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Thomas Cornell and his wife Rebecca (maiden name unproven but some evidence for Briggs) baptized several children in the parish of Saffron Walden, in Essex, England, before moving to New England about 1638 (initially Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and later, Portsmouth, in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations). Among their children was a child recorded as "Kelame" and buried on October 19, 1632. I am not certain, but I believe the old handwritten parish records were read by a genealogical researcher named Waldo Chamberlain Sprague and shared with another genealogical researcher, G. Andrews Moriarty, who published this information in an article in "The American Genealogist", Volume 35 (I don't have the issue number or the exact date, but it was about 1958 or 1959).
Because "Kelame" did not reach adulthood and leave any progeny, he has not been at the forefront of Cornell research. Nonetheless, picking up on Sprague's and Moriarty's work, a George E. McCracken, Ph.D., F.A.S.G. VD, seemingly a professor at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, published an article in "The American Genealogist", Volume 36 (again, I don't have the issue number or the exact date, but it was pages 16-18, in about 1958, 1959, or 1960). Professor McCracken formed a hypothesis and stated that "it would be well to investigate the possibility that this child [Kelame] bore the maiden name of Rebecca." There is indeed a surname "Kellam", with variant spellings of Killam, Kelham, Kellum, etc., but apparently no one has had much luck finding a Rebecca Kellam born at the right time and living in the right place to have become Mrs. Thomas Cornell.
I would now like to offer an alternative hypothesis. In searching the web, I have found numerous examples where the name "Kellam" was either a nickname, or a variant spelling rendition, of the name "Kenelm". There was a very early Anglo-Saxon who became Saint Kenelm (living ca. 819, and later mentioned in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"). You can google him.
A few examples of the Kenelm/Kellam identity are readily found on the internet and include the following:
Sir Kenelm/Kellam Digby (at the time of the Gunpowder Plot)
Kenelm/Kellam Browne, of Roxwell, Essex, who signed the 1629 Cambridge Agreement, which started the Great Migration of Puritans to New England
Kenelm/Kellam Irby, of Gosberton, Lincolnshire
Kenelm (Kellam) Hedley, a tenant of Surrey Sheriff William Gardiner ca. 1594
Kenelm/Kellam Throgmorton, one of the original planters at Jamestown, VA ca. 1609
Kenelm Brickles, born in 1693 in Lincolnshire and grandson of a "Kellam" Brickles
Kenelm/Kellam Cheseldyn, a clergyman at Bloxholme, Lincolnshire ca. 1662 (descendants in Maryland)
Kenelm/Kellam Grit (a/k/a Griet) of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire court records ca. 1618
Kenelm/Kellam White, a merchant taylor ca. 1660, who owned property that is now the site of Hart Hospital in Redbridge, a borough of London
Kenelm/Kellam Godfrey of Herefordshire, mentioned in his father's Will in 1665
Kenelm/Kellam Bryant (a/k/a Bryane) of Hadleigh, who was convicted of theft and locked up in Colchester Castle
St. Kellam's and St. Kenelm's as equivalents for a parish/chapel in Worcestershire
I do not have an explanation for why Thomas and Rebecca Cornell would have chosen the name Kenelm/Kellam (recorded as "Kelame") for a son, but I believe they did. If my hypothesis is correct, then there is really no purpose in seeking a Rebecca "Kellam" as the possible wife of Thomas Cornell.
Does anyone have any different ideas about this son of Thomas and Rebecca, and whether his name has any significance for further ancestry? If so, please share by posting here.
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