| Mary (UNKNOWN) Bearse migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm |
NOTE: When a dispute exists concerning the identity of a given person-- in this case, a spouse-- it is the policy of the Puritan Great Migration project to use the surname "Unknown," to detach disputed relations from the profile page in question (this one and associated children), and to link to the disputed profile pages from within the relevant narrative. That has been done in this case. Until such time as the identity of Augustine/Austin Bearce's wife can be confirmed, please do not attach, or merge, Mary "Little Dove" Hyanno as spouse of Augustine or as mother to his children. Please do not convert this profile into another Mary Hyanno profile, either. Do not add unverified surnames, or unverified native heritage. Thank you.
The identity of Augustine Bearce's wife does not appear in any contemporaneous documents. A theory that she was Mary "Little Dove" Hyanno, daughter of a Wampanoag sachem, was published 300 years later in 1935, and refuted in 1939. (See Mary "Little Dove" Hyanno for a detailed review of this controversy.)
Another theory is that Bearce's wife was named Mary Wilder, on the Confidence with Bearce, as suggested in Torrey's "New England Marriages."[1] A woman named Mary Wilder married a Joseph Underwood between 1638 and 1644; that Mary died in 1658/9 [2]
Bearse's wife Mary died in 1660 in Barnstable, Mass.[3]
See also:
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Mary is 22 degrees from Herbert Adair, 21 degrees from Richard Adams, 17 degrees from Mel Blanc, 20 degrees from Dick Bruna, 19 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 30 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 19 degrees from Sam Edwards, 17 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 21 degrees from Marty Krofft, 14 degrees from Junius Matthews, 13 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 18 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
[Do you know Mary's family name?] | B > Bearse > Mary (UNKNOWN) Bearse
Categories: Puritan Great Migration | Franklin Bearce Fraud
Many cultures lacking a written language do indeed keep a detailed oral tradition of ancestry. I don't think Franklin Bearse's reliance on such can be completely discounted. However, his reliance on a purported diary of Zerviah Newcombe seems rubbish, as no such diary was produced at the time or discovered since. Smacks of the Minnesota runestone, or the "90-foot" stone on Curse of Oak Island. Show me the money!
Other of Bearse's claims are preposterous: Vikings in Masschusetts in 1016? Giving a Wampanoag woman red hair 600 years (24 generations) later? Uh, no. The gypsy business is a stretch too, important to Franklin Bearse's narrative only to justify Austin's marriage to a non-English woman.
On the other hand, I don't take Jacobus as entirely unbiased. Yes, he was the father of modern genealogy. He was also a proponent of eugenics, interested in the promotion of "superior" characteristics, i.e. white Anglo-Saxons over most anyone else. As such, it would have been anathema to him acknowledge that a mixed marriage so prolifically populated early Massachusetts. Further, Jacobus was purportedly hired by other members of the Bearse family to respond to Franklin's "True Ancestors," in that day and age most likely to find they did NOT have Indian blood, yet further opportunity for bias to enter his findings.
Mary, wife of Austin Bearse, existed. But there are no contemporaneous records of her parents or maiden name, or of her marriage to Austin Bearse. There were no doubt many English/Dutch-born Marys hanging around Plymouth Colony at the time but lacking surviving documentation; our Mary could have been any of them. There were also "Praying Indians" converted to Christianity and no longer "savage," that might have made an acceptable wife in a colony where young unmarried men outnumbered available women -- especially if she was connected to Iyannhough and "John" Hyanno, helpful to and honored by the colonists. Why did Mary join the church so many years after Austin?
Also unresolved is the question of how Austin Bearse, supposedly the lowest man on the totem pole among immigrants on Confidence, acquired so much of the very best land in Barnstable? Could have been allotted it, could have purchased it from other colonists, could have simply squatted on it or, as the legend suggests, acquired it via his connections to Hyanno and the Cumaquid / Mattachee clans. We don't know for sure.
Bottom line: That Mary was daughter of Sachem Hyanno is probably apocryphal, wishful thinking on the part Franklin Bearse and some modern family tree builders. It would, however, be wonderful if the true facts ever come to light.
By Louis Cataldo
Second of Three Parts
Little has been written about Cape Cod's original residents. It is interesting to note that some of today's wellknown Cape Cod names come from Indians who were here during Pilgrim days and early Colonial years.
It may come as a surprise that the Bearse family, originally spelled "Be Arce," traces its origin to lyanough's son, John Yanno, whose daughter, Mary, married Austin Bearse, according to an original diary called, "A True Chronicle of the Bearse Family." This manuscript is in the Congressional Library in Washington, D.C. '
A 1935 "Utah Genealogical Magazine" states that this manuscript is a certified copy of an original sworn statement now on file in the Litchfield County District Court in Connecticut and accepted by the state. Commissioner of Indian Rights and Claims as to the identity of legal declaration of lineage.
The original diary was from Zerviah Newcomb, who married Josiah Bearse, a grandson of Austin.
It was further said that Mary Yanno (lyanough's granddaughter) was a lovely flaming-haired Mattachee princess. It has been conjectured that when the Vikings landed on Cape Cod many years before the Pilgrims there was some intermarriage. Thereafter the origin of the tribal name Wampanoag meant "White Indians."
In this genealogy the letter "H" is added to the name lyanough, thus his son's name became John Hyanno.
John Hyanno's daughter, Mary, married Austin Bearse, whose daughter, Sarah, married John Hamblin, whose daughter, Abigail, married Elkanah Hamblin, whose son, Sylvanus, married Dorcas Fish, whose son, Barnabus, married Mary Barrett, whose son, Isaiah, married Daphne Haynes whose son, Jacob Vernon, married Rachel Judd whose daughter, Tamar, married William Thomas Steward whose daughter, Maud Rachel, married George Albert Udall, etc.
Austin Bearse was the great, great, great grandfather of Jacob Hamblin, through his daughter, Sarah Bearse, who married John Hamblin. They raised a large family and many of the prominent families of America today can trace their ancestry to Mary Hyanno, the flaming-haired princess of the Wampanoags.
Louis Cataldo is co-founder of Tales of Cape Cod Inc., and a member of the lyanough Fund Committee. http://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/apa/yarmouth/default.aspx#panel=search&search=3 this came up on a search of Austin Bearse PLEASE MERGE Hyanno-1
edited by Cindy Anderson
edited by Cindy Anderson
edited by Joe Cochoit
A 1935 "Utah Genealogical Magazine" states that this manuscript is a certified copy of an original sworn statement now on file in the Litchfield County District Court in Connecticut and accepted by the state. Commissioner of Indian Rights and Claims as to the identity of legal declaration of lineage.
Some years ago, WikiTree volunteers compiled a side-by-side comparison of the Franklin Bearce's claims and Jacobus' disputing here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Franklyn_Bearce_Analysis
That the Yarmouth Historical Society is republishing Bearce's bunk as fact is a downright shame.
If you're referring to something else, please explain.
What source documents the death of a widow Mary Wilder?