Since many years of threshing the same old straw have not determined the ancestry of William Shakespeare, investigation in a new direction seems wise. Genealogists, confronted with a gap they cannot cross, examine the history of families known to be related to the subject of their search but not how. Shakespearean students have long known of Thomas Greene, the solicitor, steward, and town clerk of Stratford-on-Avon from 1603 to 1617, who in his private diary called Shakespeare cousin, but they have not known much about him or his exact relationship to the poet. Since the word cousin occurs in such private and personal writing as a diary, it is more likely a term of real kinship than of friendly courtesy. This article presents the data gathered during an investigation—halted by the present war—into the ancestry of Thomas Greene. They do not reveal the ancestry of Shakespeare, but they show a chain of family connections of better economic and social status than some writers have granted the Stratford Shakespeares. Since the matter is genealogical, a fair presentation demands the inclusion of minute details of slight interest to the general reader but of possible great value to a specialist who may undertake to carry the investigation forward after the war, for in genealogy a seemingly insignificant detail may prove to be the clue to the ultimate solution.