Question

Can you help connect Bible translator Myles Cloverdale (1488-1569) to our global tree?

Answer 1

His wiki article is sadly lacking in personal genealogical details...

I did find this article on Ancestry:

http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.coverdale/36.37.109.1.2/mb.ashx

"...he married Elizabeth Mucheson in 1540 in Bergzabern, Zwerbruken, Saarland Bezirk, Germany..."

''...we know there were two sons of the marriage, one born about : 1542 and the other about : 1546..."

Tidbit here:

http://www.bible-researcher.com/1911-coverdale.html

"Yorkshire parents" - that's about it... it also mentions Elizabeth

http://www.tlogical.net/biocoverdale.htm

Mentions where he was born: "Miles Coverdale was born in 1488, probably in the district known as Coverdale, in that part of the North Riding of Yorkshire called Richmondshire. "

Comments

And not that I'm a big fan of rootsweb and the undocumented sources, but here's a link that shows a child and descendants. No significant sources to note though...

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=paradisbeth&id=I443

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Chasing up and down the lineage mentioned in Rootsweb, it's conceivable that we could find the common ancestor that is missing documentation. I can find some additional data up to William C Coverdale, born 1635 in Yorkshire or Whitby, Yorkshire. Married Mary Sawyer/Sayer.

His father is the questionable one - someone has stitched together several generations in one fell swoop. Myles, born 1488, married around 1540, kids born around 1542 and 1546, appear to have given birth to William - born 1635. So his child, according to this link, would have been fathered by the son of Myles (Roger or Thomas) when Roger or Thomas was about 90 years old. Hmmm...

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And carrying forward from this, the oldest Coverdale we have on the tree currently is Richard Coverdale - born 1753 in Yorkshire.

One of the William Coverdale lines leads to this guy:

Mullinix-50

If we can find a clean line from Myles to William, then I suspect we can find a clean line to Richard Mullinix, who was the son of William Mullinix and Jean Mary Coverdale, who was the daughter of Richard Coverdale and Elizabeth Truitt. Richard was the son of William Coverdale (1635) and Mary Sawyer/Sayer.

A lot of if's, but there's a possibility there...

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=remmel-pults&id=P22570

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There are two Myleses - Roger or Thomas is the grandson.  So the dates will just about stretch.

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Good point - if say Roger was the son, born 1546, and had a child Thomas born around 1590, then a child William born 1635 isn't too far out of the realm of possibility. Still would want to prove it somehow...

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Oh - or if Myles (1488) had a son Myles about 1546, who had a son Roger or Thomas born around 1590... I get it. Sorry - missed the two Myles's part.

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I am a Ph.D. student in history (specifically the English Reformation) and I am somewhat newer to genealogy so please correct me if my method is incorrect here. 

According to ODNB's biography of Coverdale (widely considered to be the most official scholarly biography), "No details are known of his parentage or early education." It also reports 

Before leaving England, Coverdale had married Elizabeth Macheson (d. 1565), a Scotswoman of noble family. Her sister Agnes married John Macalpine, or McAlpine: all three had come to England as religious exiles from Scotland. Macalpine became a prebendary of Salisbury in July 1538. When Coverdale, with his wife, left England they apparently went straight to Strasbourg, where they were welcomed by the wife of Calvin: the latter had escaped dissension by moving to that city. John Macalpine and his wife went via Bremen to Wittenberg, where he became DTh. There Philip Melanchthon gave him the name of Maccabaeus (presumably a cognomen for him as an independence fighter, but perhaps also a joke on his Scottish name, as MacCabaeus). On the invitation of the king of Denmark, Macalpine became professor of divinity at Copenhagen, and presently one of the translators of the Danish Bible of 1550. Both he and the king of Denmark would play an important part in Coverdale's later life.

It mentions that "In contemporary [1557] documents he is described as born at York, having a wife and two children, and lodging in the Frauenkloster. Then, a little over a year later, on 24 October 1558, he received leave to settle in Geneva." There are no names given for his children. -- I can look it up later but I believe that I read in a book (perhaps The Remains of Myles Coverdale) that his son's name was Myles also.

ODNB citation: David Daniell, ‘Coverdale, Miles (1488–1569)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/view/article/6486, accessed 4 May 2016]

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Thanks, Samantha! I was just hunting on Amazon and saw that book and wondered if it might have a nugget or two that could be used.

Answer 2

Just for clarification, the famous Bible translator is Myles/Miles Coverdale. There is no "L" in his last name. I am certain that this is the person that you are referring to here-- Myles Coverdale is credited with producing the first complete translation of the Bible into English in 1535. The version of the Bible that he produced unofficially bears his name-- "the Coverdale Bible." Here is an online copy of the Coverdale Bible. That link should take you directly to it, but if you refer to the page with signature mark +iiii (page 4 if you were treating these pages like those of a normal book)-- at the bottom of the page after the dedication, Coverdale signs his name (in type): "Youre graces humble subiecte and daylye oratour, Myles Couerdale."

 

Comments

I updated what I could, but can't change the LNAB. We'll work on that.

Answer 3

OK - I added some detail from the threads below to the profile, but I'm hesitant to create profiles for all these people without some additional data to go on, or sources to rely upon. For now we may just have to be content that we can see a potential link and leave it at that, unless others feel we have enough to proceed. I know pre-1700 sources are often sketchy at best and you have to read between the lines on some things, but I don't know that we're even there just yet.

Comments

Thanks Scott! YOu always do a great job!

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A Scotswoman of noble family ought to be connectable, he said bravely.

Geni thinks the MacAlpines had a child, and has a lot of Danish genealogy attached.