Of all the Anglo Saxon sounding surnames that are markers of the country's early African American admixture, perhaps this family's is the most romantic in origin.

In 1653 Elizabeth Kay, a mulatto servant, sued the estate of the Virgina planter Col. John Motram for her freedom. William Greenstead, a 20 year old Englishman was her lawyer and they fell in love. She became the mother of his two infant sons and William Greenstead married her in 1655. Besides the benefits to be obtained from their father's professional status, records show that a relative in 1667 bequeathed the children, John and William, some five hundered acres of land and provisions for an education, enough to insure them a future solid footing.

Of John's children, six are readily identifiable from the documents extant and of William's, nine. From these are today descended just about anyone who can trace their Greenstead, Grinsted, or Grimsted ancestry back to before the middle of the last century in this country (see below).

Re: Elizabeth's Kay lawsuit petitioning for freedom

Elizabeth's father, Thomas Kay, a former member of the House of Burgesses, wanted to insure his daughter's protection and thus at the time of his death in 1636 he bound her over to a Humphrey Higginson for nine years as a legal means of doing so. (Higginson was her godfather and had, according to the records, "promised to use her as well as if she were his own Child.")

How she wound up with the planter Col. Motram for another nineteen years is not too clear, but it appears that when Higginson decided to return to England, he gave her over to the Colonel. As this was done in violation of the agreement her father had made with Higginson, which stipulated that he take her to England should he go back, the court ruled in her favour stating that, "For theise Reasons wee conceive the said Elizabeth ought to be free and that her last Master should give her Corne and Cloathes and give her satisfaction for the time shee hath served longer then Shee ought to have done."

Greenstead Genealogy:

William Greenstead m. in 1655 Elizabeth Kay

John			William
	Ann b. 1677		Adam b. 1684
	Thomas b. 1679			Mary b. 1694
	Jean b. 1680		Susanna b. 1712
	John b. 1681		Hannah b. 1716
	Rachell b. 1683			John b. 1718
	Elizabeth b. 1689			George b. 1719
				Jane b. 1722
				Leah b. 1731
				Martha b. 1733

Because he was elected mayor of Louisville KY in 1907, one of William and Elizabeth Greenstead's Kentucky descendants made it into the National Cyclopedia of Biographical History. From this entry we might be able to extrapulate some sense of the family's history.