from The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1911
The will of John Bradstreet of Capel, dated 1610, mentions a nephew Humphrey Bradstreet, probably the emigrant Humphrey Bradstreet, aged 40, who came in 1634 from Ipswich in the ship Elizabeth with wife Bridget and children Hannah, John, Martha, and Mary. It will be remembered that Isaac Mixer and his family, who came in the same ship, were also from Capel (Register, Volume 63, p. 277).
I believe John of Capel, the testator of 1610, and his brother Thomas (probably father of Humfrey), to be the sons of that name born to Humfrey Bradstreet of Gislingham in 1568 and 1571. I also believe that the son Simon Bradstreet, mentioned in the will of John Bradstreet of Gislingham in 1559, was the father of Rev. Simon Bradstreet and grandfather of Governor Simon Bradstreet [husband of Anne Dudley Bradstreet]. It is known that the Governor's father. Rev. Simon, born about 1565-70, was a minister and held a living at Horbling, Lincolnshire, where the Governor was born in 1603, and that before this he held a living at Hinderclay, co. Suffolk, which is only five miles from Gislingham.
The above suggestion, that Humphrey Bradstreet, nephew of John of Capel, the testator of 1610, was the emigrant to New England, seems probably correct. It seems unlikely, however, that John of Capell, who died in 1610, was identical with John, born in 1571, the son of Humphrey of Gislingham. Capel, Bentley, and Wenham are adjacent parishes in Suffolk, about five miles southwest of Ipswich, and Gislingham is some thirty miles north of them. A Robert Bradstreet was taxed in Capel, and a Henry Bradstreet in Bentley, in the Suffolk Subsidy of 1568, and it is likely that one of these, probably Robert, was the father of John of Capel, the testator of 1610. In the Suffolk Subsidy of 1524 an Edmund Bradstrett and an Edmund Bradstet junior were assessed at Bentley.
