The best research I have found on Abraham Cooke is due to Bob Baird.1737 The following brief bio is extracted from Bob’s work. For more detail, including Bob’s caveats, please consult his excellent website. Because it is a well-researched historical document, it is made available here as a pdf document; see multimedia files.

“Where he came from is unknown, though there are some intriguing possibilities to consider.  It seems likely that our Abraham Cook is the same person who first appears, with a wife named Martha, in Old Rappahannock Co VA in the 1680s.  The first record of him is his witness to a deed from William Fauntleroy to William Lloyd on 28 January 1683/4, for land on the north bank of the Rappahannock about four miles upriver from the mouth of Totasky Creek.

“Although he is described in some of these records as a “planter”, it is not clear what land he was occupying. Wherever it was, it surely lay in the North Farnum Parish of Old Rappahannock, in the area which later became Richmond Co.

“He may have been a stepson or son-in-law of William Clayton (or Cleaton), who died about 1680, leaving a widow named Hannah and at least two children.

“While we can’t prove it, it seems likely that he is the same Abraham Cook who next appears about thirty miles southwest in New Kent Co VA in the 1690s. This person first appears in the 1690s in the part of New Kent that later became Hanover Co, and seems to be about the same age as the Abraham Cook of Old Rappahannock.”

There is some suggestive evidence from modern-day Y-chromosome DNA correlations that Abraham’s sons William and John Cooke were, in fact, brothers.1740

Note added January 16, 2013: The following communication from James Cooke:

As for Abraham:

We now have the following descendants of the following ancestors tested, and all match.

1. Me (Kit #7221, CookDNA project) desc of John Cooke (ca1700-1775) of Cumberland Co, VA
2. Edgar Forrest Cook, desc of Clayton Cook(e), son of William Cooke (d1752)
3. Fletcher & Lee Cook, descendants of Abraham Cook, Jr via & thru son Charles Cooke, Sr, and grandsons Charles Jr & Robert Cook
4. David Cook, desc of Dr William Gray Cook (grandson of John Cooke of Pr Edward County, VA, gr-grandson of John Cooke of Cumberland (ca1700-1775).
5. Dr. James Wesley Cook, desc of Nathaniel Cooke, of the Abraham Jr lineage.

We still do not have a desc of son Benjamin Cooke (d1759). Indeed, the Shem Cooke-John Cooke lineage of King & Queen & Amelia Counties think that Benjamin, father of Ben Jr & William (of Bob Baird's line) was actually related to THEIR Cookes (a lineage, shown as Lineage 3, R1b on the FTDNA Cook DNA Project results page) that is NOT related to ours.

As a result of the above matching results, I can say that I am 99.99% sure we descend from Abraham Cooke.

Incidentally, we now know where Abraham finally settled down: "Verdon", Hanover County, VA.

See also the following excellent accounts of Abraham Cooke, due to the research of James Cooke.

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=SRCH&db=cookesmithtree

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/o/o/James-E-Cooke/

http://vacookes.wix.com/abrahamcooke

I MAY have found Abraham's parents in Barbados: John Cooke married Mary Hill, 1654. They had a daughter Margery, born 1656, and a son ABRAHAM, baptized Dec 1661.

Thx again.

Jim Cooke

Note added November 1, 2014: For a good digest of what is fact and assumption with regard to Abraham Cooke, see a post by Jim Cooke.1741