I put several different pieces of evidence on Mary Luther's profile that I think make a strong case that she had a son Thomas Eastabrooke but never married the father. See the three bullet points on her profile.
However, Thomas and Mary Eastabrooke sold land in 1695 in a deed that explicitly calls her his wife (image linked from the profile).There is no other possible candidate for this Thomas Eastabrooke, and he is not known to have married between the birth of his son in 1693 and his marriage to Elizabeth Thurber by 1703.
I don't know what to make of this. My best explanation is that Thomas did marry shortly after the birth of his son Thomas, not to Mary Luther but coincidentally to another Mary. They either had no children or else none that survived until adulthood. And then sometime a little before 1703 he married Elizabeth Thurber.
Is this problematic? Any better ideas?
