Elizabeth Wilder was born 14 February 1681. in Sudbury,Massachusetts to parents Nathaniel Wilder and Mary [Sawyer] Wilder both parents LNAB being specified in her birth record. [1][2] The Lancaster record states that she was born in Sudbury. The Sudbury VR failed to make the required calendar adjustment, so the 1680 reported there is actually 1681.
Elizabeth Wilder married John Bowers in Lancaster. After John died, she married Phinehas Parker in Woburn.[3]
Why it is believed that Elizabeth Wilder, not Elizabeth Stevens, married John Bowers:[4]
Vital Records of Lancaster have Elizabeth Stevens marrying Ephraim Wilder in 1698.[5] She was born in 1681. They had six or seven children together and the youngest was born in 1723 or later. Ephraim was Elizabeth Wilder's older brother.
Elizabeth Wilder was born at Lancaster or Sudbury 14 Feb 1681, and is known to have been married to John Bowers by 1709, at which time Ephraim referred to John Bowers as his brother-in-law in a legal document. However, Vital Records of Lancaster have Elizabeth Stevens marrying John Bowers two years earlier, on 17 Nov 1707.[6]
It is thought that this second record represents a clerical error, and it was Elizabeth Wilder, not Elizabeth Stevens, who married John Bowers in 1707. The confusion is understandable because the two women were sisters-in-law, both bore the name "Elizabeth Wilder" at some point, and both were born in 1681.
↑ Nourse, Henry S, A.M., ed. "The Birth, Marriage & Death Register, Church Records & Epitaphs of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1643-1850; Lancaster (Births)" pg.452/507. Pub.1890, Clinton, Mass.: W.J. Coulter, Printer, Courant Ofc. https://archive.org/details/birthmarriagean00masgoog/page/452/mode/2up
Vernon R. Sheffield. "John Bowers of Lancaster, Mass."The American Genealogist, April 1972, Vol. 48, pp. 89-92. New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, 1937-. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009 - .)
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