Robert Crossman, of Taunton - Disputed origins

Evidence needed to support Robert Crossman, of Taunton as son of John Crosssman, of Providence He’s been detached and relationships locked.

A detailed analysis of how earlier genealogists suggested this connection is described in detail at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Crossman-81. Extracting from it:

”Bassette's theory, in one form or another, has been widely adopted in online family trees and genealogy pages, often adding the disfavored theory that John was one of the original settlers of Taunton in 1636. [Buell Burdette Bassette in her 1926 “One Bassett Family in America”]. The problems with Bassette's theory include:

• As discussed above, the consensus of experts who have reviewed the Taunton proprietor's papers is that the list of original proprietors included a John Greenman rather than a John Crosman and there is no evidence in the proprietor's records of any early settler by the name of John Crossman/Crosman.
• The alleged 1661 note by John Crosman to Thomas Lenerd was actually almost certainly a 1681 note by Robert's son John Crosman since (1) a close examination of a magnified copy of the image of the note shows that the shape of the third digit in the date is more consistent with the manner in which an 8 is drawn than a 6[11] and (2) while there are no other records suggesting that there was an adult John Crosman living in Taunton in or about 1661, there are plenty of records of Robert's son John Crosman (who was 27 in 1681) living in Taunton in 1681.
• Apart from the list of original proprietors and the alleged 1661 note discussed above, there are absolutely no records of a John Crosman/Crossman in Taunton until Robert's son John.
• A Taunton town listing dated May 25, 1675 of the then current proprietors of Taunton included Robert Crosman "on his own rights", indicating that he was one of the original town proprietors and had not inherited or purchased his rights from a John Crosman or anyone else. The list contains no reference to any of the proprietors having derived their rights from a John Crosman/Crossman, although there is an reference to one of the proprietors having acquired his rights from David Greeman.[12][13]
• There is no evidence connecting either the John Crosman charged with blasphemy in Boston in 1651 or the John Crosman who lived in Providence from 1657 to 1688 with Robert Crosman/Crossman of Taunton.
• John Crosman of Providence was a mariner, who was a Quaker, while there is no evidence that Robert Crosman of Taunton was either a mariner or a Quaker. In fact, if Robert had been a Quaker, he would never have been admitted as a townsman of Dedham, which was a Puritan town that required town approval for admission as a townsman.[14]
• The fact that records show that John Crosman of Providence gifted Providence property to the Quakers and that he was cared for toward his death by a Mr. Johnson, who was compensated out of his estate,[10] suggest that John Crosman of Providence may have been childless.

Summary: The totality of the evidence thus suggests that (1) there was no John Crosman/Crossman of Taunton who could have been Robert's father and (2) John Crosman/Crossman of Providence was not Robert's father. Robert's parentage is therefore currently unknown.