Life History

Other facts

Notes

• Sources I have found on this line are incomplete and confusing.  One source has Thomas' birthplace as Laymatt, Somerset, England.  In emailcorrespondence in October 2007, Jim White has told me that there are indeed two lines of Molineaux conflated here.  Jim reports that our Thomas Molineaux was baptized 29 March 1674 at Seton in Lancashire.
  
  Thomas is reported by various sources to have had three wives.  Some genealogies report that the first was named Ann Mullins, whose son John was born in 1698, and was also named Mullins.  This seemed questionable  when I encountered this information, but there was a paucity of information and I had been unable to find other sources to clarify this.
  
  Jim White says the Molineaux of Somerset is a different family.  And this Molineaux in our family line was not married to Ann Mullins.  This is a confirming voice that the earlier confusion was confusion of two families.  I am still uncertain likewise whether the information about Martha Hunt as a wife is correct.  I will be clarifying this family further.  Meanwhile I am adding details from Jim that help fill outthis picture.
  
  Previous sources had reported that Thomas' marriage to second wife Elizabeth Amy took place on 4 April 1703.  I have found no details on the third wife Martha Hunt, and no mention of children with her.  Jim provides the location and church of the marriage of Thomas and Elizabeth Amy, St Martin's in the Fields Parish, Westminster, on the date I have reported from other sources, 4 April 1703.  Jim also clarified that Amy was the surname of Elizabeth's family.  I have seen the name spelled Amey in some references.
  
  The Molineaux family name is spelled in various ways in various sources.  This family name was spelled differently for the same person in various public and private documents, written by members of the family,the individuals themselves or third parties.  Over time different branches of this lineage settled on different spellings that have continued as separate lines today.  Spelling was not standardized as it came to be in the early 1900s.
  
  Mullinax and Mullinix were primarily English-language spellings, while Mullineaux and variations were the French preference.  Each of these has many creative variations.  The name appears to be related to the shorter name Mullins, which comes from an original Celtic name.
  
  While the name Mullins seems to be related primarily to the British or Irish families, the form Mullineaux is found in both places, but seems associated with the continental (French) families.  I am familiar with this in Brittany, which appears to be the home area.  But there is some cultural or political connection to the Normans, so the name might be found in Normandy also.
  
  Two comments on the origin of the name are provided in a Names database:
  1. English and Irish (of Norman origin): habitational name from Moulineaux in Seine-Maritime, so named from the plural of Old French moulineau, a diminutive of moulin ‘mill’. In some cases this may have been an occupational name as in 2.
  2. French: occupational name for a miller, from molineux, a variant of Old French molineur ‘miller.’
  --  http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/surname-origin/molyneux?detoured=1
  
  I am not sure how far the name ranged in its original home area.  TheFrench form is found in Britain from the Norman period when many French-surnamed people, both Norman and French, became established in the former English domains.  The French form continues to be used by some branches of the family in Britain.  The name Mullineaux developed froman original phonetic form like Mullinals.
  
  The -eaux ending is original a phonetic deterioration from pre-old French als in all French words.  The als ending (plural of nouns ending in -al) is still heard in some languages of southern France, such as Provençal.  The x originally represented the s sound (as it still does in modern French when the word is followed by a word starting with a vowel, as in beaux arts)., but the sound finally dropped out, as most plural indicators in French did.  But the spelling was kept to assist in distinguishing between singular and plural in the written forms.  The plural form of the name became the base form of the family name.  Examples of this are the common French word plurals like tableaux and physicaux.
  
  Thomas Molineaux's name appears in some genealogies as Mullineaux or Molineaux.  One genealogy has the alternate spelling of Mulleaneaux.
  
  The dates of birth are a problem.  According to a genealogy with somedetails about Thomas Mullineaux (Molineaux), he was born in 1674, buthis wife was not born until 1703.  But this source does not give a date of birth for their son Jonathon.

Sources

• 1. Jim White, email correspondence with Orville Boyd Jenkins, October 2007
• 2. Ancestry Trees
  • http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/pt/person.aspx?tid=88771&pid=-1958122957
• 3. Ancestry Trees
  • http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=3859009
• 4. One World Tree (sm)
  • Ancestry.com. Provo, UT; http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid
• 5. Ancestry Trees
  • http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/pt/person.aspx?tid=88771&pid=-1979792133