Everests.
*In short: Andrew Everest and John Twisden were contemporary peers from the same kinship network in Kent. Their families had intermarried with the Reades and Olivers, creating a powerful bond that explains why they acted as a single unit when migrating to New England, settling next to each other, and legally executing each other’s estates in Maine.
*By the time they were in Maine in the 1650s, John Twisden Junior was a highly literate, educated legal authority in the colony. When Andrew Everest died in January 1677/78, John Twisden Junior — serving as the official Clerk of the Writs for York — personally handled and administered Andrew’s estate.

It would be remiss if this brief notice did not mention Michael Everest:

1. Michael Everest*. Victuallers and sureties at St Mary Cray and Dartford. At St Mary Cray, 2 April 1605. Edward Best of Farningham innholder. William Read of Farningham and Thomas Durlinge of Kingsdown husbandmen. John Best of Farningham innholder. Allyn Clarke of Wilmington, and Robert Monke of Sutton at Hone husbandmen. Michael Everest of Farningham innholder Thomas Newington and William Reade of Farningham husbandmen. Mychael Everhest, m. Margaret Ownstead, 21 Jul 1595, in Farningham, sister 0f Jone Ownstead, who m. Thomas Cooper, 8 Jul 1599, in Dartford.
1.1. Mychaell Everhest, bapt. 10 Jul 1597.
1.2. Edward Everhest, bapt. 29 Apr 1599.
1..3. John Everhest, bapt. 17 Jan 1601/2.

Parishes of Oxted: Stockets: John Stockett (probably a son of Roger), granted ‘the manor of Stocketts’ to John Alye and another in trust for himself and his heirs; his son John died before 1471 and left an only daughter Denise, wife of Robert Chapell. (early Chan. Proc. bdle. 40, no. 284). She left three daughters, co-heirs, viz. Elizabeth, who married John Gens, Alice wife of John Ownstead, and Joan wife of William Banaster. They made partition of the estate in 1515. By the year 1577 William Banaster’s share had come into the hands of William Causten; James Gens held a third, consisting of the manor-house and 34 acres, and John Ownstead held a third”. (This John Ownstead was probably the great-grandfather of Margaret, wife of *Michael Everest, supra).

by m stanhope, copyright B.T. Shannon 2026