Elizabeth (Ring) Cooke (abt. 1609 - bef. 1687)

Born about 1609 in Ufford, Suffolk, England [uncertain]

Wife of Josias Cooke — married 16 Sep 1635 in Plymouth, Plymouth Colony

Descendants

Died before 3 May 1687 before about age 78 in Eastham, Barnstable, Massachusetts

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Biography

Elizabeth (Ring) Cooke immigrated to New England as a child during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640).

Elizabeth Ring was the oldest daughter who accompanied her mother, the widow Mary Ring, from Leiden to the Plymouth Colony. The widow Mary Ring and her children Elizabeth, Susanna, and Andrew arrived at Plymouth in Plymouth Colony, probably in 1629, after a voyage on the Mayflower (a second Pilgrim ship of the same name), which sailed from Gravesend in March and landed at Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony in May 1629. Several of the passengers had lived at Leyden prior to their voyage according to William Bradford's history Of Plimouth Plantation. ^[1][2] They were among the last of the English Separatists who had fled from England to the comparative haven of The Netherlands between ca. 1607 and 1612.

Elizabeth married Stephen Deane, probably in 1630. The next year Mary Ring died, giving Stephen a great deal of responsibility for raising Elizabeth's young brother Andrew. Mary specifically bequeathed to Elizabeth the ruff Mary "had of Goodman Gyles." Elizabeth and her sister Susan were to equally divide all the residue of Mary's estate that wasn't given to anyone else. Two pieces of cloth were earmarked for Elizabeth's child, a girl, also named Elizabeth.

Stephen died, probably on 6 October 1634. Elizabeth then married on 16 September 1635 Josiah Cooke. He was not on the 1633 tax list, but he (or his son Josias) does appear on the 1634 list, assessed at the minimum 9 shillings. On 24 March 1633/4 he and Edward Doty were fined 6/8 apiece for breaking the peace. It must have been a fight. Since Doty drew blood from Cooke, Doty had to pay him 3/4d. Josiah became a freeman on 3 January 1636/7. In Plymouth he had been on a grand jury, and served as constable and surveyor. Josiah was among those moving to Nauset (later Eastham) around 1645. He was listed there as a freeman on an undated list probably from the 1640s. In Eastham in 1647 he became a deputy. He signed his will 22 September 1673; it was proved 29 October that year. In it he declared himself to be about 63 years old. He named his wife Elizabeth and a number of children and step children from his blended family, including step-son-in-law William Twining and step-grandson Stephen Twining.

Elizabeth died before 3 May 1687 when her inventory was taken.^[3]

Note: Stratton:

"The William Ring who turned back to England in 1620 on the Speedwell with Robert Cushman ^[4] probably died later in Leiden. It was most likely his wife, Mary Ring, who witnessed the betrothal of Samuel Terry in Leiden in 1614 (Dexter, p. 630), and she is probably the Mary Ring who arrived at Plymouth ca. 1629 with children Elizabeth, Susanna, and Andrew (John Insley Coddington, "The Widow Mary Ring, of Plymouth, Mass., and Her Children," ^[5]. Mr. Coddington builds a tentative pedigree to show that William Ring quite likely was the man of that name of Pettistree, County Suffolk, who married at Ufford, County Suffolk, 21 May 1601 Mary Durrant of Ufford; a daughter Elizabeth was baptized at Ufford 23 February 1602/03. Mary Ring died at Plymouth 15 or 19 July 1631, and in her will she named her daughters Elizabeth Deane and Susan Clark, her son-in-law Stephen Deane, a child of Stephen and Elizabeth Deane, and her son Andrew Ring, who was a minor. She named her friends Samuel Fuller and Thomas Blossom as overseers of the will ^[6]; both Fuller and Blossom had been members of the Leiden congregation. Son Andrew married (1) Deborah Hopkins daughter of Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins and (2) Lettice (_____) Morton, widow of John Morton. The children of Mary Ring's children are given in Mr. Coddington's article."

Research Notes

Disputed Origins: The date and place of Elizabeth's birth are unproven. John I. Coddington seems to have done the most thorough study, and his conclusion is that the baptism at Ufford, Suffolk, on 23 February 1602/3 would have made her thirty years old when she married in ca. 1630. Although this is possible, it is highly unlikely. Instead, he suggests a birth date of ca. 1610, possibly in Leiden. It is unclear just when her parents, William and Mary Ring, arrived in Leiden. It is also unknown when her father died in Leiden, sometime between their aborted effort to leave on the defective Speedwell and ca. 1629 when the widowed Mary and her three children finally did leave.

