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Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Listing my Mary LNU Elusive Ancestors

With a significant number of colonial New England ancestors (about 80% of my known ancestors 10 generations back), I have an LNU problem with certain female given names.

What's an LNU?  It's a Last Name Unknown.

Why do I not know their last names?  Well, I haven't found any sourced records on my own, and other researchers, including many professionals, have been unable to find the last name of many females in either English or colonial New England source records.  It's one of those two things - either brick wall or a dead end.

For example, here are my (and my wife's) ancestral Mary LNU persons:


*  Mary (???? to ????), married to Thomas Carter (1610-1676), of Salisbury, Mass.
*  Mary (???? to ????), married to John Lewis (1630-1690), of Westerly, R.I.
*  Mary (???? to ????), married to John Paul (???? to ????), of Ireland and New Brunswick, had a son John Paul (1824-1879) of San Francisco, Calif.
*  Mary (????-????), married to Thomas Richardson (1523-????), of Hertfordshire.
*  Mary (???? to ????), married to John Garnzey (????-????), of Somerset.

*  Mary (???? to ????), married to William Davis (????-????), who had a daughter Abigail Davis (1637 to 1682), who married Edward Richmond (1632-1696) of Little Compton, R.I.
*  Mary (???? to 1613), married to Stephen Hopkins (1581-1644), Mayflower passenger.
*  Mary (???? to 1645), married to Richard Kent (1586-1654) of Newbury, Mass.
*  Mary (???? to 1659), married to John Smith (1600-1669) of Lancaster, Mass.
*  Mary (???? to 1668), married to Henry Chickering (1565-1627) of Suffolk, England.

*  Mary (???? to 1677), married to Nathan Aldous (1592-1676) of Dedham, Mass.
*  Mary (1552 to 1614), married to Matthew Wing (1549-1614) of Banbury, Oxfordshire.
*  Mary (1569 to 1627), married to William Brewster (1566-1644), of Plymouth, Mass.
*  Mary (1584 to ????), married to George Rayment (1580-1651) of Glastonbury, Somerset.
*  Mary (1586 to 1665), married to Thomas Carter (1566-1652) of Charlestown, Mass.

*  Mary (1595 to 1663), married to Anthony Fisher (1591-1671) of Dorchester, Mass.
*  Mary (1600 to 1675), married to George Hubbard (1600-1683) of Guilford, Conn.
*  Mary (1601 to 1681), married to John Cutler (1600-1637) of Hingham, Mass.
*  Mary (1605 to 1674), married to Henry Howland (1604-1671), of Duxbury, Mass.
*  Mary (1606 to ????), married to Thomas Prather (1606-????) of Norfolk, Va.

*  Mary (1607 to 1655), married to Michael Bacon (1608-1688), of Woburn, Mass.
*  Mary (1612 to ????), married to John Gorton (1612-1676), of Roxbury, Mass.
*  Mary (1612 to 1670), married to Thomas Richardson (1608-1651) of Woburn, Mass.
*  Mary (1612 to 1692), married to Christopher Grant (1608-1685), of Watertown, Mass.
*  Mary (1619 to 1702), married to Thomas Flegg (1621-1698) of Watertown, Mass.

*  Mary (1625 to 1660), married to Christopher Bartlett (1624-1670) of Newbury, Mass.
*  Mary (1625 to 1699), married Thomas fish (1619-1687) of Portsmouth, R.I.
*  Mary (1627 to 1694), married to John Bowers (1626-1676), of Medfield, Mass.
*  Mary (1628 to ????), married to Edward Greenman (1616-1688) of Newport, R.I.
*  Mary (1628 to 1696), married to Jean Crocheron (1625-1696) of Staten Island, N.Y.

*  Mary (1629 to 1686), married to Richard Pray (1629-1693) of Providence, R.I.
*  Mary (1629 to 1693), married to Crispus Brewer (1626-1707) of Lynn, Mass.
*  Mary (1632 to 1681), married to John Wooden (1620-1721), of Berkeley, S.C.
*  Mary (1633 to 1711), married to John Pearce (1632-1692) of Portsmouth, R.I.
*  Mary (1639 to 1677), married to Thomas Follansbee (1637-1726) of Newbury, Mass.

*  Mary (1688 to ????), married to William Hawkins (1676-1744), of Providence, R.I.
*  Mary (1700 to 1738), married to Johannes Trimmer (1700-1748) of Hunterdon, N.J.
*  Mary (1775 to 1806), married to Nathan McKnew (1771-1834) of Prince George's, Md.
*  Mary (???? to ????), married to Matthew Colby (1530-1591) of Lincolnshire.
*  Mary (1585 to ????), married to Henry Ambrose (1584-1631) of Suffolk.

*  Mary (1618 to 1686),, married to Thomas Bloomfield (1615-1684), of Woodbridge, N.J.
*  Mary (1630 to 1702), married to Richard Higgins (1603-1675) of Piscataway, N.J.

Only 42 Mary LNUs in my database who are ancestors!  I have many more Marys who are not ancestors, but are spouses of siblings or cousins of my ancestors.

I fear that my genealogy work will never be finished, but I don't lie awake at night worrying about it.  I doubt that very many of their maiden names will ever be found.  I'll leave these ladies to someone else to find their maiden names and their connection to English royalty and/or Adam and Eve. 

Surely there's a really big mother of all genealogy databases out there with the name of every -person who ever lived throughout history, right?  Seems to me I heard someone claim that at a genealogy conference last year! 

So why did I even bother listing them?  Well, someone may have more, or better, information than I do, and I figured it couldn't hurt to put the names out there in hopes that someone will see it and be able to help me out.  No guts, no glory!

If anyone has sourced information about any of the Mary LNUs listed above, please let me know so I can add the information to my database and perhaps we can work together on our Mary's family line. 

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/08/listing-my-mary-lnu-elusive-ancestors.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

  1. I have a Mary with no last name. I leave her married to her spouse. She was still a person even if I don't know her maiden name. And someday if/when I find a couple of that name I will know if they are possible matches for my couple. If I'm already half way there with the first name, why would I delete her? She was my great great grandmother whether she has a known maiden name or not. And like you, maybe someone knows. If I'm just patient enough maybe we will find each other.

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