Jane (Kember) Parker (abt. 1578 - aft. 1628)

Born about 1578 in England [uncertain]

Wife of John Parker — married 29 Sep 1628 in St Marys, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England

Died after 1628 after about age 50 in Wiltshire, England [uncertain]

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Jane (Kember) Parker is currently protected by the Puritan Great Migration Project for reasons described in the narrative. Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: PGM

Due to conflicting claims about her relationship with known Great Migration-era immigrant John Parker, this profile is being tracked and co-managed by WikiTree's Puritan Great Migration project.

Biography

Jane Kember married John Parker 29 September 1628 at St. Mary's in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. However, there is some disagreement about which John Parker she married.

There were two "John Parker" marriages a year apart at St. Mary's in Marlborough;

• Joan Hellyer on 12 August 1627
• Jane Kember on 29 September 1628

The interpretation presented by Anderson in The Great Migration, is that both marriages refer to John Parker (1604-1645) "the immigrant." His first wife Joan Hellyer is presumed to have died in childbirth or shortly after the birth of their daughter Margaret, who was baptized 13 July 1628 at St. Peter and St. Paul's in Marlborough.^[1] John married Jane Kember as his second wife about two and half months later. In this interpretation, Jane would have immigrated with John on the James in 1635 and settled in Boston and been the mother of six additional children, one born in England, and five in Boston. After John's death, Jane would then marry Richard Thayer, and die sometime after 18 October 1656. [See profile of Joan Hellyer].

In 2001, Neil Thompson presented an argument that Joan Hellyer was the first and only wife of John Parker the immigrant, and that Jane Kember married his father, John Parker (1570-?), as his second wife.^[2] There is no further record of John Parker [senior] or a wife Jane beyond the marriage record.

These two theories present a challenge in estimating Jane's date of birth. If we assume that Jane married the younger John Parker, estimating that she was about 20, she would have been born about 1608. If however, she was the wife of the older John Parker, who would have been at least 58 when they married, its likely that she was closer in age to him, and past her child bearing years (say about 50, or born 1578 or earlier).

Research Notes

An estimated 1605 birth was previously shown in this profile, but, as implied above, has been revised based on the logic of Neil Thompson's argument in TAG 76 that Jane/Joan (Thompson argues that the two names are interchangeable) was the second wife of John Parker, Sr. -- not a second wife of John, Jr. The 1605 birthdate left a 35-year age gap between Jane/Joan and John Parker, Sr.; a much better match for him might be, for one example, the "Joane Kember" christened at Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, on 16 Jan. 1576/7 (see https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/6101e42e33045b65a6092e2a?locale=en). Great Bedwyn is actually a village _within_ (modern-day) Marlborough, roughly 3 mi. southeast of the town center... and Marlborough is where the 1628 Parker-Kember marriage took place.

A search for other marriages of a Jane or Joan Kember in the area prior to 1628 does yield, on NEHGS, the 1606 marriage of a Jone Kember to a Roger Rider at Ramsbury, about half a dozen miles from both Marlborough and Great Bedwyn. This may well represent the marriage of a younger Jone Kember christened in 1588 at Highworth -- roughly a dozen miles north of Marlborough (see https://www.americanancestors.org/DB543/rd/367745970; by subscription); however, it is admittedly also another option for the marriage of the particular "Joane Kember" christened in 1577 at Great Bedwyn. (Note that the inverse is also possible: the Jone Kember of 1588 might be the 1628 bride of the senior John Parker.)

Another logical possibility is that "Kember" was Jane/Joan's name by a previous marriage, although the Parker-Kember marriage record (as transcribed on FreeReg UK) does not show Jane as a widow, as some marriage records are known to do (see https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/6106f098f493fd152ac60d53?locale=en; click on "View 1"). Also, searching for marriages of any man named Kember in the area around Marlborough from 1595-1610 (which would seem to be the prime marrying years for a young woman born in or near 1675), no marriage is found of a male Kember to a woman named Jane or Joan or variant thereof.

Sources

1. ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volume V, M-P, Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2007. Page 365. featured name John Parker. subscription site
2. ↑ Thompson, Neil D., '"The English Origin of John Parker of Boston, Massachusetts" in The American Genealogist, 76 (July 2001), 185-189. (Online database at AmericanAncestors.org link (subscription site.)