Anderson describes her as the daughter of Mary Ring (and possibly the Elizabeth Ring, daughter of William & Marie Ring, bp. Ufford, Suffolk, 23 February 1602/3). ^[7] "Elizabeth Dean widow" married at Plymouth 16 September 1635 to Josias Cooke ^[8]; she was the widow of Stephen Deane and daughter of widow Mary Ring ^[9]; she died at Eastham by 3 May 1687 when her estate was inventoried.^[10][11] At court 9 June 1653, "Josias Cooke, late of Eastham, at the time of his marriage with Elizabeth, his wife, sometimes the wife of Steven Dean, deceased, did engage to pay several portions unto the children of the said Steven Deane" and confirmed that he had done so ^[12][13]

John Insley Coddington discussed this family at length in 1966.^[5] He found two potentially relevant entries in the Ufford, Suffolk, parish register: the marriage on 21 May 1601 of "Marie Durante of Ufford single woman" to Wylliam Ringe of Petistrey, singleman, ^[5] and the baptism on 23 February 1602/3 of Elizabeth, their daughter.^[5] Coddington stressed the unproven nature of the connection between the Ufford family and the Rings of Leiden. While the marriage date for Marie Durante and Wylliam Ringe is comfortable, daughter Elizabeth seems to have been as much as ten years older than usual at marriage and would have been nearly a decade older than her second husband. If the Ufford family is the one that came to New England, it is possible that the 1602/3 baptism is for a daughter Elizabeth who died young and the wife of Deane and Cooke is a subsequent daughter of the same name. ^[14]

Widow of 1st husband, Stephen Dean (mar. 1629 Plymouth, Ma.) Was about 8 years older than husband Josiah Cooke.

Sources

1. ↑ William Bradford, Bradford's history "of Plimoth plantation." From the original manuscript.( Boston, Wright & Potter, 1899) pp. 294-5.
2. ↑ Charles Edward Banks, The planters of the commonwealth, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1930) pp. 64-5.
3. ↑ "Probate records v. 1-3 1686-1747" database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9YB-N91S : 17 April 2024), Film# 00770540, Barnstable, Massachusetts, image 18-19, Vol 1, Page 17-18.
4. ↑ Bradford [Ford] 1:145
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3} Coddington, John Insley "The Widow Mary Ring, of Plymouth, Mass., and her Children," 'The American Genealogist (The American Genealogist, Barrington, RI, 1966) Vol. 42 :193-203]. View with NEHGS Membership
6. ↑ The Mayflower Descendent 1:29
7. ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1, A-F; Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1996-2011. p515.
8. ↑ Plymouth Colony Records 1:35
9. ↑ TAG 42:198
10. ↑ “Barnstable, MA: Probate Records, 1685-1789.” Records of Barnstable, Massachusetts. CD-ROM. Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2002. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Barnstable County Probate, Vol 1.
11. ↑ "Probate records v. 1-2 1674-1742," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9YB-537X : 8 April 2023), Film# 007705950, Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1685-1695 vol 1 > image 23.
12. ↑ Plymouth Colony Records 2:140, 3:37
13. ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to N.E. 1620-1633, pp 474-475.
14. ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles. Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to N.E. 1620-1633,, pp. 1587-8.

• Coddington, John Insley "The Widow Mary Ring, of Plymouth, Mass., and her Children," 'The American Genealogist (The American Genealogist, Barrington, RI, 1966) Vol. 42 :193-203]. View with NEHGS Membership

See also:

• Freeman, Frederick. The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of The Thirteen Towns of Barnstable County, Volume II. Boston, 1862. original publisher: Geo. C. Band & Avery & Cornhill, Boston, Mass., 1858. (Google Books)
• Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s. Gale Research. Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2009.Original data - Filby, P. William, ed.. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s. Farmington Hills, MI, USA: Gale Research, 2009.Original data: Filby, P. William, ed.
• Genealogy of the Dean Family: Descended from Ezra Dean, of Plainfield, Conn. and Cranston, R.I. Arthur D. Dean. Printed 1903, F.H. Gerlock and Co., Scranton, PA
• Plymouth Colony, History and People. Eugene Aubrey Stratton, former Historian General of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Copyright 1986, Ancestry Incorporated
• Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 15 November 2020), memorial page for Elizabeth Ring Deane Cooke (23 Feb 1602–28 Dec 1687), Find A Grave: Memorial #121469237, citing Cove Burying Ground, Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA ; Maintained by Our Family History (contributor 47719401). (No gravestone extant. Uses baptism discussed in Disputed Origin section
• The Chrisman Pedigree, website created by Lonnie Chrisman, http://www.chrisman.org/pedigree/out37.htm#RIN11726
• Alvy Ray Smith. Family Database of Alvy Ray Smith. Last updated September 28, 2005.
• Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Ancestry Family Ancestry Family Tree 4151977