Birth record for Mary (Pierce-975) Holbrook 1654 Hingham Massachusetts?

+4 votes
145 views
Can anyone find a birth record for Mary Pierce b 6 May 1654 Hingham, Massachusetts?  Married Samuel Holbrook. I see her everywhere listed as daughter of Michael and Persis but can find no documentation. I was thinking the continued use of Persis was a good indicator until I discovered two unrelated Pierce families of this period used that given name.

EDIT: looking at this further, I think the place of birth was probably Scituate rather than Hingham but there is nothing definitive one way or the other.

The Mary Pierce b 1654 record I can find is for a Mary Pierce b Jan 1654 in Woburn to Robert Pierce.

This is in relation to verifying an ancestral line of President William Taft.

Thanks for any help/insight.
WikiTree profile: Mary Holbrook
in Genealogy Help by T Stanton G2G6 Pilot (379k points)
edited by Ellen Smith
Hingham records can be elusive. See http://vita-brevis.org/2014/10/tackling-hingham-vital-records/ for insight on this.

There's a partial list of Hingham sources in the WikiTree category for the town.

Thanks, Ellen, this led to good intel.

She's not in Hobart or Lincoln's History but her supposed father Michael (and unnamed mother who was first wife) are in Vol 3 p 108 of History of the Town of Hingham. However, there is no dau Mary listed among the children named in Michael's will in this source.

UPDATE: She is mentioned by married name in the Will transcription on Michael's profile (from Pope)...missed that the first time through it. So, no birth record that can be found and she does not appear in anything that used History of Town of Hingham to source the children as she was omitted from that even though she does appear in the will.

So at least she existed and her father is correctly identified as Michael! That's more than we can confirm about some of my early Massachusetts ancestors, particularly in towns where records were lost.

1 Answer

+2 votes
Mass Births 1639-1915,   Mary Peirse Dec 10 1656, Father William

Mother Esther, There is another born 1659
by Wayne Morgan G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)

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