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Mary (UNKNOWN) Bearse (abt. 1624 - 1678)

Mary Bearse formerly [surname unknown]
Born about [location unknown]
Daughter of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of — married about 1639 in Barnstable, Massachusettsmap [uncertain]
Descendants descendants
Died at about age 54 in Yarmouth Port, Barnstable County, Massachusettsmap
Profile last modified | Created 19 Aug 2011
This page has been accessed 3,887 times.
The Puritan Great Migration.
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.

Biography

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]

Sources

  1. New England Marriages to 1700. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as: New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015.Torrey
  2. New England Marriages to 1700. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Originally published as: New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015. Torrey
  3. Fanny Louisa Steed Meadows, Genealogical Records of Austin Bearse (or Bearce) of Barnstable, Cape Cod, MA, Cleveland, OH, 1 Oct 1933; at Allen County Public Library, Ft Wayne, IN; digital version here

See also:





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Comments: 21

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I'll save Jillaine the trouble on this one. There is no substantive proof that Mary was a native American. Native Americans never had "princesses". No DNA (to my knowledge) has been done that shows Native American ancestry on the maternal lineage. The Mary Wilder concept goes in file 13 with the date of her marriage, birthdates of children, and death. Period. Hundreds of old genealogies have been debunked over the years. This is just another of them. If you want to continue to claim it, there is nothing anyone can do to convince you otherwise. Those who prefer to rely on actual records and proof will continue to prune our trees of ancestors we find to be unreliable or in error and look for reliable documentation to prove those we keep. This particular dispute has been ongoing for 90 years now, and it appears that it has no signs of being resolved. You are welcome to believe whatever you wish - just remember - if you can't PROVE it, it probably isn't true and won't pass the truth test.
There is some discussion of DNA evidence on this couple in their Family Search Family tree record under LTTT-6WZ.
posted by Bill Teschek
Specifically the mtDNA evidence for her northern European origins is here: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/174192555?cid=mem_copy
posted by Andrew Millard
Fully familiar with the Mary Hyanno / Bearse controversy. Franklin Bearse wanted to get Indian benefits with his 1933 "Who our Ancestors Really Were" (I have seen, with gloved hands, the original document at the Library of Congress, before there was such a thing as archives.org). And, many modern amateur genealogists want to claim an Indian ancestor. So motivations for asserting a Bearse/Hyanno marriage are suspect. Here are some additional observations:

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.

posted by Gary Letcher
lyanough: Cape Cod Descendants

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

posted by Cindy Anderson
edited by Cindy Anderson
birth in England is wrong. Mary was the dauther of John Hayanno and the grand daughter to Sachem Iyannough of the attachee Indians. As explained in The Indians of Yarmouth. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5696af0869a91ac18543a463/t/5ab7cb3ff950b7f8f1660747/1521994560151/The+Indians+of+Yarmouth.pdf
posted by Cindy Anderson
edited by Cindy Anderson
As explained in the narrative, this is not accepted.
Mary (Hyanno) Cummaquid
Donald Lines Jacobus, "Austin Bearse and his Alleged Indian Connections," in The American Genealogist, vol. 15 (1938-39): pages 113-118.
posted by Joe Cochoit
edited by Joe Cochoit
t 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.

posted by Cindy Anderson
Cindy, you need to read Jacobus' 1939 debunking of the Native story as claimed by Franklin Bearce. Bearce's story is wholly fictional, some would say fraudulent.

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.

posted by Jillaine Smith
it stems way back before Franklin.
posted by Cindy Anderson
It appears that DNA evidence is strongly supportive of both partners being of British ancestry, as Andrew's link above points out if you read all the way through the updates.
posted by Bobbie (Madison) Hall
Cindy, If you're referring to the diary of Zerviah Newcomb, no evidence of this diary's existence-- beyond Franklyn Bearce's claim in 1935-- has been found.

If you're referring to something else, please explain.

posted by Jillaine Smith
I will dispute the idea that Bearse's wife was Mary Wilder, on the Confidence with Bearse. She is listed as dying in 1652 as widow Wilder. If she had remarried, she would not have been listed as such.
posted by K Casey Carbaugh
I doubt you will get much argument from most of us. As this profile describes, thee is no support for a maiden name.

What source documents the death of a widow Mary Wilder?

posted by Jillaine Smith

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Categories: Puritan Great Migration | Franklin Bearce Fraud