Help for Lydia Dean of colonial Massachusetts

Question

I've been trying to avoid New England and focus on Maryland and Wales, but Lydia Dean is an ancestor on my mother's side, so I hope New England experts can help!

Lydia Dean-625 is currently shown as the daughter of Walter Dean and his wife Eleanor Cogan.  However, they list no child named Lydia, so I have marked her parents "uncertain."  Meanwhile, there is a probable duplicate of Lydia  Lydia Dean-324, the daughter of Thomas Deane and Katherine Stevens.  

The initial conclusion would be to detach Lydia-625 from Walter and Eleanor and merge her with Lydia-324.  But the sourcing for Lydia at the moment is heavy on popular genealogies and light on the most reliable sources.  

I notice that the Deans have been extensively discussed by PGM on G2G in 2016-- PGM Changes to Profile of John Deane, so it looks like there is considerable expertise out there with access to TAG articles, etc, which I don't have.  I wonder if those with access might add reliable documentation to the Lydia profiles, both to strengthen them, but also to confirm or oppose my suggestion that they should be merged.  Thanks.

Answer 1

I took a quick scan thru AmericanAncestors.org, and didn't find much on the first pass. But this entry in the court records should at least give you a good idea of George & Lydia's marriage date, since it correlates with daughter Lydia's birth:

April 1705, "George Hall of Taunton ... & wife ... fornication before Marriage ... fine ... forty shillings."

Source:

''Mayflower Descendant: A Magazine of Pilgrim Genealogy and History.'' Boston, MA: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1899- . (Online database: ''AmericanAncestors.org,'' New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010). Helen Schatvel Ullman, CG, FASG, [https://www.americanancestors.org/DB407/i/54043/96/0 "Bristol County Court of General Sessions: 1702-1714, Abstracts of Personal Items," ''TAG'' Vol. 60(2011):103], citing p. 76, Court, second Tuesday of Aprill 1705.

I'll leave the above unedited so it can be transfered to the appropriate profile if desired.

I'll take another look tonight to see if I can find more.

Comments

Thanks, Bobbie.   I've added it to George Hall's profile.  The Puritan authorities apparently had not heard the story that my wife's grandmother was told, "first pregnancies can take any amount of time, after that they take 9 months."

I wonder how valuable 40 shillings was?  In Maryland law, which was still on the books a couple of decades ago (though I've never heard of it being enforced), the fine for adultery was $10.

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Funny Jack! As for the value of 40 shillings, one can estimate appoximate values by looking at inventories of estates in the time period. In one dated 1701 in Dedham, a pair of brass candlesticks was 32 shillings, 6 cushions were 5 shillings, a calf was 15 shillings. So... a substantial amount for newlyweds.

Answer 2

Ah, the Dean(e)s of Taunton once again...

It's useful to know that most of Taunton's early records were lost, so what "records" we have today often were reconstructed (long ago) from family bibles, etc. -- and there are many gaps.

Unfortunately, R.B., who posted much of the earlier analysis of the Deans, is no longer a member of WikiTree, so we cannot rely on his expertise.

I was another major participant in the earlier discussion (I have at least one Taunton ancestor named Dean). I've not revisited the sources today, but my memory was jogged by re-reading the various profiles and the earlier G2G. It was clear to me at the time that John Dean didn't have a daughter Lydia. Also, after the daughters of his brother Walter Deane were identified by various means, there were no unidentified daughters left who could correspond to Lydia (Dean) Hall.

But Taunton was a pretty small community in those years, so there wasn't an infinite supply of Deans. Since Thomas Deane of Taunton left a will that mentioned a daughter named Lidiah, and the Hall genealogy identifies her as the Lydia Dean who married George Hall, I think it's entirely reasonable to conclude that Lydia Dean was the daughter of Thomas and married George Hall. So I endorse your proposal to disconnect Dean-625 from Walter Deane and Eleanor Cogan as parents, then merge Lydia Dean-625 into Lydia (Dean-324) Hall, daughter of Thomas.

Comments

Thank you.  I'm going to take the first step and change the parents, which will then make the merge proposal more obvious.  

But I'm still looking for any more source citations to add!

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Just so Puritan Great Migration Project chimes in. I totally trust Ellen's conclusions.

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Thank you, Ellen! And thank you, Jack, for bringing this to our collective attention.