Ann (Wells) Wheeler (abt. 1620 - bef. 1708)

Born about 1620 in Chellington, Bedfordshire, England [uncertain]

Ancestors

Wife of Ephraim Wheeler — married 1638 in Concord, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Descendants

Died before 1708 before about age 88 in Fairfield, Fairfield, Connecticut [uncertain]

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Ann (Wells) Wheeler migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See The Directory, by R. C. Anderson, p. 364) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Biography

Recent research has shown that Ann Wells was the daughter of William Wells and Agnes Tapp.^[1] In an article in the Summer 2023 edition of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Travis Dodge Miscia explains how, in his research of other family members he discovered that in the will of William Wells, he named his daughter Anne Wheeler "who now liveth in New England". After evaluating the possibilities, Miscia determined that she must have been Ephraim Wheeler's wife, whose maiden name was previously unknown. (See pages 197-198.) Miscia further concluded that Ann was very likely both the 15 year old passenger of that name on the 1635 Planter passenger list, and the 20 year old on the Susan & Ellen passenger list, listed as two separate women by Anderson in Vol VII of The Great Migration series. His analysis for that conclusion appears on page 205.

Ann died before 1708.^[2]

Research Notes

Disputed Parents:

The confusion about her being Ann Turney is due to a mistake in Elizabeth Hubbell Schenck's History of Fairfield,^[3] written in 1889. She devotes a paragraph to Ephraim Wheeler and one sentence to his wife which we repeat here in its entirety:

"He m. Ann d. of Robert Turney."

Her mistake, undoubtedly, was confusing Ephraim Wheeler with his son, also named Ephraim Wheeler, who married Sarah, daughter of Robert Turney. The error was repeated in Wheeler Family in America, (1914) by A.G. Wheeler, Jr. The error was repeated yet again in Fifty Great Migration Colonists to New England, (1990) by John Brooks Threlfall.

Donald Lines Jacobus, who helped set the gold standard for modern genealogical research in his monumental Families of Old Fairfield,^[2] refers to Ephraim Wheeler's wife as simply "Ann ______." Clarence Almon Torrey in his New England Marriages before 1700,^[4] makes it explicit, saying "Ephraim Wheeler m. Ann ______ (not Ann TURNEY) bef. 1638."

Sources

1. ↑ Miscia, Travis Dodge. The Wheeler and the Spokes: The Wells-Tapp-Tuttle Kinship Network, NEHGR (NEHGS, Boston, Mass., 2023) Vol. 177, Pages 197-224. Link on AmericanAncestors.org.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Jacobus, Donald Lines. History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield (Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, New Haven, Conn., 1930) Vol. 1, Page 665-66.
3. ↑ Schenck, Elizabeth Hubbell. The History of Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut (J.J. Little & Co., New York, 1889) Vol. 1, Page 422.
4. ↑ Torrey, Clarence Almon. Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore, 1985)

• "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J9S6-Y7M : 4 February 2023), Anna Welles, 1621.