He may have been one of the "participants" who benefited from them.

The fact is significant as bearing upon this conjecture, that no person named Flinders made a will in Lincolnshire before 1600.* (* See C.W.Foster, Calendar of Lincoln Wills 1320 to 1600, 1902.) It is, too, an interesting circumstance that there was a Flinders among the early settlers in New England, Richard Flinders of Salem, born 1637.* (* Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Boston U.S.A.

1860.) He may have been of the same family as the navigator, for the Lincolnshire element among the fathers of New England was pronounced.
The name Flinders survived at Donington certainly for thirty years after the death of the sailor who gave lustre to it; for in a directory published in 1842 occur the names of "Flinders, Mrs.Eliz., Market Place," and "Flinders, Mrs.Mary, Church Street."* (* William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of the City and Diocese of Lincoln, 1842 page 193.) The Flinders papers, mentioned in the preface, contain material which enables the family and connections of the navigator to be traced with certainty for seven generations.

The genealogy is shown by the following table:-- John Flinders, born 1682, died 1741, settled at Donington as a farmer, married Mary Obray or Aubrey in 1702 and had at least 1 child: John Flinders, surgeon at Spalding, born 1737, still living in 1810, had at least two children: 1.

John Flinders, Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, born 1766, died 1793.
2.